It’s hard to top a month like August, in which 10 Triple Crowns were won. In fact, I’m not sure it will ever be done. Nonetheless, September was no letdown in big wins and domination across multiple sites for the Pocketfives community. Four players added their faces to the Wall of Champions for the first time in September, with AJKhoosier1 winning twice. He was joined by new additions JohnnyGStaks, Quassi and flmodesq21. The other winner this month was Pearljammer, who added a third Triple Crown to his lengthy poker resume. <READMORE>

AJKhoosier1 came into September full steam ahead from the August PLB race and completed his first Crown with wins on Absolute and UltimateBet, both on the first of the month. Combined with his first place in the PokerStars $100 rebuy on 8/31 his Triple Crown was worth over twenty-five thousand dollars. This also qualifies as one of the fastest Triple Crowns on record as it was completed in just over 24 hours. AJKhoosier1 took a little longer for his second Triple Crown of the month. He spread it out over six of the seven eligible days after he won the Full Tilt 20k Guaranteed $50 rebuy on September 6th. The wins were no less impressive however, as he went on to win a Stars $11 rebuy and an Ultimate Bet $30 rebuy, showing yet again why good players enjoy the deepstack poker offered in rebuy tournaments.

Quassi’s Triple Crown was introduced to the boards by his friend SowersUNCC. As Sowers pointed out, Quassi, “dominates the smaller tournaments.” Of course, by smaller he means $30 rebuys instead of $200 rebuys, and $100 freezeouts not $1,000. Quassi may not be playing the highest stakes online, but he has built up quite a track record at the mid stakes and has accumulated almost 3,000 PLB points in the process. If he does move up he could be a threat to appear on a rankings list near you soon. Of course, if he stays in his comfort zone and continues to pull in 10-15k a week, that’s nothing to complain about. If you missed his classy post in response to those congratulating him, here is a recap:

“Thanks everyone. I have been working on my MTT game a ton this year. I still have a long way to go, but am happy with the progression of my game.

I would like to give extra special thanks to Dipthrong, SowerssUNCC, and Jeffbeesdat. All three have helped my game so much this year. Perhaps the best thing I can say is that they are all even better people then they are poker players.”

The biggest money winner out of this group of Triple Crown winners was flmodesq21. His first two wins came in huge freezeouts on Pokerstars and Full Tilt worth 30k between them. Add in a nice $5,500 score in the UB $30 rebuy and he put together a triple crown worth 635 PLB points and more importantly over $35,000. To win any tournament is a great feeling, not to mention three or more in a week, but at the end of the day we play poker to win money and flmodesq21 certainly won his fair share last month.

I remember JohnnyGstaks from one of the first articles I ever wrote for Pocketfives. He finished 8th the week six out of the nine players at the final table of the Full Tilt Sunday major. That was no groundbreaking cash for a guy who has been making his living solely from poker for the past four years. Since then he has continued to grind out quite a decent living for himself. He routinely puts in 20 hour sessions and has been known to go 40+ without a break. When you spend that much time in front of a computer-screen pressing buttons for a living, I’m sure it must be nice to have something to shoot for like the Triple Crown, and JohnnyGstaks certainly appreciated the recognition.

Jon “Pearljammer” Turner has been a fixture of the online poker community for years. He has earned his top ten ranking at Pocketfives through consistently excellent play over a length of time time and a number of tournaments that leaves little doubt as to his long term expectation. The variance in MTT play is huge, as has been discussed many times on the boards, but when you put up a sample that consists of thousands of tournaments and millions of hands like Pearljammer has, it’s safe to say he’s pretty good.

This is the third Triple Crown for Pearljammer, and he is only the second Pocketfiver to complete the Triple Triple. Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman was the first to do so in the midst of an unparalleled heater in May. Since then he has said that winning the Triple Crown is more dependant on volume than skill, per se. One thing he and Pearljammer have in common is that they are high volume tournament players. Another is that they both play the game at an elite level. A roomful of monkeys typing for an infinite amount of time might eventually produce Shakespeare, but what of a roomful of donkeys?

Congratulations to AJKhoosier1, Quassi, Pearljammer, flmodesq21 and JohnnyGStaks who all turned out quality wins this past month and joined the Triple Crown Wall of Champions for their efforts.
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