One week after Lee Jones shocked the online poker world by leaving his position as Poker Room Manager at PokerStarsin favor of doing commentary at the European Poker Tour, PocketFivers dominated the top online poker site. Three PocketFivers in particular, Imper1um, Andy McLEOD, and Tmay420, owned PokerStars on Sunday. Imper1um took down the $200 rebuy, defeating Andy McLEOD heads up. Tmay420 finished 7th. In the Stars Second Chance $200 tournament, Tmay420 chopped for over $35,000 and Andy McLEOD finished 8th. All told, these PocketFivers cashed for over $100,000.

Imper1um, who plays on Stars under the name zangbezan24, beat AndyMcLEOD heads up and over 170 players total for $39,120 in the $200 rebuy. Heads up against a fellow PocketFiver, Imper1um commented, “I started off with a 2:1 chip lead and ended up almost 4:1. Then, he doubled through me twice and all of a sudden we were back to even. It was really a roller coaster of a heads up match.” Imper1um has had a considerable amount of experience playing against Andy McLEOD, but noticed, “He was definitely playing a lot better than I've seen him play. I knew I could take him, but I also know that, heads up, at those blind levels, you do have to take a lot of risks and, against a tough opponent like Andy McLEOD, I didn’t feel like I had that big of an edge.” Other PocketFivers at the final table of the $200 rebuy included inissint (who finished fourth), pbdrunks (who finished fifth), stpauli111 (who finished sixth), Tmay420 (who finished seventh), and Sluggle (who finished ninth). All in all, the $200 rebuy was a tournament rich with PocketFivers.

Andy McLEOD comments on Imper1um’s play: “I think undoubtedly he is one of the best in the world at deep-stacked heads up play, undoubtedly far more advanced than I am. Through our history, we both think each other is always full of it in any hand. So I think even though, at least in my case, I was confident that when he was betting hard, he did indeed have it, I found myself making crying calls based on our history of showing each other mad bluffs when we would play heads up.” On his own game recently: “My play has been varied. A lot of days that I play, I am just embarrassed at my play and the fact that people saw me play how I did since sometimes I just make moronic moves due to lack of concentration or tilt (or maybe I just make bad decisions in certain scenarios). On major days, I think I've been playing very well, so I'm still happy with my game.” AndyMcLEOD’s second place in the $200 rebuy earned him $26,080. His eighth place finish in the Second Chance earned him $4,476.

Tmay420’sroad to chopping the Second Chance was abnormal, at best. Down 1.1 million to 1.6 million chips heads up, his opponent asked for a chop and Tmay420 did not respond, preferring to play it out. His opponent, riverman2x, asked support to pause the tournament and his wish was granted. Tmay420 remarked, “Once we got to that point, I said even chop or nothing.” After some bargaining, Tmay420 gave riverman2x $1,000 for his chip lead and took home a payday of $36,200 himself. “Riverman2x wasn’t anything special. I just felt like locking up some cash after busting the $200 rebuy final table.” When asked about Stars support pausing the tournament, Tmay420 commented, “I don’t like to be rushed when I make decisions and pausing the tournament was uncalled for, I think. My phone was dead because I was at Foxwoods and had no way to charge it. I was getting a number of texts from my brother, SBRounder, along with kwob20, who were telling me not to chop. To be honest, I may have taken that advice and probably would have if had I received the text messages.” Tmay420 also received $4,564 for seventh place in the $200 rebuy.

All told, these three PocketFivers represent the best of the best. Tmay420 has been ranked in the top 10 on the PocketFives.com Online Tournament Player Rankings ever since the switch to automated rankings began. Andy McLEOD is in the top 10 of the PocketFives Sliding PLB and won the Triple Crown in late December. Imper1um is a top five player and highly regarded in both the live and online poker scenes. We congratulate these three PocketFivers on their great Sunday on PokerStars.