It was a rough day for longtime PocketFiver Randal RandALLinFlowers (pictured), whose shoulder was injured when we talked to him. Oh, and he was also eight-tabling and typing responses to our questions. The veritable Houdini was fresh off winning the Full Tilt Poker $1K Saturday nine days ago for $24,000. It had been a while since we caught up with Flowers, so we reached out for reaction despite the injury.

“Other than the shoulder, I’m feeling pretty good,” Flowers told PocketFives. “I’m living in Mexico grinding. I wasn’t on a huge downswing or anything, but the win helped get the momentum going in the right direction.”

We found out about Flowers’ big $1K Saturday win via Twitter, where his friends and peers congratulated him via an onslaught of messages. “It is definitely a good feeling to be respected among your peers,” Flowers reacted. The World Poker Tour event winner is up to $4.3 million in tracked online MTTs, including $1 million on Full Tilt, where he is better known as ScoopAndStack.

Flowers has continued to grind online in Mexico with a fury, but said he has been living a much more balanced life. He commented, “I used to wake up early and grind a lot of the afternoon. Now, I don’t set an alarm and play when I feel good. I’ve been going to the beach more and been happier in general. I have the luxury of being able to work whenever I want to, so I decided to take advantage of that more and not be a slave to the grind as much.”

Flowers can’t say he injured his shoulder and then not tell us how it went down. He explained that a basketball game was to blame: “I was playing some pickup basketball with a lot of poker players down here. I went for a rebound and strained it. It was pretty painful, but a friend is coming for a bachelor party in a week, so I have to get better.” Meanwhile, he is ranked #66 worldwide on PocketFives and #4 in Mexico.

How do you click buttons online with one bum shoulder while interviewing with PocketFives? “A lot of min-raising and percent of pot bet-sizing,” he joked.

The Mexico pokercommunity is huge any way you slice it. It consists of nearly 500 registered members, including many American transplants, and has total winnings of $106 million, $8.3 million of which has come in the last three months. Players like Flowers, Cal cal42688Anderson (pictured), and Wade ricestud Townsend are among those who have relocated to the North American nation and continued to dominate online.

Speaking on the group who is camped out in Mexico, Flowers commented, “There are so many guys in and out here now, it’s crazy. I have been here two years, so I feel pretty old. A lot come and never leave, though. It has everything. You can do yoga, eat good food, do touristy stuff, and it’s a pretty big party city too. I think at one point someone final tabled the Warm-Up from Playa del Carmen every Sunday for three months.”

Finally, the 2014 World Series of Poker is quickly approaching, with the annual series in Las Vegas set to begin in late May. Flowers final tabled a $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event last year and said, “I’ll be there. The schedule has something for me to play 32 of the 41 days or something silly like that. Last year, I took a two-week break in the middle and came back and crushed online.”

Don’t worry; Flowers won’t be alone in the scorching Nevada desert. His girlfriend is a masseuse and works the WSOP, “so we get an apartment together,” he said. “We rent cars for the summer, keep our heads down, and power through the beast that is the WSOP. If you don’t manage your time, your lack of energy really kills you on long days when equity matters.”

The $1K Saturday runs weekly on Full Tilt Poker. If you don’t already have a Full Tilt account, sign up through the links on PocketFives to get a 100% up to $600 deposit bonus and one free month of PocketFives Training. Get started here.

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