By
Dan |
Published
Aug 15 2008, 10:50 PM
In a weekend when many PocketFivers were focused on the Full Tilt Online Poker Series, Dan B_O_K_E Bokesch was busy on PokerStars, taking down the Sunday Million on August 10th for a whopping $199,475. He’s one of the first winners to take advantage of the tournament’s new $1.5 million guarantee. Bokesch barreled through 8,236 entrants, defeating fellow PocketFiver Kochan heads up. PocketFives.com sat down with its 82nd ranked player to discuss his signature online poker win as well as his brand new baby girl, which was born just a few days prior to his Sunday Million win.
The night that Bokesch won the Sunday Million, he was also busy on Full Tilt Poker playing in the $535 heads up event. He managed to finish 11th in that tournament, winning $9,915. He cashed for 22 times that amount on PokerStars, marking the end to a successful night for the poker prodigy. He told PocketFives, “The Sunday Million win was enjoyable. From about 35 people left in the PokerStars Sunday Million on, I was still concentrating on the heads-up tournament. I was putting the Million to the side. When I busted in the heads-up event, we were down to the final 15 in the Million. It’s crazy to think I’ve played the Million every Sunday for the last five years and maybe finished in the top 100 once.”
Bokesch noted, “You can’t prepare for something like that until it happens. If there were two full tables, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but when play is heads up, you have to concentrate.” In late July, Bokesch took third in the $100 rebuy on PokerStars, cashing for $17,926. In June, he finished third in the Full Tilt Poker $65,000 Guaranteed for $10,293. All told, Bokesch banked $38,000 in tournaments that are tracked for the PocketFives.com Rankings last month. Needless to say, he’s well on his way to a record-breaking stanza in August.
On Wednesday, August 6th, Bokesch’s wife gave birth to a bouncing baby girl, Rylee. He plans to take some time off in order to spend time with his wife and newest addition to the family. A week later, he moved up to #82 in the Rankings. He comments on what the standings mean to him: “With the amount of volume I play, it’s good to be ranked. If you want to achieve anything from the Rankings, you have to be in the top 20. However, you have to start somewhere. I was ranked for about a year and it feels good to be back. You get more prestige if you’re ranked on PocketFives.com. Players might even play you differently at the tables knowing that you’re a ranked player.”
Live play is an area that many online poker players struggle with. However, Bokesch has found some success. He has five World Series of Poker cashes to his name, including a 716th place finish in the 2006 Main Event. Still, it’s an area that he hopes to be able to concentrate on more in the future: “My wife was pregnant this summer. I wanted to go out, but felt that I should be by her side. I only played four WSOP tournaments in 2008 and didn’t play the Main Event.”
Focusing on just one table at a time means that if you don’t cash, you just spent a considerable amount of time for no return on your investment. Bokesch noted, “To bubble live tournaments is an emotional disturbance. It could ruin you for weeks at a time. Your confidence gets rattled, but bubbling tournaments is part of poker. If you don’t bubble tournaments, you’re doing something wrong.”
He is outspoken on his distaste for online poker players who multi-account. He told PocketFives.com, “Multi-accounting is going to ruin poker in the long-run. It could kill online poker. When I post about it in the forums, I get angry about it. People who multi-account have an advantage; however, in a huge field, I’m not sure what that advantage is.” Bokesch added that he’d like to see some measure of personal identification protection added to each account, like fingerprint or eye scan verification to ensure that each person is only playing on one account at a time.
Finally, we asked Bokesch what area of his already stellar online poker game he’s looking to improve. He responded, “When play comes down to 20 big blinds, I need to learn not to raise and then to fold. I see a lot of guys jamming with 20 big blinds and now I understand why. That’s where I’m starting to get better.” In the meantime, the Lewis Center, Ohio native will be getting ready for the start of Buckeye football.
Congratulations again to Dan “B_O_K_E” Bokesch on taking down the PokerStars Sunday Million.
