Earlier this month, Jase Regina, known on PocketFives as SSSMforlife(pictured), finished third in the weekly Full Tilt Poker Sunday Brawland reeled in $19,000. He calls Toronto home and can be found at #509 worldwide in the PocketFives Online Poker Player Rankings, about 30 spots off his all-time high. He is now headed to Whistler to celebrate his score.

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“I’m feeling pretty good,” Regina told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “I feel like a lot of hard work is finally paying off. Outside of poker, things are great as well.” He is just $45,000 shy of capturing a $500,000 cash badge and joined PocketFives in mid-2007.

The Brawl features $40 bounties placed on the heads of each entrant. Many players we’ve talked to tend to ignore the extra cash up for grabs completely, but Regina told us, “I don’t place too much value on the bounties, especially later on in the tournament. I might loosen up my range a bit in terms of isolating short stacks and calling shoves in the beginning of the tournament, though. I would also slightly adjust my shoving range as a short stack knowing I might be called a little bit lighter.”

Regina recalled that the Brawl started off fairly slowly in the early levels, but he didn’t fall below 20 big blinds at any point before the final table. He added, “I was able to slowly build up my stack and was fortunate enough to win a few key flips heading into the final table. The final table was a pretty tough grind. There were a few really good players and the chip leader early on was really taking advantage of ICM and playing almost every hand.”

Regina said he picked his spots well at the final table and was able to grind his way to three-handed play, winning a couple of coin flips along the way. He explained, “In the end, I shoved 2-2 into A-J and lost, busting in third place. It was bittersweet to bust there, obviously, but overall it felt good and I’m happy with the way I played.”

The Canuck is backed, so a portion of his winnings will be earmarked for makeup. He added that he paid off a few bills, bought a snowboard, and booked a trip to Whistler.

If you look at Regina’s top five tracked scores on PocketFives (pictured), four of them are for third place finishes in the Big $109, Sunday Brawl, Big $55, and $11 Rebuy. Is he frustrated not being able to close one out? “Considering I had never had a five-figure score before 2013, I’m pretty happy with it,” he remarked. “When I came in third in the Bigger $109 in January, I actually chopped four-handed, so not getting first there was not an issue. In the Big $55 and Sunday Brawl, I was somewhat disappointed, but I thought in both tournaments I played well and could not have done much differently three-handed.”

2005 marked the year that Regina was turned onto poker. Like many other PocketFivers, he got his start in home games and eventually migrated to a local casino to play cash games. From there, he found his way online. We have logged 2,128 cashes on PokerStarsalone for Regina, and 24 victories across all sites. You can find him on the world’s largest online poker room playing under the user name SSSMBRFC2/C.

He closed by sending a shout out to TeamFoldto2nd and to his backers: “Without discussing spots and reviewing with them, there’s no way I’d be playing anywhere near the level I am.” You can find him at #19 in Toronto, #42 in Ontario, and #87 in Canada.

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