Last week, the finale of an FTOPS event featured former #1 players p0cket00 and moorman1 squaring off head-to-head. This week, another epic battle occurred, with Jon apestylesVan Fleet (pictured) and Mike telksTelker in the finale of the PokerStars Super Tuesday. Ultimately, the $102,000 first place prize went to Van Fleet, while Telker’s not-so-paltry consolation prize was $75,000. The showdown brought out a thread in the Poker Community forum. We were able to catch up with Van Fleet, a poker player and author, to get his take on what went down.

“It was 9:00am where I was at and Telks is a strong player who I have a lot of respect for, so I offered a chop, which he declined,” Van Fleet told PocketFives in an exclusive interview the day after. “I was a little surprised, but not offended. He has won a lot of money this year and I decline chops all the time. Because of his results, I’m sure he’s super confident and not too concerned with the $25,000 difference between first and second. It did motivate me, though, to focus on exploiting any perceived weaknesses I could find.”

Van Fleet told us that he has concentrated on improving his heads-up game and learned from some of the top heads-up cash game and sit and go players on the planet. He observed, “I’m happy with how I played and the spots I found. Heads-up to me is probably the purest form of poker, but is also the most tilting because it’s mano a mano. The most difficult thing I’ve found about heads-up is not having much ego. Most pots in poker are heads-up. Nothing is better for helping you with hand-reading than playing a lot of heads-up.”

How can you improve your heads-up game, then? And how did Van Fleet go about honing his? He revealed, “I think my heads-up game and my poker game in general are always improving. So far, I’ve spent a lot of time watching videos of heads-up play on training sites, reading books on heads-up poker, and getting coaching from a few mid-stakes heads-up players.” Van Fleet has turned in 71 tracked first place finishes in online MTTs and has over $5 million in tracked cashes.

Van Fleet, Jon PearlJammerTurner (pictured), and Eric RizenLynch recently released the third volume of “Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time.” Writing has helped fine-tune Van Fleet’s game over the years: “Writing the book allows me to be introspective and critique my own thought process. Having to explain exactly why I choose to do what I did has helped me with my game tremendously. While writing the book and attacking a hand history, I think about every possible option and weigh the pros and cons of each. Writing the book has helped me do the same thing while I’m playing.”

If you’re looking for a last-minute holiday present, Van Fleet pitched, “I believe the information contained in Volumes 1 to 3 gives you probably the most up-to-date tournament poker book out there. That being said, I don’t claim to be a professional writer, but I do my best to not leave anything out and be as cohesive as possible.”

When we caught up with Van Fleet, he was camped out in Prague (pictured), which served as the host city of recent WPT and EPT events. He might now head thousands of miles away to Australia for the Aussie Millions and is largely living a nomadic lifestyle. He remarked, “I enjoy trying out new places and exploring, but I would like to have a home base. It is hard to set up residence outside of the United States.” He has traveled to locales like Vancouver, Cabo San Lucas, Costa Rica, and England. We told you he was nomadic!

Other major online poker scores for Van Fleet include WCOOP and FTOPS titles in 2010 as well as two Super Tuesday wins this year, with the other coming in May. We’ve tracked four scores in which he’s topped $100,000 and seven in which he’s hauled in more than $50,000.

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