On May 8, Chris Big HuniHunichen (pictured) booked his sixth online poker Triple Crown. He accomplished the feat after taking down the PokerStars $55 Rebuy, WPT Poker $20,000 Guaranteed, and Full Tilt Tyrannosaurus Rex all in a one-week period. His half-dozen awards are tied for the sixth most all-time on PocketFives and, as always, Hunichen made time for an interview about going where few have gone before.

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PocketFives: Triple Crown #6 – tell us how it feels.

Chris Hunichen: It feels good. I have had a rocky start to 2013. I was getting deep in a lot of tournaments, but just not finishing. When that happens, you really aren’t going to win any money. It feels good to finally get back in the groove again and get my first Triple Crown of the year.

PocketFives: Give us your description of the Full Tilt Tyrannosaurus Rex. Were there no other dinosaur-themed tournaments for you to play?

Chris Hunichen: It’s the Full Tilt Daily $163. They revamped their schedule not too long ago and gave all of the tournaments some weird names. They definitely have a lot of work to do to get the site back to the way it used to be, even though I believe it will never be as good as it was pre-Black Friday.

I am not sure where they are going with these weird gimmicks and strange naming of the tournaments, but I feel that the new schedule – although there are very few tournaments to play daily now – is much better and more valuable than when Full Tilt reopened its site. The volume on Full Tilt is really low, especially for high-stakes MTT grinders, but the few tournaments they have now are all high-value birds.

PocketFives: Which of the three Triple Crown tournaments was the toughest and why?

Chris Hunichen: For this Triple Crown, I feel like all three tournaments went pretty smoothly. As I said before, I had not been winning many tournaments this year. I was getting to a lot of final table bubbles and coming up short and getting a lot of sixths to ninths.

But, things finally started clicking again. I started to run a little better deep in these tournaments and just coasted to victory in all three of them. I don’t really remember how the $55 Rebuy went down, but I remember that in the WPT $20K and the Full Tilt T-Rex, I was pretty much in full control with all of the chips during the entire final table of both birds. Overall, though, I would probably guess that the $55 Rebuy is the toughest tournament of the three because there are a lot more regs.

PocketFives: Tell us about your WSOP plans. Where are you staying, for how long, and what are you playing? That way, everyone can stalk you while you’re in town.

Chris Hunichen: This year is going to be a big change for me. For the past four or five years, I have lived in Las Vegas the entire summer in mansions spending unreal amounts of money just to be there. I’ve decided that I’ve had enough of that. I have gotten a little bit older, for one, but also have realized how much money I’ve leaked off over the years.

I was backed online for the past few years, but about six months ago, I went on my own online and it has really changed my outlook on a lot of things, especially involving money. It has been and up-and-down ride and a lot different emotionally for me. Handling the financial swings of high-stakes MTTs on my own has been a lot more challenging for me. I started out on a rough run and immediately went on a $40,000 to $50,000 downswing online, losing around another $50,000 buying the action of numerous people in numerous live events around the world.

So, this year, things are a lot different. Most of my crew here in Costa Rica is only going for the Main Event and maybe a few more tournaments at the end. I am going to stay with one of my best friends and business partners Brandon Cashwell (cashdaddy69) and another one of my friends Cory Waaland (pokernut312) in a small condo behind the Venetian. That way, I am not in hotels for the entire summer, but am still close enough to everything not to have to deal with long drives in the morning.

I will probably stay low key and not party much this summer and focus solely on trying to win a bracelet. A lot depends on what happens during SCOOP. This is the first time I have ever played the full series on my own. I am not fully rolled to play it, but am basically shooting my roll and going to see what happens. Fortunately, if things go wrong, I will always have backing deals lined up and, since I feel I am playing my best game again, I’ve decided it’s time to put it all on the line on myself instead of investing in so many other people.

PocketFives: What have you learned in the past from the WSOP Main Event that will help you this time around?

Chris Hunichen: Probably the fact that it’s a very long, slow-structured tournament and you can’t win it on Day 1. Over the past few years, I haven’t cashed in the Main Event and it has been a little frustrating. I busted J-J to K-K two years ago in a spot where I was down to 13,000 from the starting stack of 30,000 and pushed in a spot where I had no business getting that many chips in, but felt I was short when I really wasn’t.

My game has developed so much since that day and I look forward to bringing my entire arsenal to this year’s WSOP. I feel that I’ve become one of the best online pros in the world at changing gears and think that was a skill that I somewhat lacked in previous years. I feel it will be a great advantage for me this year.

PocketFives: Any shout outs you want to send to commemorate your sixth Triple Crown?

Chris Hunichen: I just want to say good luck to all of the bears down here in Costa Rica during SCOOP. It has been a wild ride down here and there have been a lot of ups and downs for everyone in poker this year, so a quick shout out and good luck wishes to all of the bears! I would also like to thank PocketFives for the continued love and support over the years.

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