It took all of two events of the 2012 World Series of Poker (WSOP) for Brent bhanks11Hanks (pictured) to come away with a bracelet. His breakthrough came in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tournament and was worth a stellar $517,000. He defeated fellow PocketFives member Jacob bazeman Bazeley heads-up after rocking through a field of over 2,100 players. But what makes Hanks tick? PocketFives caught up with Hanks to discuss what it’s like to hit it “Big.” You see what we did there?

“I’ll probably be a little bit more excited after it has settled in,” Hanks told PocketFives when asked how he was feeling about winning his first piece of WSOP hardware. “I have gotten a lot of congratulations from faces I’ve never seen before. There are a lot of poker fans out there and it being the first open event, it adds a certain allure to it.” Vanessa Selbst and John Juanda were among those who ran deep in the tournament.

For Hanks, the No Limit Hold’em event’s $517,000 first place prize meant a chance to break free on his own: “I’m now on my own. I’m hoping to have continued success and make more down the road. This tournament helped me go on my own and made the decision to go out on my own much easier.” Hanks has been a member of PocketFives since 2006 and has nearly $2.7 million in tracked earnings in his profile.

Bazeley (pictured), his heads-up opponent, was certainly no pushover. He has $2.5 million in tracked MTT cashes and, according to the Hendon Mob, has piled on another $816,000 in live tournament earnings. We asked Hanks to analyze Bazeley’s game: “He plays great. I played with him for a number of years online. He’s super solid and I thought he was a little bit better than I was heads-up. He plays really well.”

On the ending of Event #2, Hanks relayed, “I was pretty torn winning the way I won because I was hoping it would come down to a neutral coin flip or I could chip away at him until the match was over. It didn’t work out that way.”

Instead, in the defining moment of heads-up play, Bazeley 5bet all-in pre-flop with pocket nines and had the best of it against Hanks’ A-8. However, Hanks spiked an ace on the flop to send Bazeley’s chip stack spiraling to less than one big blind. Bazeley was eliminated one hand later.

Hanks was a fifth grade math and social studies teacher prior to becoming a professional poker player. “It was awesome being a teacher,” Hanks recollected. “You certainly need to be patient with how things progress in poker and in teaching. Sometimes, there are parallels with kids in the classroom. Learning how to deal with each kid individually is similar to how to deal with each opponent at the table.”

Several members of PocketFives extended their congratulations to Hanks after his bracelet win, including PocketFives Traininginstructor Mike Gags30Gagliano, who posted in a Live Poker thread, “Congrats to one of the nicest guys in poker!”

“I’ve never had an issue with anyone in the entire poker world,” Hanks said of the overwhelmingly positive community support. “I’ve never had a bad run-in. Everyone seems great and it’s a pretty neat thing to have people look up to you and not have big negatives.”

Finally, we asked Hanks for his take on Viktor Isildur1 Blom (pictured) winning back-to-back tournamentsto kick off the 2012 PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker, or SCOOP. Hanks shared, “That’s remarkable. Tourneys are funny that way, the way the variance runs out. To have Isildur1 of all people roll through two fields and pile it up was amazing. It probably, to him, felt like another five hours at the office.”

Hanks is one of seven PocketFives members who have claimed bracelets this year:

Simon pokerbrat13 Charette
June 13, 2012
$3,000 No Limit Hold’em Six-Max

Randy mavsrule3 Ohel
June 12, 2012
$2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball

Brandon schaefer Schaefer
June 8, 2012
$1,500 No Limit Hold’em Shootout

Brian Stinger885 Hastings
June 7, 2012
$10,000 Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em

Andy Andy Bloch Bloch
June 2, 2012
$1,500 Seven Card Stud

Nick Stacked121 Jivkov
June 1, 2012
$1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em

Brent bhanks11 Hanks
May 30, 2012
$1,500 No Limit Hold’em

Check out our WSOP Wall of Champions for more details.