Last month, Michael Kanaan (pictured) was one of 3,075 players who showed up for the weekly PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up. The $215 buy-in tournament comes with a guaranteed purse of $500,000 and Kanaan, who is better known as pktsebens on PocketFives, came away with a fourth place finish for $35,000. He has over $650,000 in tracked online MTT cashes, so we caught up with him to talk about his latest claim to fame.

“It feels great to final table a major,” Kanaan told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “I’ve been on a downswing for most of the year, so I am relieved to bink a decent score on PokerStars.” This is his second largest score we’ve tracked for him, trailing only an FTOPS jersey win in 2012 that was good for $187,000.

Kanaan said he is no stranger to the Warm-Up, explaining, “I have had many deep runs in the Warm-Up, but always seem to fade out when there are 100 people left. This time, I felt like I ran really good in the late stages.” The top 450 players made the money and PokerStars member RibyJl9R came out on top for $96,000.

As we said, his largest tracked cash came in an FTOPS event last year. We asked Kanaan for a recap of that jackpot: “It was my biggest score online. It was the opening $215 FTOPS event when Full Tilt returned back online. I have had some six-figure live scores also, so I always use my money to keep playing. I haven’t really bought anything substantial, though.”

Kanaan is 29 years old and won the 2011 ANZPT Sydney Main Eventfor $203,000. Last year, he emerged victorious from the field in the Asia Championship of Poker Main Event for $223,000. According to the Hendon Mob, Kanaan has $647,000 in live tournament cashes to his name, good for 36th all-time in his homeland of Australia.

Despite his combined $1.3 million in live and online cashes, his family and friends were skeptical of his poker career. He commented, “My family and friends still don’t really get poker. They don’t understand it’s my job and I’m sure most of them just think I’m a big degenerate. At first, they were really worried, but since I have been somewhat successful, they have come around. I turned pro at the beginning of 2011.”

Before playing poker, Kanaan held down a variety of jobs, including bartending, sales, landscaping, and warehousing. Despite his litany of options, he told us, “I just didn’t like anything and despised waking up early and answering to a boss. I also have my real estate license, which I might get back into one day.” He is a full-time pro right now and said he loves “the freedom of doing what I want.”

He wanted to close by pointing out, “I have never been backed and always played off my own dollar.”

You can catch the Sunday Warm-Up every week on PokerStars. If you don’t already have a PokerStars account, sign up through PocketFives’ link and make a deposit to get one free month of PocketFives MTT Training. You’ll also get a 100% up to $600 sign-up bonus. Click here for PocketFives’ PokerStars link.