Eleven days ago, the United Kingdom’s Kevin scarface2911Howe (pictured) came away with a fourth place finish in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up. Howe’s reward was $41,000 and he watched as the remaining three players forged a deal guaranteeing each of them at least $81,000. While he called the three-way chop immediately following his exit “frustrating,” Howe still vaulted to #52 worldwide in the PocketFives Poker Rankings, his highest mark to date, on the strength of having the 43rd best PLB tally.

“I went through a bad downswing last year, a mixture of the World Series of Poker and losing on PokerStars, so it feels good to get a decent score,” Howe told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “I have been working on my game a lot over the last few months and playing a lot. I have found PocketFives Trainingto be really helpful, as Assassinato‘s videos have helped me a lot.”

PocketFives Training runs $29.95 per month with a $35 sign-up fee and discounts are given for six- and 12-month memberships. As part of a special two-day promotionwe’re running right now, you can actually get a six-month membership for half-price through the end of the day on Friday and then claim rebates on PartyPoker to make your purchase completely free. Check out the thread in Poker Community for more details and to get started.

On how Assassinato (pictured), who has over $2 million in tracked winnings to his credit, has helped Howe’s game, the latter remarked, “He explained 3betting and 4betting ranges and the percentage of players making these bets using PokerTracker very well. When it comes to 4betting and 5betting, I was still unsure of the hand ranges I should be doing this with and his videos helped me there.”

PocketFives Training videos have been helpful to Howe’s game overall. The U.K. native shared why he decided to sign up for the site in the first place: “Just a few things that I didn’t do before like using the instant hand histories for information on game flow when I’m multi-tabling and the way the top players play post-flop in 3bet pots.”

Howe’s major claim to fame in the online poker world is a win in the PartyPoker Monthly Million two years ago for $200,000. He’s also recorded a pair of online poker Triple Crowns and shared his goals for the coming year: “I would like to play some WPTs, maybe an EPT, and the WSOP this summer. I have had one good live score, so I would love to add to that. I will be grinding online a lot until March and then I’ll play some live events. As far as the PocketFives Rankings go, top ten at some point this year would be nice.”

His big splash in the live poker arena came in June 2010, when Howe landed in third place in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event held during the WSOP and walked away with nearly a quarter of a million dollars. He’s played four WPT events, but has yet to cash, and has never entered an EPT tournament. Needless to say, the coming months will see Howe enter uncharted territory.

The January 8th PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up fielded 3,619 entrants and offered up a total prize pool of over $700,000. Here’s how the final table cashed out, reflecting the three-way deal:

1. BAGBAGBAGBAG – $91,043.18
2. crazylandd – $81,773.19
3. NhFy – $85,219.50
4. scarface2911 – $41,618.50 (scarface2911)
5. jaaaaaaack – $30,761.50 (jaaaaaaack)
6. moneyinbag – $23,523.50 (moneyinbag, pictured)
7. .i. prestige – $16,285.50
8. Kedrila – $9,047.50 (kedrila)
9. Gry Dilling – $5,790.40

Howe wanted to send a shout out to fellow Glasgow resident THEKID_88, who simply goes by Marco here on PocketFives. Marco is ranked #713 worldwide and is quickly closing in on his $500,000 cash badge. One week ago, he took down the PartyPoker $30,000 Guaranteed Super Thursday Rebuy, which has a $99 price tag, for $10,000.

Visit PokerStarsfor more information on the site’s tournament schedule and click over to PocketFives Poker Training to take advantage of our two-day offer.