Paul Berende (pictured), better known as padjeson PocketFives, recently chopped a PokerStars TCOOPevent heads-up and booked a $100,000 payday. He is from the Netherlands, was camped out in the Bahamas for the PCA, and then made his way to Brazil on a last-second whim, where he proceeded to chop a TCOOP tournament. The $109 Cubed TCOOP event brought out a field of nearly 3,700 players and PocketFivers landed in the top five spots. The nomadic poker player’s chopping partner was fellow community member bullyon.

PocketFives: Walk us through how the tournament went in general, any big spots you can remember, and why the deal happened.

Paul Berende: I wasn’t really playing the tournament differently than any other tournament. I just started my regular Sunday grind and meanwhile I was getting deep in this one, so I put it on the side of my screen to focus on it more. I started the final table fourth in chips and got some chips early on. I tried to take every possible good steal spot I could and ended up winning almost all of the showdowns, which of course made it a lot easier.

Three- or four-handed, we were talking about a deal, which was pretty much okay for me at that point because it was based on chip-chop numbers, not ICM, and at the time I was the big chip leader. But, one of the other players crawled back and decided he wanted more, which I didn’t accept, so we played on and instantly one of the other guys busted, so we ended up with even stacks heads-up. We made a deal to take almost the same amount and play for the remainder.

PocketFives: Tell us about this whirlwind adventure you were on in the Western Hemisphere.

Paul Berende: I was in Brazil on vacation with some friends at the time of my TCOOP chop, so we just continued partying and enjoying the beach. It was awesome: 30 degrees Celsius every day. We decided to go there at the last minute after we made a trip to the Bahamas. It was actually just one friend and I chilling in the lobby of a hotel playing on PokerStars; nobody even knew I was playing for that kind of money.

PocketFives: You recently finished second in WPT Baden for $173,000 and have nearly $1.5 million in live tournament cashes to your name, according to the Hendon Mob. Do you think your live experience and success have helped you online at all?

Paul Berende: I have been on a heater the last couple of months. I think my online experience has helped me more live than vice-versa, but because I have been playing live for a couple of years, I feel really comfortable on the live tables.

I learned the basics of poker playing online, not live, but overall live poker tends to be a lot softer than online poker, which makes it a lot more interesting to play some higher buy-ins as well.

So far, I have been doing well in live tournaments in Holland and Belgium especially. I think there will always be a lot of value in live poker because there are so many locals and hobby players who want to pay the buy-in of a live tournament just because they like the game and the experience. Everybody is still learning and getting better, though, so it’s up to you to get ahead and stay ahead.

PocketFives: How did you get started in poker?

Paul Berende: I started like a lot of players did, playing freerolls online just trying to get better and learning from my mistakes. But, I also have played a lot of card games for serious money with friends since I was like 12 years old. We were playing all kinds of different games against each other for more money than we had and ended up paying each other about 20% of the real amount we owed.

PocketFives: What do you hope to accomplish in poker this year?

Paul Berende: I really want to win a major live tournament in the near future because I was so close in WPT Baden. I was one card away from winning a WPT title.

See who else is making waves in our Netherlands poker community.

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