Just before the main chunk of the World Series of Poker began, Donald d7o1d1s0Rae won the Full Tilt Sunday Brawl for $20,000. There was no chop that day in the 474-man field and Rae was one of two UK PocketFivers to make the top five.

“I was really pumped at the time,” he said of his emotions, “but it faded pretty quickly. I’m pretty sure I’m still down at timbeys on the year, so one good result doesn’t change too much.” We’re about to use the word “timbey” a few times, so if you don’t know what it means, check out this PocketFives thread to get enlightened.

Back to the Sunday Brawl now. The other UK PocketFiver near the very top of the field was Rick TheClaimeer Trigg, who took fifth place for $5,800. Rae said, “The stacks were horrible for a while at the final table. There were several short stacks, including myself, and one runaway chip leader. TheClaimeer had 20 bigs and shoved 9-9 on the button, but got snapped by the big stack’s K-K to bust.” Trigg’s exit meant the other four members of the final table made at least $7,900.

The Sunday Brawl win represents his largest online tournament cash to date. He only recently started playing timbeys on Sundays and during the week you can find him in $3/$6, $5/$10, $10/$20, and $25/$50 No Limit Hold’em cash games.

“I’ve been playing cash games full-time for three or four years,” he told us. “I started playing tourneys every Sunday two months ago because the action at cash games tends to be pretty dead on Sundays and timbeys are far, far softer overall.”

The UK native got started in poker during university with $10 deposits “and played a bunch of game types. Once I settled on cash games and started studying a bit, I managed to move up the stakes pretty quickly. By the time I graduated, playing full-time was the obvious thing to do.”

Although he’s from the UK, Rae is currently camped out in Playa del Carmen, Mexico with a growing group of transplants from all over the world. “There is a pretty big poker community here and I do a fair bit with them,” he explained. “I play basketball a lot, chill out at the beach, and go out pretty frequently. I am part of a group of guys who travel around a lot. We were in Thailand to finish off last year and are probably moving somewhere in Europe soon.”

His travels have taken him to the island of Ko Pha Ngan in the Gulf of Thailand, where he went to the Full Moon Party at Haad Rin Beach (pictured). I’d highly recommend that to anyone,” he told us. “It’s basically a massive outdoor party on the beach with loads of bars selling buckets and playing all types of music. It’s a really friendly, international crowd and we had a sick time there.”

Rae closed by sending a shout out to fellow PocketFiver Scott Aggro Santos Margereson “for helping with timbey nonsense spots.” I’m pretty sure that in nine years of doing player interviews, I have never written anything close to that sentence.

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