On December 19th, PocketFives.com member David D RoRowan came away with the win in the UB.com $200,000 Guarantee. The $200 buy-in poker tournament awarded $45,000 to its winner and Rowan closed out the 2010 calendar year with a bang. He told PocketFives.com that the timing could not have been better: “I, only in the last month, have returned from a sort of mini-sabbatical. I had an awful WSOP, after which my girlfriend and I decided to split up, and then I had to deal with moving to L.A. and getting adjusted to a new city.”

Following his return to the felts, Rowan dropped down in stakes: “I came back and decided to drop down in stakes after a couple of poor sessions trying to pick up where I left off. Pretty strict bankroll management has made me feel confident about playing poker throughout my career and I also felt like I needed to get back in the groove.” He reverted to $30 freezeouts and $5 rebuys before moving up to $50 freezeouts and $10 rebuys.

Four days prior to his deep run in the UB.com $200,000 Guarantee, Rowan bubbled the final table of the PokerStars Wednesday Quarter Million and walked away with $3,100. He ran pocket queens into pocket aces on his final hand of the weekday tournament and, after all of the money went in on the flop, with Rowan holding top set, he could not fade the inevitable.

Rowan’s largest cash tracked by PocketFives.com came in April, when he finished fourth in a $1,060 No Limit Hold’em event held as part of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS, for $113,000. He recalled, “Obviously, that score was great. It was my first and only six-figure bink thus far. I loosened up once I reached the final table of that tournament, though, and got a little too excited. I let the flashy lights distract me, so to speak.” The $1,060 FTOPS tournament drew a field of 1,138 players and saw Matt BigMich08 Glassley (pictured) come away with the “W.”

When we sat down with Rowan, he was set to embark on a three-week trip. His journey would start in Alexandria, Virginia to visit family for the holidays. Then, it was off to New York City to ring in 2011 before heading to Salt Lake City, Utah for a Wilderness EMT refresher course. On the latter stop, Rowan commented, “I haven’t had a chance to put my certification to good use, so I’m going to brush up and hopefully work that into my schedule as a volunteer or work a day or two a week.”

His Wilderness EMT course will bring him as far away from the virtual felts as possible. For ten days, he will use a textbook in conjunction with practicing simulated first responder scenarios from 8:00am to 5:00pm, followed by evening sessions as well. On why he decided to seek the certification in the first place, Rowan told us, “The last time I took this sort of mini-sabbatical, I did some traveling with my sister in Central America. Afterward, she suggested I join her for this course for which she was already enrolled. I’ve always felt poker is a little unfulfilling on the ‘contributing to society’ front, so I always like to have something non-poker-related to try to give back. I worked as a ski instructor and sailing instructor, seasonally, when I was living in Vermont. Things like that add balance.”

Rowan is now an instructor at Drag the Bar, a popular poker training site. In addition to producing videos, Rowan explains that he’s benefited from his peer’s submissions as well: “I love working with them. In fact, something in one of Adam Squee451 Sherman’s (pictured) videos he made since joining the team actually improved my game immensely.” Sherman has wins in the PokerStars Sunday 500 and Nightly Hundred Grand, among other tournaments. In addition, he owns a PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) title worth over $200,000.

Check out UB.comor Absolute Poker to sign up for this week’s $200,000 Guarantee.