On the 10th day of August, Austria’s huiiiiiiiiii(pictured) chopped the PokerStars Sunday 500, his second big-time Sunday Major win in the last two years. He is quickly nearing $3.6 million in career online poker tournament earnings and sits at #4 in the PocketFives Rankings. His chopping partner in the Sunday 500 was fellow PocketFiver lilachaa and he graciously sat down with us to talk about his latest success story.

PocketFives: Congrats on chopping the PokerStars Sunday 500. Tell us how you’re feeling about it.

huiiiiiiiiii: Thank you! It is a great feeling to finally win a major tournament on PokerStars. It was a tough fight and to make it on top feels awesome.

PocketFives: Talk about the chop with lilachaa.

huiiiiiiiiii: He is obviously a beast. He played a great final table and had the chip lead almost the entire way. He also was the one who had the chip lead at the beginning of heads-up play, but it was pretty late, so we decided not to play for $20,000 more. Instead, we chopped it and played for $5,000.

After the deal, things played out pretty well for me. I picked up a couple of hands that made it a lot easier to finally win the heads-up. Anyway, a big compliment to lilachaa for his performance. It was nice playing with him.

PocketFives: You’re at #4 in the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings. How closely do you pay attention to that and what does a top 10 ranking on PocketFives mean to you?

huiiiiiiiiii: It’s pretty nice to get back in the top 10 because there a lot of good players out there. If you don’t get enough results, you’re pretty quickly out of the top 10, but it’s a nice feeling to have some of the greatest players behind me for the moment.

PocketFives: What changes have you seen in poker over the last few years?

huiiiiiiiiii: I think that over the years there have been more good players out there. You can get enough information about the game pretty easily, so the average player could improve their game by reading about it. In the past, players learned poker by playing, which made it a lot easier for good players to get an advantage.

The fact that players from several countries are not able to play anymore on PokerStars changed the game as well. The tournaments got smaller over the years and some of the good players changed their main residence to countries where they still are able to play. The combination of smaller fields and better players have made things tougher over the years.

PocketFives: How did you get started in poker originally? What about the game was interesting?

huiiiiiiiiii: I started in poker by playing home games with friends. I was fascinated about the possibilities the game had, that every time you start playing you don’t know what’s going to happen next. So, I tried playing online a little bit and, over the years, the fascination of the game was still there; to get better was always a good motivation, and still is. The fact that there is not only one solution to playing a hand makes you keep thinking about the game, which is very important in my opinion.

PocketFives: What you do away from poker?

huiiiiiiiiii: I’m very interested in football, basketball, and almost every kind of team sport. I really like to hang out with friends, party, and play video games. I’m also having fun traveling and visiting different countries all over the world, which is perfect as a poker player.

The Sunday 500 runs weekly on PokerStars. If you don’t have a PokerStars account, sign up through the links on PocketFives and get a 100% up to $600 deposit bonus and one free month of PocketFives Training with no signup fee. Click here to create your account.

Want the latest poker headlines and interviews? Follow PocketFives on Twitterand Like PocketFives on Facebook. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed.