In the October 19th edition of the $1,050 buy-in PokerStars Super Tuesday, Joe hoodini10Udine (pictured) came away with $54,000 after taking second place. The weekly tournament boasts a $300,000 guaranteed prize pool and, with 375 players entering, Udine competed for a slice of a $375,000 purse. He has been a contributing member of the online poker community ever since the site’s first year in existence and has amassed over $3 million in tournaments tracked for the Poker Rankings, one of the highest totals out there.

Udine has had success in tournaments on all days of the week, not just Sundays. He’s a former Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) champ and took second in the site’s $1K Monday at the end of 2008 for over $130,000 total. On the first day of August, Udine won the Full Tilt $150 Rebuy for $72,000; he finished second in the room’s $100 Rebuy earlier this year for another $40,000.

We asked Udine to point out some of the differences between Sunday Majors that we usually report on and tournaments like the Super Tuesday, which fill the void during the week. Udine explained, “The biggest differences are the structure and field size. Usually in Sunday Majors, you’re facing a large field and the structure is fairly quick. I think the Super Tuesday allows for the most play both early and deep. When we got to heads-up, we were about even in chips with over 100 big blinds each, which is nice and deep.” Udine fell heads-up to Shhh00kem, who pulled down over $70,000.

What is the skill level of the field in a tournament that sports a four-figure buy-in? Is it chalk full of regulars? Are there soft spots to be found? Udine critiqued, “PokerStars has done a good job of offering a bunch of satellites to the Super Tuesday, which makes the field quality good. As of late, I’ve found that it’s been a fairly manageable field and, with the structure, you can accumulate chips steadily.”

One day before his Super Tuesday cash for $54,000, Udine won the Full Tilt Poker $100 Cubed, adding another $14,000 to his bankroll. Hours before, he drove down to the Borgata in Atlantic City to play in a $1,000 Deep Stack event, but busted out after five levels. That night, convinced that he had played well and hungry for a win, Udine proceeded to claim the $100 Cubed title. He also took home a PokerStars Caribbean Adventure package that night and will make the trip to the Bahamas in January.

On the $100 Cubed on Full Tilt, Udine remarked, “That tournament is one of my favorites on Full Tilt even though it usually doesn’t pay out much more than $20,000 to first place. The structure starts out really deep if you rebuy right away and then the levels actually get longer as you get deeper in the structure, which allows you to exploit weakness much more.”

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure carries special meaning for Udine, who got engaged at the annual tournament back in 2008. This time around, Udine is interested in hitting up the Atlantis’ links. “There are a lot of tournaments in Europe that are much further away, are more expensive to travel to, and you’re not at the Atlantis either,” Udine proclaimed. “Atlantis is a great venue for a poker trip and hopefully I won’t have time to play golf because I’ll be winning the tournament, but if not, I heard the course is pretty nice, so I’d like to check it out.”

In case you didn’t know, Udine is the nephew of online great Joseph JOEYTHEB Brooks (pictured), who has been part of PocketFives.com since the very beginning. This author hadn’t heard from Brooks in a while and asked Udine for an update. “Joey’s doing well,” explained the recent Super Tuesday final table member. “He has a beautiful family with his wife and three kids and has been spending a lot of time with them. My cousins play a lot of sports and can be more than a handful. He plays poker here and there online and only lives 15 minutes from Atlantic City.”

Check out PokerStars for more information on the $1,050 buy-in Super Tuesday.