This week, the PocketFives.com Podcastwelcomes live poker Triple Crown winner Gavin Griffin (pictured), a sponsored pro of Hero Poker. The Merge Gaming Network site recently hosted a special freeroll for PocketFives.com members that generated a field of nearly 100 and you’ll be hearing a lot more about the room in the coming months. Let’s recap some of the highlights of Griffin’s stint on the Podcast, which just celebrated its five-year anniversary.

Before we get to the interview, we should remind you that you can get 35% rakebackon Hero Poker, which hosts five daily $200 freerolls to boost your bankroll. There’s also a 100% up to $600 sign-up bonus.

Griffin rehashed how he managed to sign with Hero Poker: “I was sponsored by PokerStarsfor a couple of years. We decided to part ways at the end of the World Series last year. One of my housemates at the World Series and a really good friend of mine in poker is Terrence Chan… He approached me with a proposal from this site, Hero Poker, which was still in the works at the time.”

The bracelet winner then met with David Jung: “David, who is the CEO, laid it on the line and said, ‘This is what we’re going to do. This is who we’re targeting.’ Basically it’s beginning players and we’re trying to get them involved in the new site… which is one of the reasons we offer a VIP program that is unique to us.”

To say that Hero Poker’s VIP program is unique wouldn’t do it justice. Get ready for us to knock your socks off. “We offer 300 different levels in the VIP program,” Griffin publicized. “We have these small incremental levels, so anyone who is playing on the site, from the smallest limits to the highest limits, can really get involved in the VIP program and really feel like they’re getting something back.”

Other Hero Poker site pros include Chan, Corwin mig.com Mackey (pictured), and David Ewing.

Griffin plays live Limit Hold’em in California card rooms about 40 hours per week and then spends about another dozen hours online. On his passion for Limit Hold’em, which has been dying in areas outside of California, Griffin told listeners, “Terrence and I have talked Limit Hold’em a lot. Most of the guys I lived with during the World Series are all high-stakes Limit Hold’em players… I started off as a Limit Hold’em player… The first three years of my poker career, I pretty much exclusively played Limit Hold’em.”

Moving away from Limit Hold’em, what can new members of Hero Poker expect in terms of tournaments? “The main tournament I’ve played on Hero Poker is a $50,000 Guarantee and it’s sometimes a $100,000 Guarantee,” Griffin previewed. “It’s a $100 buy-in tournament and the fields are smaller than those you’d find on PokerStars and Full Tilt, but the games are pretty good. If you’re not ready for these $100 tournaments, they have tons of these smaller buy-in tournaments every day.”

Finally, we asked Griffin about his live poker Triple Crown. He was the first person ever to win European Poker Tour, World Poker Tour, and World Series of Poker titles. And since Griffin completed the feat in early 2008, only one other player – Roland de Wolfe – has joined the club.

“In 2004, I won the $3,000 buy-in PLO event at the World Series,” Griffin recalled. “This was an example of really terrible bankroll management. I was basically a $20/$40 or $30/$60 Limit Hold’em player. I played a few satellites and won around $1,500 in satellite entry chips. I decided to buy in, but one of the things I definitely believe in is if you don’t have any other responsibilities and the money isn’t going to be a huge detriment, then take a shot.”

Listen to the rest of this week’s PocketFives.com Poker Podcast. And don’t forget to sign up for Hero Poker.