Members of PocketFives.com went five months this year without recording a Triple Crown. The award requires a person to win three $10,000 prize pool tournaments across three sites tracked for the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankingsin the same seven-day period. With the shutdown of Full Tilt, the industry lost a major tournament site and so the number of Triple Crowns went the way of the dodo. On November 7th, Canada’s Masakik86 (pictured) finally broke through, winning one and snapping a five-month drought.

His first two Triple Crown wins came on the same day, as Masakik86 took down the $22 European Rebuy on Betfairand the $10 Rebuy on William Hill. The scores were worth $3,900 and $4,200, respectively, and both prize pools were just over $18,000. His final score came seven days later in the Hero Poker $44 Cubed and was good for $2,700 and his third Triple Crown.

The Canuck told PocketFives.com that he was ecstatic to break through and end the streak: “I’m feeling amazing. Many people I know have two Triple Crowns, so to have three feels extra special, although my overall goal is to have at least five so I can be on that top ten Triple Crown winners’ leaderboard. The last time I won two was in a 20-day span, which was pretty amazing at the time. Hopefully, I’ll get more of that run good and win another one soon.”

Once he took down the first two legs of his latest Triple Crown, he noted, “I was laying in bed and realized I actually had a great shot at winning a third Triple Crown because I had the full amount of time to win another $10,000 prize pool tournament.” He entered a $55 No Limit Hold’em tournament on PokerStars shortly thereafter, but ultimately finished in second place for $2,300, just inches short of what would have been a rare 24-hour Triple Crown.

His quest to win his third Triple Crown tournament resulted in nine final tables. Accordingly, he felt quite relieved when he actually recorded a win: “It was quite the battle and I’ve never been so happy to win a tournament in so long. Even if it wasn’t for a lot of money, the accomplishment is worth more than money to me.”

Since Masakik86 broke through on November 7th, two other players have claimed Triple Crowns. PocketFives.com responded to the lack of tournament sites by adding the Ongame and Microgaming Networks to the Rankings, along with PokerStars.fr and PokerStars.it.

When asked why so few Triple Crowns have been recorded recently, Masakik86 speculated, “Mainly because Full Tilt Poker and CEREUS are down and Cake Poker’s guarantees aren’t up like they were before Black Friday. I really hope Full Tilt Poker does come back. It’s still a really sad climate in the poker world right now.”

Masakik86’s poker story is a pretty common one. He got into the game through friends and freerolls. The very first MTT he entered was good for a $45 payout, while the second one earned him another $45. He explained, “I didn’t stay in MTTs, though. I switched to cash games, moving up quickly without any bankroll management. In a few months, I was playing $5/$10 No Limit Hold’em when the games were extra soft.”

He took a nine-month hiatus from the game in college due in part to a girlfriend. He narrated, “By the time we broke up, PocketFives.com member ryanghall (pictured) just won an FTOPS $300 Cubed event for $160,000. At the time, we were poker friends and he lived just up the street. He was grinding out MTTs full-time and the cash games didn’t seem as juicy, so I made the switch. Of course, he mentored me and gave me plenty of help.”

Masakik86 continued, “He asked for nothing in return. He’s truly a good person and I’ll probably never be able to repay him for what he did for me. I quit my job the next year and started a blog site to see if I could make $100,000 in one year playing just MTTs. I managed to get my goal and even had a little fan base. That was a nice accomplishment. Now, I’m working on a new site where a group of MTT grinders are going to see if we can make $1 million combined profit in 365 days. We’ll see how that goes.”

He joined PocketFives in 2008 and explained that the poker community helped him set goals for his career: “Having goals really helps motivate people. I doubt that a lot of the top PocketFives.com players would be such hardcore grinders if it weren’t for PocketFives.com. I know I wouldn’t be. We really do owe PocketFives.com a lot.”

He wanted to extend quite a few shout outs, most notably to Leroy Wong, Ben f3nix35Dobson, PoorScouser, Joseph subiimeCheong (pictured), xAlyssax, Jigs Flippin, Arniee, Dan shadyj10McGregor, Patrick 905thugginPattison, Nick NG3434Gagnon, kongo_totte, and, of course, ryanghall.

Visit our Triple Crown Wall of Champions to see who else has taken home this prestigious award.