Last weekend, Nathaniel Falber, who is known on PocketFives as natfalber11(pictured), took down the FTOPS XXVII Main Event outright for $212,000. It was a 333x return on his $635 investment and the largest online MTT score we’ve tracked for him by a factor of 13. PocketFives caught up with the Brazilian to see what went right that day.

PocketFives: Awesome job in the FTOPS Main Event. Tell us how you’re feeling about it.

Nathaniel Falber: I am feeling amazing. Shortly after I won, there is always that feeling that you’re dreaming and it didn’t actually happen. I haven’t slept at all since my win after I started playing my Sunday session really early. To win this tournament playing against the best in the world (it was one of the toughest fields I have played against) was so sick.

PocketFives: Can you walk us through how the tournament went in general?

Nathaniel Falber: It was not a very good start. At one point, I was down to 6,500 of a 10,000 starting stack then picked up some key hands. Close to the bubble of the tournament, I had 18 big blinds. An aggressive player opened and I shoved with K-Q offsuit for a re-steal. I got cold-called by the small blind instantly and the original raiser snapped. The small blind had T-T. The raiser had K-K. The flop was Q-X-X, the turn was a blank, and the river was a Q. Then, from ITM to about three to five tables left, I had a very comfortable stack.

During heads-up when I had a 9:2 chip lead, the other player disconnected. I had an ethical dilemma whether I would wait for the player to return or simply steal his blinds and finish the tournament. I decided to wait and lost practically all of my time bank for about four minutes until he returned. I did not think winning the tournament by stealing a player’s blinds who disconnected would be fair.

PocketFives: Talk about the play of Zackattak13, who is a longtime PocketFiver. He finished seventh in the FTOPS Main Event.

Nathaniel Falber: I had a sick hand against him on the bubble. He was putting a lot of pressure on everyone, shoving and re-stealing lots of hands. I opened under the gun with 7-7 and he snap-shoved from the big blind. I tanked for about three minutes and folded. I knew he was capable of shoving any pair on me as well as many overcards, but I didn’t want to take that kind of gamble on that hand.

PocketFives: Will this cash change your poker career?

Nathaniel Falber: This win will change my career in so many ways that I don’t even know where to start. I was congratulated by many top players here in Brazil. The feeling of getting rewarded for studying the game is fantastic. I had plans to travel less next year because I was coming off a two-month downswing on PokerStars, but with this win, I am definitely thinking about grinding a lot online and going to the PCA and WSOP next year.

PocketFives: How did you get started in poker originally?

Nathaniel Falber: I started when I was about 16 years old. A childhood friend of mine installed PokerStars and I told him right off the bat that I wasn’t interested, that I would uninstall the program when he left. I was curious, though, and started playing play money games, but had no idea at all.

It was then that we played a tournament at a friend’s house for about $20. We agreed there would be no rebuys. I was the first to be eliminated from the tournament without knowing at all what I was doing and they voted to give me a single rebuy. I ended up winning it for $350. In the short-term, that was the best thing for me, but in the long-run it was the worst thing possible.

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