November 14th was an especially lucrative day for PocketFives.com member Dave doubledave22D’Alesandro (pictured). Not only did he final table the PokerStars Sunday 500for $50,000, which normally would have been a cause for celebration for anyone, but he also brought home the win in the Full Tilt Poker $150 Rebuy for another $76,000. Two tournaments and $126,000 later, D’Alesandro wrapped up a highly successful Sunday and sat down with PocketFives.com to rehash his deep runs.

On the range of emotions he felt that evening, D’Alesandro told us, “The win came first, so by the time the $150 Rebuy was over, I had to focus right away on the Sunday 500 and didn’t really get to enjoy it. I knew that if I busted the Sunday 500 in a bad way, I still would find a way to be unhappy about the night. It was a bit straining mentally, but you have to tough it out because you never know when the good opportunities are going to come up.” He also cashed in the PokerStars Sunday Million and UB.com $200,000 Guarantee on that fateful day.

Many in the online poker world know D’Alesandro for his January win in the UB.com Online Championship (UBOC) Main Event for $279,000, his largest score to date. On how his recent run compares to his signature in the money finish 10 months ago, he explained, “It’s going to be hard to top the UBOC win emotionally, other than winning a big live event. These two scores just really helped me overall with confidence, though.” In September, D’Alesandro final tabled the Full Tilt Poker $1 Million Guarantee for $56,000.

If you check out his scores, you’ll notice that D’Alesandro was absent from the virtual felts for most of October. Where was he, you ask? D’Alesandro was backpacking in Europe during the month, visiting an array of cities like Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Munich, Florence, and Rome. His most memorable leg of the journey came in Reggio Calabria, Italy, located all the way at the end of the famed boot.

His grandparents were in contact with a family in Reggio Calabria (pictured) and communicating with them regularly via mail. Ultimately, the family found D’Alesandro on Facebook and the poker player decided to visit them during his European trek. D’Alesandro explained what made the stop so unique: “I was under the impression that the family was able to speak English since their messages were all pretty good, but they used Google Translate to send me messages and when I got there, I found out they really didn’t speak much English at all.”

Due to the major communication gap, D’Alesandro had to improvise: “I had to communicate mostly through hand gestures and the broken English of the youngest person in the family, who helped translate a ton. Other than the language barrier, it was an amazing experience overall.” He added that the living conditions in Reggio Calabria were quite unique: “They all lived in the same house basically. The aunts and cousins were the bottom floor, the family I contacted was in the middle, and the grandparents were up top. Imagine living your whole life with your family just a staircase away.”

D’Alesandro has recently taken up private coaching and explained that he’s grateful for all that the community has given him thus far: “I’ve been very fortunate in poker and in life. I am very thankful and trying hard not to take any of it for granted.”

His break from poker has seemed to pay off. Over the first 17 days of November, D’Alesandro has pulled down over $147,000 in tournaments tracked for the Online Poker Player Rankings in just 14 qualifying cashes, or about $10,000 apiece.