"I Also Enjoy Playing Video Games, Especially FIFA on PlayStation 4"
To close out the 2014 calendar year, hbo06(pictured) was part of a six-way chop of the PokerStars Sunday Million Special Editionfor a commanding $241,000. A few weeks later, he is at his all-time high in the PocketFives Online Poker Rankingsat #1,099 worldwide and plays as manipulatoron PokerStars and dajmiczipsyon 888 Poker.
“It feels really great,” hbo06 told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “It took a few days before I realized how much money I actually won. It is an amount that most people in Poland would work for many, many years.” He calls Krakow home and is the #2 player in that city.
When the final table was down to six players, each person clicked the “Discuss a deal” button and the group started negotiations. He told us, “As a short-stack, I insisted on an ICM deal and, as you’d expect, the chip leader wanted a chip-chop that would have given him over $100,000 more than ICM. However, we compromised very quickly. We took an ICM deal minus $5,000 each for the chip leader. Then, we continued to play for $50,000 for first place. I think that kind of deal was fantastic for me because although my opponents were pretty weak, the average stack was only 25 big blinds deep and I was down to just 13.”
TrondheimAAAcame away with the win for almost $500,000, or $160,000 more than the next closest person received in the chop.
As a result of his six-figure score, hbo06 said he’d start playing low-stakes and mid-stakes MTTs on his own dime. He’ll also start a coaching regiment in an effort to hone his skills. hbo06 has played poker full-time for the last year-and-a-half and said, “Before this, I was studying at university, but gave it up. Maybe I will go back to it someday, but for now I’ll concentrate on poker.”
He hasn’t publicized his score too much, mainly just telling his family and poker friends. The Polish player has been engaged in the industry for a half-dozen years and said that he got into the game after he saw an ad for poker online. “Outside of poker, hbo06 plays in an amateur football league. He added, “I also enjoy playing video games, especially FIFA on PlayStation 4. I’ve even had my own little successes because lately I reached first in my league. I really enjoy playing that game, but I must admit my mindset is terrible when it comes to FIFA.”
We’ll close by talking about the Poland pokercommunity on PocketFives, which is 1,003 members strong and has total winnings in excess of $83 million. Poland is #14 in PocketFives’ Country Poker Rankings with a combined PLB score of its top 20 players of 74,874 points.
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