By
Dan |
Published
Dec 30 2008, 02:17 PM
In the world of Australian poker players, one name that jumps out is Andy McLEOD. However, his first name is not Andy nor is his last name McLeod. Instead, James Obst pays homage to a local athlete through his screen name. Obst recently took second in the $1 million version of the Sunday Warm-Up on PokerStars, pocketing $101,546 for his largest online poker payday to date. Also to his credit is a $99,280 win in a $215 Cubed Pot Limit Omaha event during the 2008 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP). The Triple Crown winner and PocketFives Mod discussed his first six-figure cash as well as his poker career in general.
The guaranteed prize pool of the Warm-Up was bumped up as part of the World Record Week on PokerStars. Normally at $750,000, the money up for grabs was increased by one third to $1,000,000. Obst took full advantage of the extra money in play, coming in second for his largest online score ever. He told PocketFives.com, “Obviously, it's disappointing not to win especially since I feel that it was a poor read in a hand heads-up that cost me, but I'm obviously still happy. I'd have to say, though, that the WCOOP win was still more satisfying since there is always that luster of winning a major event of a series, especially when there is a bracelet on the line.”
He recorded a bevy of in the money finishes during the most recent WCOOP. He took 19th in a $1,050 buy-in Six-Max Limit Hold’em tournament for $4,060. He finished seventh in a $530 cubed Stud High-Low tournament for $6,562 and his signature win in the $215 cubed Pot Limit Omaha event was worth $98,280. On his performances in large-scale tournament series like the WCOOP and Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS), he revealed, “Without a doubt, the exposure and big prizes help to motivate me to give it everything I've got. Running well helps too.”
Obst won the Full Tilt Poker $1K Monday on back to back weeks for a total of $90,000. In August, he took down a Razz event during the FTOPS for $40,000, securing his name as among the best all-around players in the online poker world. In his profile on PocketFives.com, he claims he is also the “best all-around Nintendo 64 player of all time in the world” and excels at a variety of games including Diddy Kong Racing, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, Cruis'n the World.
Sydney is eight hours behind Eastern Time in terms of the numbers displayed on the clock, albeit one day ahead. Several poker players have packed up shop and moved to that part of the world, where the life of a poker player essentially becomes more consistent with an 8:00am to 5:00pm job. Obst explains, “Most of the late-night tournaments in the United States start in the morning here, allowing for virtually a completely normal day’s work. The only complaint has to be the early afternoon tournaments in America that start very early here, sometimes after 2:00am.” Obst added that Daylight Savings Time in the United States helps even out his schedule as well.
Obst joined PocketFives.com in July of 2006, right when the online poker community was blooming. He has since become a Mod, in essence helping to police the forums on the site. On moderating, Obst explained, “I'm pretty busy nowadays, so I don't get involved quite as much as I might otherwise would, but it's good to be able to anyway. I also plan on messing up one of my friend's lives with the User-Mod function.” It remains to be seen whose existence on PocketFives.com may be in jeopardy, but we’ll keep you posted.
Like others here, Obst has also grown as a player through his involvement with PocketFives.com. He explained, “I have always been naturally aggressive, so when I joined, I was looser and more creative than most multi-table tournament regulars. At that stage, though, I was a lot less sure as to the accuracy of what I was doing and there was a lot less information available.” He managed to score a Triple Crown win back in 2006. Since then, he described his transformation on the poker felts: “I'd say I've become a lot more solid and selectively aggressive. The standards have clearly risen leaps and bounds since those times. As such, you can't get away with half the things you could back then.”
Congratulations from all of us here at PocketFives.com to James Andy McLEOD Obst on his largest online poker cash ever. We look forward to more accolades from this young gun in the near future.
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