The final Sunday of October meant a cash windfall for Norwegian poker player dmond(pictured), who took second in the PokerStars Sunday 500for $54,000. It wasn’t his largest cash tracked by PocketFives, but it still earned him well over 400 PLB Points and helped vault him to #159 in the PocketFives Online Poker Rankings, his highest position ever. We caught up with this rising star, who you can find perusing the felts under the screen name d-mon-d on PokerStars.

In September 2010, dmond took down the Sunday Brawl for nearly $100,000, his largest tracked cash to date. Last month, he was back at it, this time collecting $82,000 for final tabling a PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker event. All told, he has nearly $600,000 in tracked earnings, about two-thirds of which has come on PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker room.

On how his Sunday 500 runner-up performance compared to his win in the Brawl, dmond told PocketFives, “It was a little more surprising back then because that was my first really big score. Now, I’m just happy to be able to put up good results on a regular basis.”

A couple of hours into the October 30th running of the Sunday 500, dmond doubled up with Q-J against K-10 after his chips hit the middle on a flop of 10-9-7. After his straight draw came through, he became more aggressive and began to pick up smaller pots to boost his chip count. He then doubled up once more, this time with 10-9 of spades against As-Jh when the money went in on a flop of J-5-8, all spades. A fourth spade failed to come and dmond’s magical run continued.

He entered the final table third in chips, but told us that he laid low until it became six-handed. When four players remained, dmond doubled up with pocket kings against A-10 and wound up heads-up facing a 5:1 chip deficit. He ultimately busted after running pocket tens into pocket jacks, but told us it “wasn’t a big deal.” In case you’re wondering, first place went to shuriken555, who collected $75,000.

On what he plans to do with his $54,000 in newfound cash, dmond predicted, “I’ll just keep grinding. Maybe I’ll play more live tournaments and take a few more vacations.” There were 837 players in the Sunday 500, the top 15% of which made the money and divvied up the $418,000 prize pool.

He got started in poker like several of his contemporaries in the United States and around the world did, by catching the World Poker Tour on television: “I don’t really remember the year, but I remember watching the first WPT season and thinking it must be nice to make money playing cards. I decided after my Sunday Brawl win and my Warm-Up final table last year that I would give it a go, so I quit my day job at the beginning of this year.”

He was a sales manager at a telemarketing company prior to turning to poker and was pleased to be able to represent his home country. “Norway has a really good community with a bunch of talented young players,” dmond told us gleefully. “I’m obviously very proud to represent my country.” He’s currently #2 on the PocketFives Sortable Poker Rankingsfor Norway to Oslo’s p3rc4, who is ranked #123 worldwide and has over $1 million in tracked earnings to his credit.

Here’s how the October 30th edition of the PokerStars Sunday 500 shook out:

1. shuriken555 $75,330.00
2. d-mon-d $54,405.00 (dmond)
3. Palau777 $40,594.50
4. zugzwang16 $30,341.25 (rph)
5. delegator $21,092.40 (delegator)
6. Naza114 $16,740.00 (Naza114)
7. shevliak $12,555.00 (smoker)
8. 7tHEcROw7 $8,370.00
9. skatpelz $5,022.00

Visit PokerStars for more information on this $500 buy-in weekly tournament.