We’re sure it’s a hoot to play poker until 4:00am, escape to bed, and get up three hours later so the boss-man isn’t upset you were late to work. Such is the life of many PocketFives readers. For Mat Cuthbertson (pictured), known as Checktrap11 online, working as a headhunter by day and a poker player by night has its perks and drawbacks.

“I work in a small headhunting firm in London,” Cuthbertson told PocketFives. “I used to be pretty bad at trying to balance the two and would end up not performing to the best of my ability in either. These days, I’m a lot better at dealing with it. I have a fairly consistent schedule of tournaments I play and tend to get most of my volume in on Sundays. I don’t mind resigning myself to little sleep on a Sunday because there’s so much to play for, but it’s difficult to grind some of the midweek stuff that you know means you’ll be up until 3:00am or 4:00am if you go deep.”

Speaking of going deep, we sat down with Cuthbertson following a second place finish in the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Brawl. He chopped the tournament heads-up and walked off with $37,000, while fellow PocketFiver GM_VALTER brought home the win and $41,000. “I’m really pleased to get the score,” Cuthbertson remarked. “It’s my second largest to date and came at a nice time, as I had been having a rough couple of months.” Rough no more, as he’s nearing $800,000 in tracked scores in his profile.

Cuthbertson called GM_VALTER “the strongest player at the final table and a good reg.” Cuthbertson began final table play at the top of the pack and said, “Once we got heads-up, he had a slight chip lead and offered to talk numbers. The variance in these spots can be pretty brutal and, given his skill level, I was happy to look. I thought it was a good deal that left $2,000 and bragging rights to play for.”

He added, “GM_VALTER played well throughout the final table and the heads-up battle lasted quite a while, as we were pretty deep. I thought I edged him heads-up, but lost out in the big pots and got coolered a little bit, but congrats to him on the win.” There were five PocketFivers at the final table.

As far as his plans for the money, getting out of make-up is job #1. He explained that a rough 2013 was to blame: “I had a downswing after a very good year in 2012, so the score has put me within a reasonable distance of being out of make-up. I’m not in the same situation as most MTT grinders, as I have a job, so the need for cashouts is less. I just enjoy playing the game.” He is “enjoying” it to the tune of nearly 1,000 tracked in the money finishes.

In late 2012, he won the PokerStars Bigger $162 for $41,000, the largest score to date we have for him. He also has victories in the PokerStars Sunday Kickoff, $109 Cubed, and Big $162, just to name a few.

His poker beginnings happened in 2004, one year after Chris Moneymaker’s historic win in the World Series of Poker Main Event. Cuthbertson was at university in Leeds at the time and said, “Leeds had a poker society that ran small cash games and weekly tournaments, so I’d go to those and learned quite a bit from decent players there. A couple of friends and I really enjoyed it and we moved to online tournaments and local live games during our three years there.”

The Sunday Brawl runs weekly on Full Tilt. If you don’t already have a Full Tilt account, sign up through the links on PocketFives to get a free $25 in most locations plus one free month of PocketFives Training. Get started here.

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