Here’s a thought you might have not had. What if playing online during the World Series of Poker is actually more profitable than going to the WSOP itself? Sure, if you win the WSOP Main Event, you’d be up $10 million, but for all but one member of the poker community, winning the Main Event isn’t an option.

Take Levi Espeseth (pictured), for example, who goes by LEMMlWlNKSon PocketFives and chopped the PokerStars Sunday Million last month for $174,000. The tournament drew nearly 7,500 players despite the WSOP and he told us, “I don’t really feel any differently than before I chopped the Million except for a little extra freedom, the ability to play slightly higher stakes, and a higher earnings potential.”

The Sunday Million took place during the annual poker get-together in Las Vegas, which, according to Espeseth, led to a dampened field. “The field seemed especially weak,” he said, “although the Sunday Million is obviously the highest value high-stakes MTT every week. You wouldn’t think that having maybe 300 fewer good regs in the field would affect the value of the tournament all that much, but it really does. With 36 players left, there were maybe nine regs and there were probably five or six recreational players at the final table.”

He surmised, “I don’t play a full MTT schedule, but I think there’s a lot more money to be made playing online during the WSOP than at the WSOP itself, especially for mid-stakes grinders.”

Espeseth chopped heads-up with elmelogno4, who ultimately took first place for $214,000, $40,000 more than Espeseth made. “Four-handed, the chip leader wanted some ridiculous deal that was clearly not going to work out, something like $20,000 more than ICM,” he said. “I think he was asking for $210,000 and wanted to play for $20,000 when first place was around $220,000.”

No deal was struck, but talk of a chop resurfaced two-handed. “When we got heads-up, we chopped fairly quickly,” he explained. “I think I didn’t make the best deal with a 3:1 chip disadvantage and taking a straight chip-chop plus playing for $20,000, but I didn’t want to play a $60,000 heads-up match and really wanted to watch the new episode of ‘Game of Thrones,’ so I took the deal.” Now the truth comes out.

We talked to Espeseth at the beginning of June and he said of that week’s “Game of Thrones” episode, “I thought it was good. It was a little different than it usually is. Everyone wants to know what is going to happen to Tyrion Lannister (pictured) and the show’s writers decided they were going to make us wait a little longer to find out. Having an episode where the whole episode was a battle scene was a bit of different vibe, but it was a fun episode for sure.” If you don’t watch “Game of Thrones,” you probably have no clue what we’re talking about.

As fate would have it, Espeseth almost didn’t end up playing in the Sunday Million that week. Instead, he was going to drive to Los Angeles, California to see a Victor Wooten concert, but decided to sell off 30% of himself to his brother and moexx161and late reg the tournament instead. “I guess it was a good decision,” he quipped.

Let’s get back to poker now. In January 2013, he moved from the United States to Mexico to keep playing online poker and has been back and forth ever since. He took time off in December 2011 to give playing online full-time a shot. He explained, “I’ve spent around seven months in Mexico now in different stints and enjoy it. I really enjoy playing online poker. The money is good, but the competition of it and always trying to improve are what I enjoy the most.”

His long-term plans don’t involve playing poker, but rather going back to school, finishing his music education major, and becoming a high school band teacher. “For now,” Espeseth said, “the decision basically comes down to the life EV of going to school versus the monetary EV of playing poker. I enjoy the freedom, competition, and profitability of poker too much to go back quite yet.”

He wanted to send a shout out to moexx161, whom he called “the best 180-man grinder in the game.”

The Sunday Million runs weekly on PokerStars, the largest site in the world. If you don’t have a PokerStars account, sign up through the links on PocketFives and get a 100% up to $600 deposit bonus and one free month of PocketFives Training with no signup fee. Click here to create your account.

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