Recently, Wisconsin native Ryan Beckwithpicked up a Triple Crownhere on PocketFives.com. Doing so requires a player to win three $10,000 prize pool tournaments across three sites tracked for the PocketFives.com Poker Rankingswithin a seven-day span. That’s no easy feat, especially considering the wealth of talent in the industry. On August 14th, Beckwith completed his Triple Crown bid by taking down the PokerStars $12,000 Guarantee, a $33 buy-in tournament with two rebuys and an add-on.

Beckwith was quite proud of his accomplishment. He became just the fifth Triple Crown winner in August and told PocketFives.com, “I have been close before and wanted to accomplish this for a while. Not many players have done it and you have to win on three sites.” On August 8th, he came out on top of the field of the UB.com $8,000 Guarantee, which boasted a prize pool of $10,100. Beckwith pocketed $2,600 and the Triple Crown run was on.

The next day, Beckwith won the Full Tilt Poker $22,500 Guarantee for $5,900. Then, his victory on the virtual felts of PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site, was worth $3,700. He told PocketFives.com that he led the UB.com tournament virtually wire-to-wire, although he slipped up at the final table after his A-K could not withstand an opponent’s A-3. However, he rebounded by drawing out on pocket kings with pocket nines and never looked back.

Knowing that he needed a win for the final part of his Triple Crown on PokerStars changed his game plan slightly: “Needing the win, I was torn between playing crazy and just being selective, as first was all I cared about. I leaned towards my normal final table play of looking for good spots and found several. When we got four-handed, I held with pocket kings against A-J for the chip lead and then went on to win from there.” The same day, Beckwith finished fifth in the site’s $20 rebuy for $1,200.

His profile picture on PocketFives.com features UB.com pro and longtime community member Mark P0ker H0 Kroon (pictured), who owns a bar in Madison. Beckwith noted, “He was a big influence on my game seven or eight years ago when I first started playing. He does a lot of things really well and a few things I don’t like, so I just take what I like and throw out the rest.” Kroon is also an instructor for the World Series of Poker Academy.

Kroon was instrumental in turning Beckwith on to the wonderful world of online poker. Before meeting P0ker H0, Beckwith was primarily a Limit cash game player at Wisconsin’s casinos: “Then, I went to a few local tournaments and met Mark and some others who played online. They talked me into trying out online poker, I won the very first tournament I played, and have been hooked since.”

Since the beginning of the year, Beckwith has taken fifth in the $55 DNG Sunday Special on PokerStars for $12,000, placed second in the PokerStars $40,000 Guarantee for $9,200, and landed in third in the Daily Ninety Grand for $8,600. He owns the fourth spot in the Sortable Rankingsfor the Badger State, a leaderboard that features Madison’s Tony D1rtyR1v3r Nardi (pictured) at the top. Nardi has also been a mentor of sorts for Beckwith, as the two discuss hands regularly on the phone and over AIM.

Beckwith has played poker full-time since June 2009 and managed a Culver’s for eight years prior to that. If you’ve never heard of Culver’s, it’s primarily a Midwestern United States fast food chain that specializes in custard and ButterBurgers. He’s 33 years-old and has three kids, making juggling the game with being a father a delicate line to walk. He candidly admitted, “They go to daycare in the summer and my girlfriend keeps them out of my hair when I’m playing for the most part. I just try to not let them plan anything important on Sundays.”

Check out the Triple Crown Wall of Champions.