It’s always uplifting to see Europeans dominating on the virtual felts. Take Hungary’s LaNoche, for example, who was part of a five-way chop of the weekly PokerStars Sunday Million last month. His reward was a healthy $115,000 and he officially bowed out of the tournament in third place after outlasting nearly the entire 6,435-player field. His screen name was reminiscent of the Chris Farley “El Nino” skit on “Saturday Night Live,” so we went with that.

“I have been running pretty well lately,” LaNoche said of his recent online poker success. “I had so many deep runs that Sunday in Majors, so I’m glad I could make it this far in one of them.” Due in part to his prowess in the Sunday Million that fateful day, he is up to over $500,000 in tracked online MTT cashes in his PocketFives profile and should be at $550,000 in the very near future.

It’s always difficult getting five humans to agree on anything. He explained, “We had to make an agreement five-handed, which made it a bit harder. Three- and four-handed deals are much easier in my experience. A few hands before finally everyone checked the box to deal, the shortest guy doubled up on me with 7-4 suited versus my 9-9. That was quite disappointing. If he had busted there, I could have reached a much better deal, but good for him anyway.”

The group of five included a sizable chip leader campaigning for a chip chop. LaNoche responded by typing out the results of his last four sessions, all of which were pretty lucrative. The Hungarian noted, “I was backed and sold 50%, so I got to keep half of the money. I’m going to play with a bit higher ABI now.” He didn’t head out to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas or make any hasty purchases. Instead, he concluded, “I’ll just continue playing with it online.”

LaNoche got his start in poker on a popular affiliate site via a free $50 offer. On how he was turned onto the game in general, the recent Sunday Million chopper told us, “There were some TV shows in Hungary on our sports stationthat were commentated by a fun guy who was actually a 50 to 60-year-old singer, so I went for it. I built my whole bankroll up all from the free $50.” He joined PocketFives in mid-2009 and is currently the #4 ranked member of the Hungary poker community.

Speaking of Hungary, the nation is #27 worldwide in our Country Poker Rankingsand its 1,303 registered members have a combined $68 million in online MTT scores, $2.8 million of which has come in the last three months. LaNoche is about 450 PLB Points away from wrestling the top spot in the country away from breeth (pictured).

Our interview subject is still in school and anticipates having a “real world” job at some point. He shared his thought process about his career: “I don’t think this poker stuff will go on forever, so I think I will have a full-time job like ordinary people or at least some kind of a job, as I don’t like getting up early.”

He closed by thanking his backers for supporting him throughout his Sunday Million run, saying, “It was fun having the largest rail.”

Visit PokerStars for more details on the weekly Sunday Million. If you don’t already have a PokerStars account, you can sign up through PocketFives’ links and make a deposit to get a 100% up to $600 deposit bonus and one free month of PocketFives Training with the sign-up fee waived. You can sign up for PokerStars by clicking here.

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