After winning two events early on during the 27th Full Tilt Online Poker Series, Mark dipthrong Herm (pictured) took down the competition’s leaderboard by a healthy margin. He had 35% more points than the second place player and captured his second straight FTOPS Leaderboard title. Interestingly, he won the FTOPS XXVI leaderboard by about the same margin.

PocketFives: Congrats on winning back-to-back FTOPS leaderboards. How are you feeling about it?

Mark Herm: It’s weird. The past couple of FTOPS, my account seems to run absurdly hot in a lot of the events. Leaderboards have always been my thing since the Absolute Poker days; something about the way my brain works really enjoys the whole leaderboard system. It gives me a clear goal. I’ve been working a lot on other games and getting coaching from some of the best in the world, so that helps.

PocketFives: How much of an achievement is it, in your opinion? Will this ever be done again?

Mark Herm: I don’t think it’s that big of a deal just because I’m kind of a leaderboard freak. I doubt anyone would devote the time necessary along with the knowledge of the way the leaderboard works to do it back-to-back, but who knows. I think I’m probably 50/50 to win it if I try to.

PocketFives: Tell us about the two events you won early on. How did those go in general and did they help you in any way mentally for the rest of the series?

Mark Herm: I’ve never won an FTOPS event before those, so it definitely helped with confidence, and the 10-Game bird I won had a tough field. I’ve always struggled with confidence against tougher players, so that was definitely some sort of milestone for me to win even though it was a lot of Limit, so that felt great.

PocketFives: What are some of your immediate poker plans?

Mark Herm: This weekend is massive on PokerStars, so that should be fun. I’ve actually started taking on students for MTTs. I enjoy that and am super pumped about it. I’m really looking to focus a lot of energy on that. I love connecting with people, watching them improve, and I feel like I break down teaching MTTs as well or better than anyone else. I want to continue to work on my Mixed Games, get to the point where I am super confident with them, take those skills to the WSOP, play in some of the $10Ks, and make a name for myself in that arena.

PocketFives: What else do you do besides poker?

Mark Herm: I’m really interested in spirituality and how the universe works, so I’m always getting into some new thing or reading some new book. I do a lot of work relating to telling the truth and trying to have authentic connections with people. I find that poker and life are similar struggles in terms of battling fears and living from our true, natural selves.

I got sober about three years ago and that kind of got my feet wet with spirituality. I found some pretty shocking changes through it, so I have the bug now.

Want the latest poker headlines and interviews? Follow PocketFives on Twitterand Like PocketFives on Facebook. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed.