It’s a story that’s not as uncommon as you think. A player from the United States moves to another country in order to continue playing online poker, parties, falls in love, and settles down. Many babies ensue. Well, not quite yet.

Kurt ‘kurt23x’ Fitzgerald moved to Costa Rica four years ago, a year after Black Friday upended the online poker scene in the US forever. At the beginning, the American transplant reveled and played poker. Four years later, he’s grown up mightily. In fact, he just hit $3 million in career online tournament winnings and is on the verge of cracking the top 100 worldwide of the PocketFives Rankings for the first time ever.

“I now have the love and support of the greatest girl I’ve ever known and I’m absolutely loving my life,” he said. “Lately, I’ve realized that in order to succeed in both poker and life, it’s all about balance. I’m going to bed earlier and waking up earlier every day to make sure I can play tennis at least four to five days a week. It’s very easy to get too emotionally involved in (poker). Really being able to take a step back and balance things in this type of lifestyle is a very crucial factor to succeeding.”

His significant other is his rock, which is what you’d expect when you’re living thousands of miles away from home in a country whose official language is not English.

“She has a very strong work ethic and is a very family-oriented girl, let alone drop-dead gorgeous,” he said. “I’ve grown up in a family of very strong women and she projects everything that I could ever imagine wanting in a partner. Plus, my mom basically said if I screw up this relationship, she’s going to disown me, so there are a few people involved I’m trying not to let down.”

He met his girlfriend during his partying days. She runs a spa in Costa Rica and takes her work seriously.

“After you spend enough time with a good woman, you realize the things that used to keep your party engine going aren’t quite so important anymore,” he said. “She led to me being stricter with my daily routine.”

After you meet the girl, it’s time to meet the parents, like that Ben Stiller movie trilogy. And for Fitzgerald, that task is complicated by the fact that his girlfriend’s parents speak no English. Therefore, it’s up to the poker pro to bite the bullet and learn Spanish.

“Much of my free time has been spent on analyzing poker hands while I’m not playing, so I haven’t really made time to study Spanish,” he said. “I know I have time, but as poker players, we are generally really bad at using our free time optimally, so I’m working on that as well.”

Black Friday went down in April 2011. Almost immediately, Fitzgerald headed to Las Vegas, poker’s Mecca, for the World Series of Poker. He thought the WSOP would be his last opportunity to compete in poker and potentially strike it rich. Ultimately, it didn’t go as planned.

After a less-than-successful 2011 WSOP, Fitzgerald headed for the green pastures of the East Coast. His father and stepmother relocated to Hollywood, Florida and Fitzgerald, knowing the Hard Rock Casino was only 10 minutes away, decided to join them.

“I tried playing some live games there as well as a little bit on some sketchy Merge websites, but it wasn’t working for me,” he said. “One of my friends, Chris ‘Big Huni’ Hunichen, had already been in Costa Rica since after the WSOP in 2011. He told me I was crazy for being in the States and not grinding on PokerStars in Costa Rica, which he couldn’t have been more right about. So, I moved into a really nice condo with four other poker buddies and tried to see if I could keep the dream alive.”

For the next two years, Fitzgerald ramped up his poker knowledge exponentially. The result: big scores like a SCOOP Main Event final table last year for $95,000, a Sunday Million final table earlier this month for $52,000, and wins in tournaments like the PokerStars $55 Rebuy and Big $109. Four years after moving to Central America, he’s the second-ranked Costa Rican behind only his buddy Hunichen.

As fate would have it, right after the SCOOP Main Event final table, Fitzgerald went on the largest downswing of his career. “I went from a low to a super high to a super low” to his Sunday Million final table, which finally snapped the slide. That day, he hit $3 million in scores, making a simple final table meaningful on multiple levels.

What’s next for the happy couple now that Fitzgerald is off his downswing, at least for now? Will they return to the US or will they stay in Costa Rica living a fairytale life? The options are certainly open.

His girlfriend’s family and business are in Costa Rica, making Central America hard to leave. On top of that, Fitzgerald admitted he has “a lot of work to do as a player, which is great to know while seeing my recent success.”

On the flip side, Fitzgerald has greatly trimmed his makeup, but said, “I’ve been living a much healthier lifestyle here. Being from Maine, it’s basically winter for half of the year. I enjoy outdoor activities that have nothing to do with the snow, so Costa Rica is keeping me satisfied at this point. At some point, I’m sure we will look to relocate, but life is too good here at the moment to even think about changing things.”

The $3 million man will be first to admit that he misses his friends and family. Who wouldn’t? However, he spends multiple weeks at home during the summer and makes it a priority to keep in touch as often as possible. “Being from a very small town, you learn to value your friends and family more than people from bigger cities may,” he said.

Being from a small town in a small state, Fitzgerald had a difficult time leaving the US for another country initially. Sure, he was intrepid, but getting on a plane that first time was anything but a cakewalk. Now, he’s incredibly pleased he made the decision.

“I get back to the States less now since I have a girlfriend here, but really not that much more than before,” he said. “I’ll never miss Christmas at home and I’ll definitely never miss a Fourth of July celebration on one of Millinocket, Maine’s beautiful lakes with my longtime friends and family. I haven’t seen the fall in Maine for over five years now, but when I look at the palm trees and feel the warm breeze in my face in January, it doesn’t really bother me much.”

His life still seems surreal at this point. He’s torn it up online, found a girl, and fell in love, all after starting in poker seven years ago only to have Black Friday nearly derail his career before it even started.

“I never expected to be a pro at any point in my life, let alone sustain it for this long,” he said. “If I could give any kind of advice to any aspiring poker players today, it would be if you think you’re working hard at your game, you’re probably not. I’ve played this game at a sub-mediocre level for the majority of my career and I’m only recently seeing how much work needs to be put into this game to really stand out.”

“Players are getting better,” he said. “You can’t get away with an average game like you could five years ago. My girlfriend has been very patient with the amount of time I’ve spent trying to make my poker goals become a reality, so I’d like to thank her for being so patient and understanding with me as well as the rest of my family and friends for supporting me when I knew how nervous they were for my well-being in general in this line of work. I also want to thank my crew in Playa Del Coco.”