Earlier this month, Canada’s Raymond aznxrayChen (pictured) took down the 888 Poker Sunday Challenge outright and scooped $24,000. The tournament had 747 entrants and passed its guarantee by nearly 4%. Chen is a relative newcomer to PocketFives, so we thought we’d talk about the Sunday Challenge, his victory celebration (a.k.a. food), and poker life in the middle of Canada.

“It was just another day at the office,” Chen told PocketFives about his Sunday Major win. “I’m planning to save that money and pad my bankroll. I’m not looking to splurge until I make like a $50,000 score. I feel a very important part of playing MTTs is game selecting. I don’t really have a guideline in terms of what stakes to play, but rather which MTTs to avoid. So, if a series goes on like the FTOPS, I will still play in the Two-Day Event, for example, but with this score, I can afford to sell less of myself.”

Heads-up in the Sunday Challenge, Chen squared off against Poland’s dadowiec, who sits at #46 in the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings and was once ranked in the top 10. Chen told us, “Throughout the final table, I felt like dadowiec was doing a good job of keeping the pressure on. When it went to heads-up, I felt like I had an edge and, at the time, I had a slight chip lead. He was the type to 3bet more often than 4bet, so I had to adjust my 3bet range for that.”

Chen had a 2:1 chip lead early on in heads-up play. Then, he had 9-9 and 3bet before the flop planning to snap-call a 4bet or shove all-in over the top. The flop came Q-6-5 with two spades and Chen pushed out a continuation bet. dadowiec called behind and the turn was a queen. Chen check-jammed and dadowiec flipped over K-Q for trips. A saving nine on the river, however, gave Chen the pot in amazing fashion.

Following his big win, it was 11:00 at night. Rather than go out and celebrate, Chen ate. He told us with a laugh, “At that point, it was about 11:00pm, so there wasn’t really much to do.I just went out to grab some food.” That was his celebration for his largest tracked score to date.

He got started in poker after his older brother turned him onto the game. “He would send me a dollar on Full Tilt and I would try to grind out $0.01/$0.02. That was back in 2009 and it wasn’t until late 2012 that I started talking strategy with my friend pkratitsbest. Then, I got good at MTTs.” He told us that he has made $100,000 in the last year and gone on his own in micro-stakes MTTs.

Chen makes his home in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (pictured), a location that’s suited for live poker trips. He explained, “I wasn’t really rolled for live MTTs until recently. I’m from Edmonton, so our poker scene isn’t the greatest. We just had a poker series called the Klondike Series that was decent, but that only comes around yearly, I think. I finished 11th in the Main Event and it had $33,000 up top, and the buy-in was $560.”

He added, “To the south of Edmonton is Calgary, which is a three-hour drive. They have pretty good series every so often. Other than the tournament series, I just stick to online poker. I don’t have any good friends who play poker, so it took me a while to improve. pkratitsbest and I talk a lot about strategy through Skype. I met him last year and he’s from Hong Kong. I joined a Skype MTT group and it turned out no one really talked strategy, but I met pkratitsbest and we became good friends.”

His goal for the middle of 2013 was to rake in $20,000. He told us, “Since then, I’ve crushed it. I was planning to make $100,000, but this is the last month and I’m at about $70,000 now. I go to university, so summertime is when I can really dedicate myself.”

Chen is seeking his Bachelor of Commerce and will be heading back to school in September. Then, he’ll only be able to play online poker on the weekends if his schedule allows. Right now, he has $321,000 in tracked online MTT cashes.

For the next week only, PocketFives is giving away a free Full Hold’em license to PokerTracker 4worth $99.99 to anyone who signs up for 888 Poker through PocketFives’ links, makes a deposit of at least $30, and generates 100 Status Points within seven days. You need to create your 888 Poker account by clicking here. Deposit by 23:59 ET on Thursday, August 29.

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