On December 18, just seven days before Christmas, Vinkyy(pictured) earned a $5 million cash badge on PocketFives. He is the 13th player to receive the award since June 1 and, amazingly, four PocketFivers have gone over $5 million this month.

Earlier this month, Vinkyy finished atop the field of the 888 Poker Super XL Mega Deep, which had a $215 buy-in and attracted a field of nearly 900 players. In the end, members of the PocketFives community finished in the top three spots, with Vinkyy going toe-to-toe with 95th ranked Tomi emeriaa Brouk for the title.

“It was about the same as usual, but a little bit bigger,” Vinkyy told PocketFives in an exclusive interview about the tournament. “The prize pool was bigger.”

Heads-up against Brouk was no simple task. After all, the Fin is on the verge of passing $3 million in tracked cashes and has nearly 100 tracked online MTT wins. “Heads-up was tough,” Vinkyy admitted. “He was playing really tough. Usually, heads-up opponents aren’t so tough and they are a little too tight and you can take their chips, but he played tough. He is hard to play against. He played really well.” Second place for Brouk was worth $24,000.

As we said, the field numbered just short of 900 players and a prize pool of $176,000 was up for grabs. We asked Vinkyy to break down what kind of field showed up and how it compared to the typical 888 Mega Deep. He responded, “It wasn’t easy to take people’s chips. Overall at the final table, I was a bit surprised that people played well. Usually, it’s much weaker than the majors on PokerStars, for example. Maybe it was because this tournament is extremely deep with 30-minute levels, so maybe the weaker players busted earlier. This is a super deep stack tournament and the only one that’s that deep.”

The Mega Deep typically starts at 6:00am in Vinkyy’s time zone and ends around 9:00pm. However, the week Vinkyy won, play stretched for 17 hours.

Vinkyy currently stands at #7 worldwide and was ranked #1 earlier this year. He has about 4,800 tracked cashes in his PocketFives profile that average about $1,060 apiece. He has logged 358 top-three finishes in tracked MTTs across all sites and is just 13 cashes shy of 3,000 on PokerStars alone. That’s a lot of in the money finishes.

“I have good preparation from being a chess player,” Vinkyy said of his longevity in poker. “It helps me stay calm for a long time and helps me stay focused. I don’t drink too much and don’t smoke. I am used to playing more than most regulars. I was extremely happy a few months ago when I got to #1 on PocketFives. It was the best part of my career. The competition is really tough online.”

Vinkyy isn’t the first player we’ve talked to who has moved from chess to poker. In fact, in September, we interviewed Brazil’s KKremate(pictured), who at the time won the PokerStars Sunday $100 Rebuy outright for $54,000. Now, Vinkyy doesn’t play chess in leagues since they take place on Sundays, but occasionally fills in for absentees when he’s needed.

“Before poker, I was organizing chess tournaments,” Vinkyy said of his previous interest. “But, there’s also not a lot of money to be won in chess. You have to be extremely good in order to make money.”

If you don’t already have an 888 Poker account, you can sign up through the links on PocketFives to get an enhanced 100% up to $600 deposit bonus, $8 free (no deposit needed), and one free month of PocketFives Training with a deposit. Get started here.

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