Poker Articles

By Dan | Published Jul 31 2009, 06:04 PM

One PocketFiver who has had a rowdy cheering section in recent months is Sean swd805 Dorn. Celebrating his two-year anniversary as a member of the online poker community this month, Dorn turned in an impressive series of tournament results in July. At the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in Las Vegas, Dorn stormed through a field of 6,494 players and finished 466th, earning $25,000. He returned home to California, where he promptly took down the $50,000 Guaranteed and finished second in the $75,000 Guaranteed on Full Tilt Poker for a combined $32,000. Dorn has come a long way over the last seven months and sat down with PocketFives.com to recap his journey.

On the same day Dorn took down the Full Tilt $50,000 Guaranteed, which boasts a $150 buy-in, he also turned in a fourth place showing in the site’s $75,000 Guaranteed for another $10,000. He told PocketFives.com that the secret to his success was a memento purchased earlier in the day: “Before I started my session for the day, I was at the market getting some things and saw this Lucky Bamboo plant (sample pictured at left), so I bought it to put on my desk and it turned out to be real.” He finished second in the Full Tilt Poker $75,000 Guaranteed two weeks earlier to round out an impressive month of July that featured nearly $80,000 in cashes from tournaments that are tracked for the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings.

In December, he earned a win in the Full Tilt $100 rebuy. Then, the bottom dropped out. Not wanting to stick with playing multi-table tournaments, Dorn gravitated towards sit and gos and dabbled in No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha cash games. He recalled, “Instead of starting at $0.50/$1 or something like that, I would just jump into a $400nl game, lose, and play higher stakes. I’d also play heads-up cash games where I was a dog. I had bad bankroll management for a very long time and it’s something I’m just recently getting better at.” In March, after seeing that many of his peers were succeeding while Dorn was on the verge of going broke, he decided to refocus on multi-table tournaments.

On his turnaround, Dorn admitted, “I wish I learned earlier that profit is ground out over time. I stopped lying to myself and stepped down in stakes to rebuild my roll.” His changes paid off in a big way. In June, he captured two WSOP Main Event seats, ultimately taking 466th in the $10,000 buy-in tournament for $25,000 at the Rio (pictured at left). He returned home from the WSOP refreshed and ready to grind. The result was a colossal month of July that has attracted the attention of his friends and the entire poker community. On the outpouring of support, Dorn commented, “It feels good to have people congratulate me on this recent run.”

The $50,000 Guaranteed on Full Tilt Poker kicks off at Noon in California. Dorn described the field that shows up for the popular multi-table tournament: “It usually has a fairly soft field because of its time slot. My usual strategy is to wait for people to make mistakes and give away their stacks early. I don’t try to force anything in the early stages.” He held a top five stack when 50 players remained and reached the final two tables in a comfortable position to make a run at the title. Sure enough, the victory was worth $19,000 and his second largest online poker payday to date.

When he was a little tyke, Dorn played Five Card Draw and Seven Card Stud with his family. His real interest in poker came as a result of the Moneymaker Boom in 2003. His road ultimately led him to the Chumash Casino (pictured at right) in Santa Ynez, California. However, he was a newcomer in every sense of the word: “I remember the first time I got felted for a $200 buy-in there and it made me feel sick. Thinking back to when I first started there is hilarious because I had no clue what I was doing.”

Online, he began playing on PokerRoom, which has since sent its customers to the Ongame Network’s flagship site, bwin. After PokerRoom ceased taking U.S. customers, Dorn logged onto Full Tilt Poker. He won a satellite for a $216 seat into the $400,000 Guaranteed and made the final table, earning $7,000. He offered the following words of encouragement for up and comers in the world of poker: “Never give up. It’s up to you if you want to succeed in this game. I deposited and went busto dozens of times before getting a bankroll going.”

He wanted to extend a shout out to ComptonMasta, knique1, capfish, rampup, stinkko_mikko, DarkTemplarI, and adam_mc. Congratulations from all of us here at PocketFives.com to Sean swd805 Dorn for a resoundingly successful month of July.

Recent Scores for swd805

$19,012.50

$150 buy-in, $50,000 Guarantee on FullTiltPoker. 07/29/2009, 1 place for 19,012.50

$13,136.25

$150 buy-in, $75,000 Guarantee on FullTiltPoker. 07/16/2009, 2 place for 13,136.25

$32,575.00

$100 buy-in, $85,000 Guarantee (Rebuy) on FullTiltPoker. 12/28/2008, 1 place for 32,575.00

See All Scores

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