It’s a dual life of sorts for longtime PocketFiver Eric blizairBlair (pictured), who chopped the Full Tilt Poker $350,000 Guaranteed earlier this month for $63,000. He has over $4 million in tracked cashes in his PocketFives profile and splits his time between Las Vegas for live poker and Rosarito, Mexico for online poker. You can find him playing under the moniker ericb09 on PokerStars, by the way.

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“I’m feeling great,” Blair said of his win on Full Tilt following a two-way chop. “I know daaaaaaaaaang7pretty well and he’s a tough player, so I was happy to chop with him. I hadn’t won anything significant in a while, so it felt good to lock up some money.” daaaaaaaaaang7 walked off with $52,000 after the chop and over 1,800 players registered.

“Every player at the table knew what they were doing,” Blair said of the final nine, which included the likes of Liverpool’s Gavin gavb31Ball (pictured), Sydney’s mjw006, and Baja del Sur’s StrungOut1. The latter two are in the top 100 worldwide on PocketFives and Blair told us, “Gavin seemed like a strong player. I was definitely happy to see him gone.”

For the last three years, Blair has been living in Las Vegas. He explained, “I didn’t get my online poker accounts back until a year ago for the last SCOOP and since then, I have been coming down to Rosarito, Mexico for the bigger tournament series, but haven’t had much luck yet. I live with my girlfriend J Rae, play live cash sometimes, and get a lot of golf in.”

How hard is it splitting time between the U.S. and Mexico in order to be able to play on sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt when bigger tournaments roll around? Blair commented, “I never really get bored in Vegas because people are always coming into town for this and that and I have a nice group of friends there. I miss online so much though. I don’t love Rosarito, but it’s the most convenient for me. I can drive six hours from Las Vegas, or this time I flew to San Diego, my friend picked me up, and we drove an hour down here.”

As you probably know by now, Ultimate Poker launched real money online poker games in Nevada, becoming the first regulated room in the United States. “I was going to sign up for Ultimate Poker,” Blair said of the Nevada site, “but it’s not Mac-compatible yet. Plus, the cash games are only 50 big blinds deep, which is weak. I’m sure they’ll figure it out, though. I love the idea of being able to deposit and pick up money from a casino right down the road.” Rumors are that Caesars will likely launch its real money poker site in Nevada in the next few weeks using 888’s software.

His home state of Nevada will host the World Series of Poker starting this week and running until mid-July. Plus, there will be tournament series-a-plenty at casinos like the Venetian and Caesars Palace. On his WSOP plans, Blair said, “I’ll be in most of the $2,500 events and under and, of course, the Main Event. They are all quick structures, but if you can get a stack in them, you’re set. The competition is easier deep than a $5K or above where it’s a bunch of world-class players. Anything six-max is fun too.”

Blair also dabbles in cash games in Las Vegas, particularly $5/$10 and $10/$20. He noted, “I like live cash a lot. There are tons of characters who are regs in the games there. It’s a lot of fun to play with those guys. I have always liked tournaments better, though. It’s just much more of a rush to get deep in one.”

In 2009, Blair final tabled the SCOOP Main Event and officially reeled in $183,000. The same year, he won the $1K Monday and finished second in the Sunday 500 for a combined $140,000. He won the latter tournament two years ago for $93,000 officially, the second largest score we have tracked for him.

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