It’s hard to believe that I just wrote that headline. In the $322 Rebuy No Limit Hold’em Six-Max event (#17) held as part of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS), U.K. poker sensation Chris moorman1Moorman earned $204,000 after a chop heads-up with AceSpades. The six-figure cash represented his largest online poker payday ever and may be enough to vault Moorman into the top spot in the Online Poker Rankingsnext week; he currently stands at #2 worldwide behind Shaun shaundeeb Deeb. Moorman sat down with PocketFives.com just hours after his win.

Prior to earning $204,000 in Wednesday’s FTOPS XIII tournament, the top European player in the Rankings final tabled the $10,300 buy-in Main Event of the inaugural PokerStarsSpring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) for $112,000. Two months prior, he wore gold in the PokerStars $100 rebuy for $88,000. He is an eight-time Triple Crown winner on PocketFives.com and won the Monthly PLB in April. He’s won the $1Ks on both Absolute Poker and Full Tilt and quickly establishes that his game is unmatched online.
PocketFives.com: Congratulations on recording the largest online poker payday of your already illustrious career. How does it feel?

Moorman: It really hasn't sunk in yet. I have a pretty poor record in FTOPS events, but the $300 rebuy Six-Max always gives me a lot of hope, as Six-Max is my favorite game. I know that if I can get a stack together, I'm a really dangerous player.

PocketFives.com: You chopped with AceSpades(pictured at right) heads-up. He earned $206,000, while you took home $204,000 from the chop. Can you walk us through your thought process?

Moorman: It was coming up to midday in the United Kingdom and I was really tired. I didn't really want to be playing for $80,000 in my state of mind, so a chop was pretty important to me. Normally, I don't chop, but I think it would have been silly not to, as the variance is so high in such a big tournament like this.

Also, I thought that since my opponent was a great player, particularly heads-up, I'd perhaps be a slight underdog even though I held the chip lead. Chopping seemed to make sense. We eventually sorted it out and I'm glad that Full Tilt’s new chopping software was in place for it.

PocketFives.com: How important would it be to you to ascend to #1 worldwide in the Rankings next week given this gigantic score?

Moorman: I'm going to give it my best shot. I had a bit of a lull for a few months around the World Series of Poker (WSOP) where things weren’t quite working out for me and it had begun to affect my play and decision-making. However, over the last week or so, I've started running good, have more confidence again, and things are really working out.

PocketFives.com: You’ve played on bwinrecently as well. Is there still a big difference between the Ongame Network and U.S.-facing sites like Full Tilt?

Moorman: The standard of play reminds me of 2005 and you can get away with murder on bwin. The only problem I have sometimes is that I don't know many of the regulars there, as I only play one tournament a day, so my reads are very limited. Any site in which a quarter of the field doesn’t make the add-on in a $50 rebuy has to be soft.

PocketFives.com: You had mentioned that your Six-Max game is pretty strong. How is that structure beneficial to how you play?

Moorman: The Six-Max tournaments play a bit deeper than regular ones online, so I think your edge is much greater than if you’re playing a normal tournament where it’s much more raise and shove poker. Also, in Six-Max game, you have to make a lot more marginal decisions as you get into a lot of tough spots; these are where I try to excel. Lastly, I feel that Six-Max games have a ton of psychological warfare and my aim is to get inside the other players’ heads and manipulate them into doing what I want them to.

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