By
Dan
Some of the truly great online poker players anywhere in the world have managed to win the
PocketFives.com Triple Crown. Winners must take down three multi-table tournaments across three different sites within a seven day period. Each tournament must have at least 100 entrants and a prize pool of at least $10,000. The Triple Crown champions include the very best online poker has to offer: TheWacoKidd, GB2005, BeL0WaB0Ve, Rizen, leggggggggggy, and gbmantis. Some have even managed to win it twice: PearlJammer, Ari, gator93, TheBeat, JohnnyBax, Annette_15, and colson10. Chalk up another Triple Crown winner,
GBecks, who won the award over a two day period last weekend, taking down events on PokerStars, Full Tilt, and UltimateBet.
GBecks won the $11 rebuy tournament on PokerStars Saturday for $11,500. He jokingly claims, “I'm not sure if I've even played that tournament this whole year.” During the same time, he was getting deep in the $100 six-handed tournament on Full Tilt and wound up winning that as well, cashing for $7,300 and completing two-thirds of his Triple Crown by day’s end on Saturday. “So after all the excitement, I forced myself to get a couple hours of sleep to try to top off the Triple Crown and get ready for Sunday.”
His plan was to play the larger UltimateBet and Bodog tournaments to take down the last leg of the Triple Crown and was fortunate enough to win almost immediately. GBecks dominated the $200k on UltimateBet, winning $45,000 and landing his name, score, and date on the PocketFives.com Triple Crown Wall of Champions. His total take was around $65,000 as well, making the three tournaments profitable for both his wallet and his reputation.
GBecks credits his growth to many including Tmay420, SBRounder, TheWacoKidd, PrtyPSux (pictured at left), Big Swing, MisterNiceGuy, badbeatme, bravejayhawk, and CrazyMarco. The native of Lawrence, Kansas lives in a house with others who play poker frequently. In addition, he says, “I play live. I haven't played many live tournaments yet, but plan to get into them more when I move to Los Angeles after the World Series of Poker this year. I have had a lot of live cash game success in $5/10 and $10/20 no limit over the past year or two.”
Like many, GBecks entered the online poker scene when Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer were winning millions in the 2003 and 2004 WSOP Main Events, respectively. “It was my brother ‘jbecks’ who got me started because he was the first person I'd actually witnessed playing online poker and of course around that time, home games and poker in the dorms were at an all-time high. I remember having $78 in my bank account and deposited $50 into Party Poker. I started at $.25/.50 and, in a couple of months, I had around $3,000. I took most of it out and went on a two week trip to Las Vegas and Los Angeles with some buddies when school let out for the summer. By the time I got home, I was high on life with a $7,000 bankroll.”
He describes what advantage he has playing online poker: “The biggest edge for me is putting pressure on late in tournaments. It truly is a huge advantage knowing that so many people in the field are content with cashing or even just striving to cash. In the UB $200k, I went into the final table sixth in chips. Since the pay jumps seem so big at that point, players get scared to enter pots. I was able to accumulate most of my chips without showdowns and take control of the table. Everyone hated to lose chips and not even get to see my hand, but because of the money, they just let it happen.”
Now that he’s $65,000 richer, GBecks has many applications for the money: “I've recently started investing in the stock market, bought a new Chevy Tahoe, paid my taxes, and, of course, I credit much of my success to my new computer.” He is also considering purchasing a new home. In the meantime, we wish GBecks the best of luck and congratulate him again on his Triple Crown. For more information, check out the Triple Crown Wall of Champions.