In May, PocketFiver Oleg Vasilchenko (pictured), who goes by the user name accussity, finished third in a PokerStars SCOOP $109 No Limit Hold’em Wrap-Up event and walked off with $64,000 officially. As we learned, revenge in that tournament against a fellow PocketFiver was pretty sweet. We’ll get to that a little later. PocketFives caught up with Vasilchenko after he took second in the Full Tilt Poker $250,000 Guaranteed a few weeks ago for $46,000.

“It was pretty easy compared to other final tables I’ve had on Full Tilt Poker,” Vasilchenko told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “I was lucky enough to be in position against a fish. He raised three to four big blinds and played very aggressively post-flop, which was kind of tough, but I had a hand rush, so it was a pretty easy game.”

Although he ultimately wanted to come away with the win, he said, “This was my first final table of a ‘major,’ so it was a big deal.” He plans to add his newfound winnings to his online poker bankroll.

Ninth place in that week’s Full Tilt Poker $250,000 Guaranteed went to Christopher kid_bramm Brammer (pictured), who earned $5,100 from the $216 buy-in tournament. Vasilchenko recalled, “We played at the same table when there were two tables left, but he was always short stacked. He occasionally had a steal or re-steal, but he was pretty tight. I know he’s a good player.”

Vasilchenko’s big SCOOP final table occurred a few months after a win in a PokerStars TCOOP $109 No Limit Hold’em tournament. He told us, “I was playing the TCOOP like an ordinary Turbo tournament. I won some flips, had some domination, and was lucky enough to go all-in as an 80/20 or 75/25 favorite all the time.”

He added, “I’m playing Turbo tournaments not as ordinary regulars would. A Turbo tournament is more than just push/fold. I remember raising with A-J under the gun and folding to a shove of a very tight player even though he had only 14 big blinds. Some of my friends who were watching me said that was an easy call, but I decided otherwise, and it turned out I was right in the end.”

When asked why he folded in that spot, Vasilchenko told us, “I had 18 big blinds. When you see an insta-shove from a tight guy in such a tournament, usually you don’t have enough odds to call. A regular would re-shove some small pocket pairs there and a tight ‘fish’ guy would only do it with the nuts. If I lost that hand, I would have had only four big blinds left, which is not much of a stack.”

In the SCOOP tournament with 100 players left, Vasilchenko dropped a major pot with A-K against A-A and was left with a scant three big blinds. However, he doubled up thrice over. Once it got to the final table, he was able to exact a little revenge: “j.thaddeus (pictured) was at that final table. He busted me five days earlier on 13th place in a $1,050 SCOOP event and, as a small act of revenge, I was lucky to bust him in seventh place in a coin flip. My K-Q was stronger than his pocket fives. Ironically, he also had pocket fives when he busted me out of the $1,050 event.”

Vasilchenko got started in poker during his third year of college when someone told him about the game’s existence online. He was skeptical from the get-go: “I thought no one could win and that online poker was like a casino, where the house always wins. Or, even worse, that if I put money there, I would never see it again. So, I started playing freerolls on PokerStars. There was this Daily Mega tournament, a 10,000-person freeroll where the top 180 players got $5 each. I won three of them and my first $10 in winnings was lost very fast. When I won $5 the third time, I decided I needed to learn.”

He relayed, “I started learning some odds and outs and went to NL2 cash. I boosted my bankroll to $50 and then moved to NL5 and NL10. I switched to six-max cash games and went all the way to NL100. After that, I got bored of playing cash. I always needed more competition, so I tried playing tournaments and enjoyed it.”

Vasilchenko wanted to send a shout out to his friends as well as his girlfriend Daria, “who are very supportive and understanding.” How sweet! Congrats to Vasilchenko on his Full Tilt Poker $250,000 Guaranteed final table.

You can catch the $250K weekly on Full Tilt. If you don’t already have a Full Tilt Poker account, sign up through PocketFives’ link and make a deposit to get one free month of PocketFives MTT Training. You’ll also get a 100% first deposit bonus. Click here for PocketFives’ Full Tilt Poker link.

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