On January 16th, U.K. poker player Ash AshTheDonkeyMason brought home the bacon in the weekly Full Tilt Poker Sunday Mulligan. The $200 buy-in tournament attracted a field of 1,266 players and Mason outlasted BadBankroll heads-up. In 2010, Mason was a two-time winner of the Full Tilt $75,000 Guarantee and sat down with PocketFives.com to rehash his latest claim to fame.

PocketFives.com: Thanks for joining us. Can you walk us through how the tournament went for you?

Ash Mason: I was traveling back from the PCA to Canada and we had to stay overnight in Dallas. As soon as we got to the hotel, I rushed to see if I could register for any of the good Sunday tournaments still going. The Mulligan was the only major still registering and was an hour and five minutes into late registration. I quickly registered for it along with a bunch of other stuff, ordered room service, and started the grind.

I was just winning a couple of flips and chipping up without showdown. Then, in the last two tables, I was playing pretty aggro and ran A-K into A-Q and held for a decent size pot. Then, I ran kings into queens and held to take me up to 900,000 in chips with around a 300,000 average and about 15 players left.

PocketFives.com: What happened once you reached the final table?

Ash Mason: I’ve always had a curse in the Mulligan, previously getting 10th, 11th, and then eighth (on the second of this month) after going in 2/9, so I was determined not to screw this one up. I reached the final table with about 1.1 million in chips and another U.K. guy was on my left. I didn’t know much about him except that he played well and had 750,000 in chips, so my seat draw wasn’t the best.

The final table started badly for me. I lost A-K to K-Q all-in pre-flop and then A-K to 8-8 all-in pre-flop. We were roughly six-handed at this point and then there was a raise and a 3bet in front of me from two regulars. I was on the button with A-K. I knew that the 3bettor (negroblanco) could be light here and, with my image being pretty absurd, I decided to make a really small 4bet to try induce a worse hand jamming. I 4bet leaving myself 20 big blinds of my 30 big blind stack behind.

The original raiser folded and then negroblanco went into the tank for about 30 seconds before jamming with Q-J offsuit. I called, the flop came K-J-X, and I held. That took me back up to about one million in chips.

From there, I won flips against the two short stacks. The other U.K. guy knocked out another guy and then he, negroblanco, and I were three-handed. I had 1.5 million to BadBankroll’s 1.3 million and negroblanco’s 850,000. We all went back and forth a little before I knocked out negroblanco in a blind versus blind hand.

I was then heads-up with BadBankroll with about 1.9 million to 1.8 million and we both wished each other good luck. Neither of us mentioned a deal. We were really deep, so we were both glad to keep playing. I chipped up a little and got a slight chip lead. Then, he opened the button, I 3bet with tens, he 4bet, and I called. He had A-10 of hearts, I held, and the curse of the Mulligan was lifted.

PocketFives.com: How did you get started in poker?

Ash Mason: I started playing sit and gos with friends in high school. Then, I put a bit of money online from my Saturday job. I kept losing, but loved the game, and so kept vaguely interested throughout school and university. At university, a guy in the next flat was winning heaps in cash games. I got talking to him, learned how to think about the game properly, and started playing more online and live tournaments in the U.K.

I had a couple of scores after a while and then, at the start of 2010, I dropped out of university and started to play MTTs full-time. Looking back, it was a terrible idea to drop out. I was nowhere near good enough, but I put all my time into it in the past year with a great support network of friends who are all great players. I also want to send a thank you to my parents and sister for being so supportive.