Over 4,000 players turned out for the January 9th Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guarantee. Each won a satellite or put up the $200+16 buy-in and battled for a piece of the $809,000 prize pool. In the end, Mike goleafsgoehLeah (pictured) chopped heads-up with Full Tilt member sasodiits and walked away with a $100,000 cash infusion. For the win, sasodiits pocketed $128,000 after $20,000 was left on the table to play for.

“The other player was on my left for the last couple of tables and I thought he played pretty well,” Leah admitted when asked why the chop occurred. “When we got heads-up, he asked if I wanted to chop and I said I would want more than my ICM. He said he was open to discuss it and so we looked at the numbers. He gave me a little more and was okay with leaving a decent chunk to play for, which I wanted, so I decided to make the deal instead of playing for $60,000.”

Leah was down seven million to 12 million in chips at the time, but conceded that he wouldn’t have chopped had the stacks been reversed. He added, “We were 100 big blinds deep and I would expect myself to win most times that deep, but I decided to lock up the cash instead. $100,000 is a lot of money. We played for well over two hours heads-up and I just wasn’t able to finish him off.” Leah was the lone member of the online poker community to reach the final table.

In November, Leah took down a Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) jersey along with $92,000 in cash. On his recent Rush Poker Turbo FTOPS and $750,000 Guarantee runs, Leah told us, “It was a little dry in between my two big scores early in 2010. I took two months off after the WSOP and got back into shape and I think that helped. I also started playing a lot of live cash.” On his motivation to get back into shape, Leah assessed, “It’s always been a big part of my life. I just let it slip in the last year or so, which is easy to do in the ‘poker life.’ Health and happiness are very underrated parts of poker.”

Leah has been a force on the live tournament circuit. He won a $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event during the 2006 Bellagio Cup for $86,000 and then final tabled the U.S. Poker Championship Main Event two years later for $75,000. Leah was the runner-up in a $5,000 preliminary event during the 2009 L.A. Poker Classic for $152,000 and then won a $1,500 Deep Stack Main Event at the Borgata one month later for over $300,000. He also took home the gold in a $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event during the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza in July 2009 for another $119,000.

He’s now shooting for the top 10 in the 2011 Player of the Year standings and top 100 in the Online Player of the Year race. He’s also looking forward to the 2011 World Series of Poker(WSOP), which kicks off the day after Memorial Day from the Rio in Las Vegas. “I’m pretty happy with most things at the WSOP other than my results,” Leah joked. “But the food options suck. Bring back the Thai noodle place from a couple of years ago.”

When we caught up with Leah, he was, like many members of the community, immersed in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) in the Bahamas. Leah gave us the lay of the land in the annual tournament series: “They have gotten amazing turnouts for the side events this year. Plus, the cash games and sit and gos have been great too. It has been a trip that’s not-to-be-missed poker-wise.” Although it wasn’t as warm as Leah would have liked, he still had a productive trip.

We heard from some at Atlantis last year that food prices had skyrocketed. Leah commented, “It’s still pretty pricey for food and hotel rooms. If you don’t win a package online, then it is really expensive, but with the events and side action, I can’t see myself skipping it with or without a package in the future.” He has been able to fund his bankroll by virtue of recording four online scores of $84,000 or more in the last 12 months.

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