This time last year, ‘mase162‘ was grinding his way through the PokerStars Championship Bahamas Main Event with an eye on the trophy and $429,664 score. It would have represented an ROI of 4,296,540% had he succeeded. The then 21-year-old German was in the Bahamas after qualifying for just $10.

“I played a couple of regular spin-n-gos, three or four and then jumped into the spin-n-go where you win the (Bahamas) package and won it in three or four minutes,” said ‘mase162’. “Then I went to the Bahamas, played the Main and just wanted to cash first. When the bubble burst, I had a very good stack and just wanted to make it further.”

‘mase162’ eventually busted in 22nd place after losing a race with ace-king against tens. He walked away $24,640 and knew he was hooked. Over the next few months, he traveled the world – all thanks to qualifiers he kept winning.

“It was a pretty good experience and after that, I wanted to travel the world. When I came back home, a week later I qualified for Panama, went there, that event didn’t go well, but I had some good experiences again,” said ‘mase162’. “After Panama, I played Marbella. Was a cool experience as well. After Marbella it was Barcelona. I qualified for that too for the National package, played a satellite for the Main and won that too.”

While he didn’t cash in any of those events, he knew he wanted to keep working on his game and work hard at qualifying for more live events. Over the last year, he’s sought out coaching and has made getting better at poker. When satellites began running for the 2018 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, ‘mase162’ knew he had to give it a shot. He played the 100-package guaranteed satellite and qualified on his first attempt.

This year didn’t go quite as well as last year though. ‘mase162’ was unable to get anything going after finding himself at one of the tougher Day 1 tables.

“I didn’t get good spots and I had a tough table with (Barry) Greenstein, (Mike) Watson, Christopher Kruk all to my left. So tough, and if you don’t get the cards it’s hard to play against them and if you get aces cracked twice you can’t do anything,” said ‘mase162’ who still believes he’s made strides since last January. “I would say my game has changed a lot because I got a lot of coaching. I think last year, I don’t want to say I was lucky, but I wasn’t in difficult spots. This year was different because my game changed so much and, of course, I had higher expectations.”

Last year, ‘mase162’ was hoping to bring his dad to the Bahamas to cheer him on, but it didn’t quite work out. He eventually took his dad to Panama and Barcelona.

“I wanted to bring him here last year but he had to work, but then I brought him to Panama which was quite nice too for him. I also brought him to Barcelona,” said ‘mase162’. “I wanted to bring him here this year, but he can’t get vacation time in January.”

Now ‘mase162’ has his sites set on winning his way into the $25,000 PokerStars Players Championship. His success at the 2017 Bahamas event has told him that he can play at any level if he wants to.

“Competing with some of the best players in the world and even if you don’t have much experience, you can beat them,” said ‘mase162’.