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Last week, Craig MrCasino #39 Gray took down one of the premier online poker tournaments, the Super Tuesday on PokerStars, chopping heads-up. To date, he’s also won the PokerStars Sunday Second Chance and $100 rebuy, boosting him to #39 on PocketFives.com after first entering the Rankings in May. To top that off, Gray recorded five cashes during the 2008 World Series of Poker, increasing his lifetime WSOP earnings to nearly $80,000. The native of Portland, Oregon took time out of a busy lunch at a local dim sung restaurant to talk with us about his marquee win and poker career.

During the Super Tuesday tournament, Gray doubled up from 3,000 to 5,500 chips in the first 30 minutes. After flopping a set with pocket fours, torching pocket kings in the process, he boosted his chip stack to 30,000 and commented, “From there, I coasted. Lately, I’ve been playing very loose-aggressive poker and people have played back at me. During the Super Tuesday, I sat on my chips.” He busted aces on the money bubble with Q-J and was seventh in chips when play was consolidated into two tables. He entered the final table third in chips and stated, “I wanted to build a tight image so that the chip leader didn’t try to play back at me when I opened a pot. When we were three-handed, we were pretty even in stacks and I knew it would be a tough fight.”

Online, Gray won the PokerStars Second Chance in April for $50,508, one month after taking down the $100 rebuy for $59,925. He finished sixth in the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Brawl over the weekend for $14,310 and also took third in the $100,000 Guaranteed Pro Bounty on Absolute Poker two weeks ago. All told, in tournaments that are tracked for the PocketFives.com Rankings, Gray notched 53 cashes for $165,000 in August.

Gray had five in the money finishes during the 2008 WSOP. The largest came by virtue of finishing 17th in the $1,000 rebuy no limit event (#5) for $21,705. He also banked over $50,000 at a recent tournament held at The Venetian in Las Vegas. On his live play, Gray noted, “I’m probably a better live poker player because I can read people well. However, I don’t have as good of a feel for the structure. Online, I know what size stack is average, large, and short. Live, that’s much harder to figure out. I haven’t played as much volume live, but definitely have had good results.”

Picking up on what size chip stack you should be gunning for in a live event requires paying careful attention to the tournament’s information screens. However, this data is not always up to date and at times can be completely incorrect. Another pitfall involves the lack of action in live play in comparison to online poker. Gray added, “When I’m playing live, it’s definitely a struggle to stay attentive. I feel like I know what other players at the table are going to do after spending some time reading each person.” Once each player’s tendencies are determined, staying focused becomes increasingly difficult for Gray.

For a player who is as successful online as it gets, what keeps Gray coming back to the tables for more? Is it the money? Is it the competition? Is it something completely different? Gray answered, “The ultimate goal is money. However, I’m a perfectionist. I want to be good at anything I do. Even though I’m one of the best players out there, or will hopefully be one of the best, I always try to talk to people who are really good at poker. I’m always trying to improve my game. I’m trying to get back into the top 10 in the Rankings on PocketFives.com.”

He started playing alongside his identical twin, Jason Gray. Craig explained, “My brother and I played sports our whole lives. In college, I wasn’t good enough to keep playing sports at that level. I went to the casino and played blackjack. Then, I saw people playing poker. I watched, eventually started playing, and won. I’ve been hooked ever since. I went online and looked for tips. One of the sites I read had a PokerStars link on it. One day, I put $100 online.” Poker has been a colossal success for Gray ever since he began playing about seven years ago.

Craig Gray commented on his relationship with his brother: “We’re very competitive. We have been our whole lives. We’re identical twins and mentally we’re a lot alike. He is the person who is most responsible for my success in multi-table tournaments. Last year, he was ranked on PocketFives. Because of him, I decided to start taking my tournament game seriously. There’s a lot of money in it.”

Congratulations to Craig MrCasino Gray for his win in the Super Tuesday on PokerStars. We look forward to more big things from this ranked player in the near future. Visit the PocketFives.com Rankings by clicking here.