Last month, Tudor Purice (pictured), known on PocketFives as fbg1919, came away with an outright win in the Full Tilt Sunday Brawl. He earned $51,000 for his efforts in the un-chopped tournament and outlasted several longstanding members of PocketFives at the final table. He was knocked down to merely a handful of big blinds at several points.

PocketFives: Congrats on winning the Sunday Brawl. Tell us how you’re feeling about it.

Tudor Purice: I’m feeling good. It’s always good to have a winning Sunday.

PocketFives: The Brawl featured a pretty tough final table that also included the likes of bullyon, apestyles, ansky451, and IamSound. What was it like navigating that group?

Tudor Purice: The story starts at 24 to 27 players left when I lost most of my chips versus apestyles, whom I know, played with lots, and talk sometimes with over Skype. In that hand, my A-K lost to his 7-7. I proceeded to shove fours into nines the next hand and was left with 1.5 big blinds. I’m pretty good at ninjaing short stacks, though, so I made a pretty decent comeback to roughly 20 big blinds.

I almost tripled up without showdown toward the final table, having the benefit of the less tough table out of the two remaining. I got in as 7/9 at the final table and played with a lot of ICM pressure and had the benefit of having the tougher players to my right with stacks that were similar to me.

I was happy to see apestyles (pictured) and ansky451 get busted early on and me laddering up and proceeding to open up my game a little bit. Four-handed, I managed to lose the other end of the same coin flip I talked about earlier, 7-7 against A-K. As a result, I was down to 3 big blinds again. I was lucky enough to get a walk the very next big blind from the not-so-good huge chip leader. I doubled, doubled, and took advantage of my experience short-handed at final tables.

PocketFives: Talk about your short-handed experience.

Tudor Purice: I pick my opening spots better, ramp up my aggression versus people who play too tight or too passive, hand select better what I 3bet and defend, and in general not make compounding mistakes. I’m always mindful of the ICM implications of having a fragile stack versus one of the chip leaders at the table or having the chip leading stack and applying pressure versus the stacks that will hurt most by busting earlier. Also, I tend to get it in tighter than most people who react badly to the aggression they’re faced with.

PocketFives: You won the PokerStars Super Tuesdayin mid-2012 for $77,000 officially. How big was that for you?

Tudor Purice: That win was extremely rewarding and confidence-boosting at a time when I was a lesser player than I am today, where my game was slightly on the spewy side of things and overall less good. It also did a lot for my image as a player and a reg and meant a lot given the reputation of that MTT as being one of the toughest online. The Super Tuesday was my biggest score online then.

PocketFives: When did you decide to play poker full-time?

Tudor Purice: Six years ago when I crossed really quickly from sit and gos to cash games, and then went to MTTs in 2009. Playing poker offered a lot of new opportunities, both financially and socially, but also took a lot from my personal life, one of the very few things I still regret and will always regret when I reconsider my choice of becoming an MTT pro.

I’m looking forward to going back to a normal social life and work schedule. I was, for a long time, an unbalanced player, having dedicated way too much of my time to poker. Sacrifices were made along the way, some of which I would not do again if I had the knowledge I have now.

PocketFives: What advice would you give people trying to succeed in the Brawl and how much, if any, do the bounties matter?

Tudor Purice: Bring your A-game, as the field in general in Full Tilt Poker tournaments is tougher than your average MTT online. Specific to the Brawl format, make sure you know what and how the knockouts change your equity in a hand and when making a decision on whether to call an all-in or put someone all-in.

The bounty being one-fifth of the buy-in makes a huge difference. People don’t often know how that translates mathematically into their pot odds and often make EV mistakes. At some point, the knockouts don’t count as much, so your play should be focused on making solid moves, chipping up, and playing to win – all regular strategies that apply deep in any major MTT.

The Sunday Brawl runs weekly on Full Tilt Poker. If you don’t already have a Full Tilt account, sign up through PocketFives’ links to get a free $25 in most locations plus one free month of PocketFives Training. Get started here.

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