Ross ‘Acanthopis’ Gottlieb had himself an interesting weekend at the Borgata Spring Poker Open. The New Jersey veterinarian cashed in two events in a single day to earn himself over $10,000. What started as a day of heartbreak soon turned into an epic night of grinding. Gottlieb is on a run as of late on both the online and live felt and is feeling great about his game heading into the summer.

It’s “uncommon” for Gottlieb to have a full weekend off to play poker. He took advantage of his available Friday to play the $100,000 guaranteed Six Max.

Gottlieb bagged a middle of the road stack for Day 2 after battling with Tom Cannuli and Will Failla at this table and had a chance to play for the $40,000 first-place prize. Saturday started as bad as possible for Gottlieb. He lost pocket kings against aces on the third hand of play and was not sure about how to proceed with the rest of the day.

“It didn’t start off so great in the Six Max,” Gottlieb obliged. “I was pretty annoyed, you start cursing your luck but you realize you’re fortunate enough to make it that deep. I didn’t really want to play the Saturday Series but I got some food and decided to play.”

The one-day $100,000 guaranteed marathon Saturday Series was a few levels in when Gottlieb sat down. Instantly, he was among one of the chip leaders.

“It’s relatively easy to spin up a stack in that event. By the 500/1,000 level, I was at 100,000 and cruising.”

The success of Gottlieb in a fast-paced structure is attributed to his online reps. At the Winter Poker Open in January, Gottlieb won the Saturday Series in an eight-way deal for a $28,433 score.

“In the earlier levels, it’s easy to three-bet to weaker players at the table and they can’t do much about it. I’ve been really focused lately and been playing more than I ever have.”

A fifth-place result was Gottlieb’s fate in the Saturday Series. A shallow final table leads to variance but it’s not a factor Gottlieb is unfamiliar with. In fact, he recalls exact events from New Jersey online that helped him play live for what is a larger prize pool.

“In the Super Tuesday online on PokerStars, it’s pretty similar. That one in general and the Tuesday showdown on WSOP, everyone at the final table has 15 bigs. A lot of times when you go deep, there’s a ton of flip situations that you find online. When you’re playing some of the larger tournaments live, you don’t have to take those spots.”

The recent volume of Gottlieb equals a win in the 888NJ Ultimate Warrior on March 5 for $11,770 and a fourth-place finish this week in the PokerStarsNJ NJSCOOP $1,000 High Roller. A week before the next edition of the New Jersey Online Rankings is released, Gottlieb toes the line of the top-10.

Gottlieb multi-tables online but never before experienced two straight 12 hour days of playing a live tournament as he did last week. “It was quite tiring,” Gottlieb said.

In the hours he plays for thousands of dollars instead of tens of thousands in live scenarios, Gottlieb is preparing himself for when the money becomes life-changing. Gottlieb stayed on the sidelines last summer and scheduled two weeks to be out in Las Vegas starting with the Millionaire Maker event.

A culmination of Gottlieb’s work comes together this weekend for the NJSCOOP Main Event. The $200,000 guaranteed tournament includes a $30,000 PokerStars Platinum Pass. The prospect of playing for added equity excites Gottlieb, who believes this tournament is going to contain the largest prize pool in New Jersey online history.

I think that’s pretty absurd that we get the chance to play for the platinum pass,” Gottlieb stated. “We’re going to fire as much as we need to. Even if you get close to it, you get okay money for the final table. I’m hoping that they’re going to hand out a couple more passes, that this isn’t it. It would be cool to play a $25K. First place is going to be absurd but I’m going to be comfortable because of my familiarity with the spots. I’m hoping that I’ve been channeling it all for the deep run in main.”

Does the first Platinum Pass in New Jersey have Ross Gottlieb’s name on it? He’ll soon find out.