For England’s Matthew Hunt Pitt (pictured), known as theginger45here on PocketFives, several life-changing experiences have him plotting his next move in life. Sure, that next chapter probably won’t involve much poker, but teaching in Turkey and France and volunteering with a charity called AIESEC have helped him realize that there’s much more to life than poker, hence the title of this article. We caught up with Pitt (no relation to Brad) after his stellar run through the Mini Full Tilt Online Poker Series.

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PocketFives: Tell us about your domination in the recent MiniFTOPS.

Matthew Hunt Pitt: I guess the cliffs are that I won the MiniFTOPS leaderboard, shipped two events, and also got a second, ninth, 11th, and 34th. I got third in the $320 Knockout on PokerStarsin the middle of it for $14,000. I also shipped a seat to a France Poker Series Main Event on PokerStars.fr. I guess what’s going on is I ran good.

PocketFives: That’s quite a run. How are you feelingabout everything?

Matthew Hunt Pitt: Pretty great in general. It was fantastic to win a couple of jerseys in games like No Limit Irish and HORSE, neither of which I’ve really played before. I ran pretty ridiculously good, but it’s cool to have some titles under my belt and obviously the jersey avatar.

PocketFives: What are your thoughts on No Limit Irish, which was a new addition to the FTOPS schedule this year?

Matthew Hunt Pitt: I think it’s a lot of fun. I only play a little PLO, enough to know the basics of hand selection, so I sort of played it like PLO pre-flop and then had to know my post-flop equities pretty well to get my discards right.

PocketFives: What did you get for winning the MiniFTOPS leaderboard, by the way?

Matthew Hunt Pitt: I get tickets to every event of the next FTOPS except the $2K, as well as a custom avatar. That’s $11K worth of buy-ins, which is great.

PocketFives: That’s a lot of buy-ins. Did you do anything to celebrate?

Matthew Hunt Pitt: Not really. I’ll be going on vacation with some friends later this year, so I guess some of the money will go toward that. Mostly, I was kind of burned out after playing for 15 days straight, so I needed a break.

PocketFives: How do you keep yourself motivated to play for the leaderboard?

Matthew Hunt Pitt: Honestly, it was pretty difficult, partly because some of the deep runs kept me up late and messed with my sleep pattern. Toward the end, I played fewer tables and started railing a lot of the other guys who were closing in on me for the leaderboard, but in general it’s a chance that doesn’t come often. It’s part of my job as a poker player to do my best to take those opportunities.

Once I won Event #1, I knew I was going to go hard to get the TLB, so I was pretty motivated the whole way through. The worst part was when guys started catching up and I had to anti-sweat them.

PocketFives: How did you get started in poker?

Matthew Hunt Pitt: I started in home games when I was at university, just little £5 rebuys with friends. We played all the time, but when a few of them moved away, I started playing online. It took me a while to develop my game, but when I decided to start taking MTTs seriously, I got a backing deal with mementmori‘s old low-stakes stable before Black Friday and just progressed from there.

PocketFives: What were you doing before playing full-time?

Matthew Hunt Pitt: I was a student for a long time, but after I got my Master’s, I did some traveling and volunteer work. I worked as an English teacher in Turkey and volunteered with a global charity organization called AIESEC.

I owe a lot of what I know about personal development and a lot of my perspective on the world to those experiences. I was lucky enough to work in several different countries with some amazing people. I started volunteering in my last year of university, as I was a languages student and had just spent my third year teaching abroad in France. I wanted to meet new people and learn new things, and AIESEC provided a great platform to do that.

I got more and more involved over the years until I worked for them full-time in Ireland for about eight months. In the end, I wasn’t sure full-time volunteering was right for me, so I left that job in late 2011 and decided that poker might be a better option.

I don’t know if I’ll be in poker much longer than a few years, as I want to move to the U.S. to study film sometime in the next few years. I guess my perspective on poker is to set my goals, achieve them, and move on to something new. UCLA has a great MFA in Screenwriting. Once I’m done with poker, I think my long-term purpose in life is being a storyteller. I love poker and I’ll never quit entirely, but I think everyone wants to be seen as more than just a button-clicker.

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