This is a scene right out of “Life of Pi.” You look across the virtual poker table and stare down sammy_squid, better known on PocketFives as Sam TheSquidGrafton. Will the Brit ink you right out of the tournament or can you muster up the chops to send him packing? For Michael u shove i callHoward (pictured), Grafton was one of his chopping partners in the final PartyPoker $300,000 Guaranteed of 2012. In fact, Howard managed to outlast the decorated poker player and bank $25,000 for his second place finish.

Grafton took third for nearly the same amount following the chop. We asked Howard for a recap of how and why the deal went down. He told us, “We all had basically the same number of chips. Plus, there were no soft spots at the table. Everyone was around 20 big blinds, so no one had a real edge.”

Did we mention that Grafton was one of the final four players standing? Howard rehashed, “I know he is a sicko and he chopped, so I assume it was a decent spot. Luckily, we didn’t meet until the final table, but he played as well as I would have expected him to. Five-handed, I opened UTG and he re-jammed from the big blind for 20 big blinds with K-T offsuit. I had A-Q and was drawing dead on the turn, but if I had held there, I would have had 40% of the chips in play four-handed.”

Instead of Howard being king of our metaphorical boat, a four-way chop occurred. We were curious as to how tough the unfortunate spot against Grafton (pictured) was to overcome: “I was pretty devastated at the time, but still had 10 big blinds and I’m very comfortable with that stack, as I learned online poker playing Turbos. In fact, only in the last six months or so have I started playing slower structures. So,I just carried on and was pretty confident that I wouldn’t make any mistakes with a stack under 20 big blinds.”

He started playing online in 2007 and immediately fell into Turbos. The quick-moving tournaments fit his tight schedule, which included a full-time job, quite well. He explained, “I have been a full-time player since January 2012 and, in my opinion, the Turbos these days on PokerStarsare a lot harder than they were when I first started. Everyone shoves wide and calls wide now and the edge is getting smaller and smaller. I have started playing more on the European sites like iPoker and Microgaming because the games are softer. I avoid PokerStars as much as possible these days.”

As Howard said, he is not a huge fan of the games on PokerStars. Despite PokerStars having an enormous selection of tables, its variance is enough to turn him away: “The field sizes and variance on PokerStars are huge. The site is fine for people who are backed and can ride out the huge variance, but I prefer to play smaller fields where I do not feel in danger of going bust. I still play on PokerStars, as it has the best selection and it’s hard to get a full schedule going without it sometimes, but I concentrate my volume on other sites.”

Instead, he turns his attention to poker rooms like Ladbrokes, PartyPoker, and PokerStars.fr, the latter of which he admitted had “amazing software and soft fields.” He plays as townsharkon PartyPoker and katiemikexxxon PokerStars, 888 Poker, iPoker, and Ongame.

The Englishman is the 107th ranked player in the United Kingdom and tops in his hometown of Leeds. The U.K. is a veritable hotbed for poker and trails only Canada in our Country Poker Rankings.

Howard told PocketFives that without ample access to poker, he would have had to turn elsewhere to put food on the table in 2012: “Last year, I basically made my living from playing live and grinded online as well. I’m only an hour’s drive from Dusk Till Dawn (pictured), which is the best place for poker in the U.K., in my opinion. I usually make one trip a month for the deep-stack MTT they have.”

Dusk Till Dawn, which can be found in Nottingham, recently held the first ever Multi-Prize Pool Tournament and will continue to do so every Thursday for the foreseeable future. The casino also hosted a special New Year’s tournament that had a £300 buy-in and a beefed up guarantee.

Finally, we wanted to turn to words of wisdom from our recent PartyPoker $300,000 Guaranteed chopper. He asserted, “Practice makes perfect. I final tabled a major in September, the Sunday Million on PokerStars.fr. I was so nervous that I played pretty terribly, totally nitted it up, and came in seventh. I decided that if I ever got in that spot again, I would go for the win and play my own game. Luckily, this time it paid off and I felt a lot more confident playing for the win.”

By the way, if you don’t already have a PartyPoker account, you can sign up through PocketFives’ links to get one free month of PocketFives Training with the sign-up fee waived, a $65 value. Plus, you’ll get a 100% deposit bonus when you use the code P5S. Get started here.

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