Last month, Canada’s Alexandre Fournier (pictured), known as fournnon PocketFives, was part of a four-way chop of the PokerStars Sunday Million. His reward was $98,000, far and away his largest online poker cash to date, and, as a result, he has zoomed to #536 worldwide in the PocketFives Rankings.

PocketFives: How are you feeling about the Sunday Million chop?

Alexandre Fournier: It feels really good to go deep in a tournament. I have had a lot of tough endings like my TCOOP final table, but with this cash I’ll be able to level in my MTT stake, which is what I really wanted to do.

PocketFives: What stakes will you move up to?

Alexandre Fournier: Mid- and high-stakes MTTs. I also want to prepare myself really well for the next WCOOP.

PocketFives: Tell us about the chopand how that went down.

Alexandre Fournier: It started during the 10,000-20,000 level. I lost a huge flip and had two big blinds left. I folded two hands, jammed Q-2 suited UTG, and won. Then, I shoved K-10, which held against Q-9 offsuit. After those two pots, I started to tell myself that the field was not that difficult and there were not a lot of players left.

I won a big pot when there were 100 players left with A-K versus K-J on a king-high rainbow flop. When there were 36 left, I started to get playback in some tough spots, so I folded and folded and survived until the top 18.

I entered the top 15 in last place and picked up A-J of clubs UTG with 11 big blinds on a short table, so I jammed, only to get snap-called by A-A and jammed on top by 9-9. The flop came K-8-Q with one club and I hit a running flush. I’ll never forget that moment: the moment you are the one who’s getting lucky in an important pot.

In the second hand of the final table, I lost K-K to 9-9 with a nine in the window and, after that, I played pretty tightly at the final table. I was really card dead and had one of the worst final table seats, so when we were four-handed and I suggested a deal, they agreed to it and I was pretty happy. I almost had the six-digit cash I wanted.

PocketFives: Do you have any plans for the money?

Alexandre Fournier: I want to let my girlfriend have some fun with renovations in my condo. The rest of the money will be saved for my bankroll and a future live event I want to play.

PocketFives: How did you get started in poker?

Alexandre Fournier: About five years ago, I remember final tabling a $1.10 tournament in which I finished fourth for $200. I remember screaming, “Hey dad, I won $200 with $1” and, after that, I wanted to play poker for a living like a lot of young players did. But, I had no bankroll and now I realize how bad I was.

In the beginning of 2014, I was a car salesman, but was not happy with life in general. I finished a five-year relationship with my ex-girlfriend at that moment too, so I said to myself, “I am not able to work nine to nine every day doing something I don’t like and thinking about poker all day, so let’s be happy and do what I am good at.” In the beginning of 2014, I dropped my job and started playing poker full-time.

Around the same time, I met Jonathan Bardier (pictured), who is POKER OWN U on PokerStars. Jonathan helped me a lot with my game. We met online and he lives two streets away from me. We started to have some small MTT results and I was feeling really good. Now, I never want to look back.

PocketFives: What do your friends and family think about your poker career? Are they okay with you playing?

Alexandre Fournier: My mother is my best friend. At the beginning, she was always like, “Hey Alex, do what you like. If you can make a living from poker and be happy, do it.” My father is a really strict person I think it was hard for him to understand, so to make him proud and to have a backup, I am studying part-time at the University du Quebec in Montreal. Only a few of my friends believed in me initially, but now when they see my results, what can they say?

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