In an Ongame $100,000 Guaranteed that happened last month, Matej Kalcic (pictured), better known as MatejK992SLOon PocketFives, came away with the win and scored a $28,000 payday. Getting to the promised land meant a warrior, Matt ch0ppyKay (ranked #2 worldwide), being knocked out in 10th. Kalcic was in the top 5% in terms of chip counts down the stretch and pointed out that without Kay, the final table “wasn’t that hard because my opponents were all so passive and I had control.” You can find the Ongame $100K on sites like Betsafe.

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Kalcic entered the final table second in chips, watched Kay bust in 10th, and briefly engaged in what turned out to be an unsuccessful chop negotiation three-handed. He explained in an exclusive PocketFives interview, “Heads-up wasn’t short. We played for almost a half-hour.” The tournament drew over 800 players and Kalcic bested fellow PocketFives member anywhat in the 30-minute battle.

He is a fan of Ongame for the same reason that many others on PocketFives are, soft fields. Kalcic shared his experience: “The MTTs there are softer, way softer than on PokerStars. A good friend of mine said, ‘You should try something else besides just PokerStars and Full Tilt.’ He introduced me to the Muchos Poker platform, where it is really easy to transfer money from one network to another.”

Kalcic is a member of the Slovenia poker community, so given that we don’t meet up with people from Slovenia every day, we asked Kalcic to talk about poker in his homeland.

His response: “I think I caused a little poker boom in Slovenia (pictured) after winning the Sunday Million. Nowadays, the community is really growing fast. In Slovenia, a lot of people are without jobs. If you are a student, it is really hard to get a job, so the majority of my friends play poker or are planning to play it in the future, especially after they see how much you can do in just two years.”

We don’t normally hear players say they caused a poker boom of sorts, so we asked Kalcic why he thinks he has done so. He contended, “Because of my super fast move from micro-stakes to high-stakes. I was playing micro-stakes two years ago. A year-and-a-half ago, I was still playing the $3.50 Rebuy, 180-man sit and gos and doing really well.”

How did he make it to high-stakes fame? Kalcic recalled, “When people in Slovenia first heard of me, I was being staked for $3.50 Rebuys and tripled my investment money. After making around $10,000 in those rebuys, I moved to MTTs. My bankroll was rising and I was taking some shots at Sunday Majors.”

“I am hero to a lot of my friends,” Kalcic told us. “I have invested money in coaches and started playing poker professionally after wining the Sunday Million.”

Outside of the game, Kalcic is into motocrossand has excelled at chess. “I had a motorbike as a child,” Kalcic said of his hobby, “but not a really powerful one. I always wanted to buy myself a really powerful one. With my first bike, I had an accident and was in the hospital for five days. So, my parents forbid me from buying a new one because the roads are too dangerous, so I bought an offroad bike. No one can hit me if I am driving in the woods.”

We should probably mention that Kalcic has a stranglehold on the Slovenia Sortable Poker Rankings, owning about 5,200 PLB Points, 2,500 more than the next closest player on the leaderboard. Congrats to the Slovenia native on taking down the Ongame $100K.

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