In Event #24 of the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP), one of six $1,000 No Limit Hold’em tournaments on the schedule, longtime PocketFives.com member and staff writer J.D. BubbaKGBMcNamara came out on top, banking $310,000 in his first WSOP in the money finish. The Canadian had an extremely lively railgoing in Off Topic, which he has populated with humor and movie trivia for the last five years. PocketFives.com sat down with McNamara following his monumental runner-up finish to Jeffrey Tebben.

McNamara told PocketFives.com that he couldn’t sleep and so hopped onto MSN for a conversation around Noon in Las Vegas one day following his final table. McNamara shared his emotional state 12 hours removed from the finale: “To be honest, I’m not really as disappointed as I thought I would be, mainly because I played extremely well. Going into the final table, I said that’s all I was focused on and executed perfectly. Yeah, the bracelet and $200,000 more would have been awesome, but all things considered, I’m proud of myself and what I was able to accomplish.”

In his final hand, McNamara put in a pre-flop raise with pocket jacks and received a call from Tebben. The flop came K-10-8 with two spades and both players checked to another king on the turn. Tebben fired out a bet of 350,000 and McNamara called, bringing an offsuit seven on the river. Tebben checked, McNamara bet 325,000, Tebben put McNamara all-in, and the PocketFives.com member insta-called for his tournament life. Tebben, however, showed K-2 for trips and that was all she wrote for McNamara in Event #24.

We asked McNamara to walk us through his thought process in the fateful hand, starting with both players checking the K-10-8 flop with two spades: “I checked behind to disguise my hand and then the turn was the perfect card for my play (or so I thought). His hand misses the board completely most of the time there and when he fired out, I just flatted because I wanted to re-evaluate the river and go from there. When an offsuit seven dropped on the river and he checked to me, I bet to induce a shove because he’ll be doing it with so many hands that I beat and I almost never have a hand as strong as jacks. I snapped him off and he had the king. He played pretty well at the final table though, so congrats to him.”

Among those railing on McNamara was Nat N 82 50 24 Arem (pictured), who kept the Facebook world up to date on his coworker’s progress with several images from the front row. Despite a multitude of fans watching the final table, McNamara admitted, “It was an amazing experience. Having my friends inside the rail enjoying every minute of it and cheering me on is something I’ll never forget, but actually playing the final table wasn’t much different than Day 3.” No bracelet winners made the final table, which played out at the ESPN secondary stage.

The pay jump between second and first place amounted to nearly $200,000, meaning that McNamara and Tebben were dueling for a considerable amount of real money. However, that thought didn’t cross McNamara’s mind: “Money never really crossed my mind. It did a little bit when I went on dinner break because I glanced at the payouts to see where I was, but at the table, I was entirely focused on playing poker.” In February, McNamara won the Full Tilt Poker $20 rebuy for nearly $10,000.

Next up for McNamara may be an entry into the subsequent $1,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament on the WSOP docket, Event #36, which begins on Saturday with the first of two starting days. He’s also contemplating saddling up for the Main Event, which begins in three weeks. In the meantime, McNamara wanted to impart the following words of wisdom on the PocketFives.com community: “Never give up on something you believe in. I haven’t exactly had the most success playing poker over the last two years, but I’ve worked on my game really hard and kept at it and I’m proud of myself for finally putting it all together.”

Check out a partial list of PocketFives.com member cashes. Congratulations, Bubba!