There’s a silver lining to everything. Heck, there’s even an Academy Award nominated movie devoted to the topic. For Spain’s ‘kyleeeOMC‘, losing a loved one, even though very tragic, resulted in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to grind poker.

Let’s rewind back to 2013. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were rocking Thrift Shop, and Man of Steel flew to the top of the box office charts.

At the time, ‘kyleeOMC’ was familiar with poker and had a few smaller cashes. However, he had enough to success to want to move from Spain to the United Kingdom in order to play professionally.

“I remember I told that to my dad and he replied that he had cancer,” he said. “But, he asked me to keep on my road to the UK. Six months later, I received a call that forced me to come back to Spain to say goodbye to my father for the last time. Those were hard times, but I always had poker on mind. It has been the best way to try to forget all of my problems.”

His success in the game is now bittersweet. Although ‘kyleeOMC’ cracked the top 2,000 worldwide on PocketFives last year, he hasn’t been able to share that experience with his dad. “I found myself without my best support,” he said, “but on the other hand I was able to grind some mid-stakes games because of the money I got from his insurance. All I wanted to do was become a professional player. I was coached by ‘EV4dgloryOMC‘, who is a really good friend of mine, and quickly started to get good results.”

Despite not having his biggest fan cheering on his recent success, ‘kyleeOMC’ knows how his dad would react.

“I think he would be proud of me,” ‘kyleeOMC’ said. “It’s not easy to reach this point. He used to play Five Card Draw with his friends once a month. I once asked him about Hold’em and he told me, ‘It’s too much gamble.'”

Apparently it’s just the right amount of gamble.

In recent weeks, ‘kyleeOMC’ took down the 888 Mega Deep for $28,000 under the handle ‘greenlettuce’, beating out 685 other entrants.

“It’s always special when you ship a Sunday Major,” he said. “This one has been very special for me since it’s one of my biggest cashes.” He was one of five members of the PocketFives community to crack the final table.

He was all-in early on in the Mega Deep with aces against kings in a pot that swelled to 300 big blinds. “This tournament has an amazing structure, so it allows you to play a lot of hands,” he said. That allowed him to stay patient throughout, even with a big stack. When 30 players remained, he won a huge pot with tens against A-Q suited and A-Q offsuit to take the chip lead. From there, he cruised to his first Sunday Major win, hopefully making his dad smile.

Before playing poker full-time, ‘kyleeOMC’ was working at a pub in London. “While I was working, I was playing some online poker already,” he recalled. “After talking with a good friend of mine, ‘EV4dgloryOMC’, who was already a pro player, he suggested that I give poker a shot. I asked him for some coaching and finally in 2015, I decided to spend all my time on poker.” Accordingly, he’ll use his $28,000 cash influx to improve his game and build his bankroll.

Besides poker, ‘kyleeOMC’ is a fan of traveling and e-sports. He said of his two other passions, “I think they are the best ways to disconnect from poker, which is really hard for me.” One of his favorite e-sport games is “League of Legends,” which he plays for fun.

Don’t worry. He has no plans to play that game professionally, saying, “I think trying to be a professional in ‘League of Legends’ is a waste of time. I don’t know how many millions of people play it day after day, but becoming a professional in it is impossible, in my opinion. The game is addictive because once you know it, it’s all about strategy and scouting the enemy team. It’s such a funny game and gets better when you meet friends on Skype and play together against another team. Almost everything in ‘League of Legends’ is about making decisions, so that’s why I think it’s really similar to poker.”