One of the most recent recipients of the $1 million cash badgehere on PocketFives is Vagelis Prodromou, who is more commonly known as ipo8181(pictured). Virtually all of his winnings have come on PokerStars. “I am very happy,” the Greek told PocketFives. “I have been looking at other players who had this achievement and for me it was one of my basic targets.” Mission accomplished.

Getting to $1 million was anything but easy. First off, Prodromou isn’t a full-time poker pro, which limits the amount of time he has available to play. As he put it, “It was really hard because I had a regular job and so had to spend most of my free time playing poker. Also, many times my bankroll busted, but I always found a way to survive.”

The Greece poker community member is an accountantby day and, up until the middle of this year, he was also playing football. He has thought about canning his accounting career in favor of going pro in poker, but said he doesn’t feel poker is secure enough of a profession for him right now.

Football! For those Americans reading this article, we’re talking about soccer here, not the NFL. Prodromou trumpeted his rather successful football career: “I played for about 12 years on an amateur team, Thiella Rafinas. In the last few years, I was also the captain and my team went up one division, which put us just one division from the professional league. This year, we also won the cup.” I guess he went out on top.

Five years ago, he began playing poker with friends. “I had no idea how to play,” he recalled, “so my friends taught me. The game seemed really interesting to me, so I registered for an online poker site and started playing.”

His largest tracked score was worth $40,000 and came after a third place finish in the PokerStars Bigger $109 in March, five years after he learned the game. He has wins in the Big $109, $55 Daily Ninety Grand, and Big $11, just to name a few. Prodromou is up to #627 worldwide in the PocketFives Rankings and could be found as high as #263 earlier this year.

He closed by advising, “Poker is a game. You need a lot of patience. If you want to succeed and reap the rewards, you need to keep at it and don’t quit.” Indeed.

See who else has earned their $1 million cash badge.

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