Over the weekend, Sam siola Iola bested a field of 7,962 players and chopped the PokerStars Sunday Million for $189,000. The college student from California was the top dog of the 1,170 entrants who finished in the money and recorded his first six-figure payday. Two months ago, Iola took down the PokerStars $100 rebuy for $27,000 and won the same tournament five days later for another $20,000. Other cashes include a win in the Full Tilt Poker $50,000 Guaranteed for $20,000. On Sunday, he had a bevy of railbirds watching the action down the stretch.PocketFives.com: Congratulations on chopping the PokerStars Sunday Million for nearly $200,000. Tell us about the tournament leading up to the final table.
Iola: It was really smooth sailing for a long time. I honestly wasn’t paying any more attention to it than any other table until there were a couple hundred people left, but even with 200 or 250 left, I had 1.5 million chips at 10,000/20,000 blinds. So, I was able to maneuver and stay afloat when I wasn’t card racking.
With about 100 people left, I started to think that winning was a realistic possibility. I’ve been on a self-admitted heater recently, but have also been really focused. I didn’t have much of a desire to play for anything other than the top three, so I was open-shipping and utilizing my stack against passive blinds more often than in other tournaments. There just seems to be infinite dead money in the Sunday Million.
PocketFives.com: Did the resistance get tougher as you approached the final table?
Iola: Not really. If anything, it got easier. At no point did I have a fear of bubbling the final table and I was one-tabling instead of ten- or eight-tabling.
PocketFives.com: At what point did chopping the tournament creep into your head?
Iola: I wasn’t thinking about it until it came up six-handed. When we started talking, I realized that I could get about $12,000 more equity than a fair ICM chop, so I figured I’d take it and ship the $30,000 left to play for. A fair ICM chop would have given me $147,000, but I got $159,000 by the time we finished talking.
PocketFives.com: What did you do to celebrate your first six-figure score?
Iola: I need a new laptop because my tilting tendencies caused me to beat mine up pretty badly. I really am just waiting to celebrate until I graduate. I’m a fifth year senior and it’s been a long time coming. I’m ready to head to Amsterdam and grind as soon as possible.
PocketFives.com: Is your plan, then, to go to Amsterdam (pictured at right) after you graduate from the University of Redlands in Southern California?Iola: That’s the plan for the near future. It’s just a means to an end and I plan on going to law school at some point afterward.
PocketFives.com: How did you get started in poker?
Iola: I was a perennial repeat depositor and would build $100 into $1,000 before losing it back slowly. I stumbled into the final table of the Full Tilt $750,000 Guaranteed last year for $55,000 and then immediately started playing everything I could. After getting killed for a while, I slowly started to develop into a much more aggressive, focused player instead of just a degenerate.
PocketFives.com: Are there any shout outs you’d like to give?Iola: I want to say thanks to everyone who sweated like Darren darrenelias Elias, Michael benvo123 Benvenuti (pictured at right), Clint InaneFool Coffee, achen, Matt238, and Evan Roberts. Also, I’d like to give a shout out to my cousin Scott for listening to me whine about Sundays for month after month. I’ll try to refrain from that from now on.
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