One of the perks of watching televised poker is getting to hear the phrase “so sick” multiple times. Whether stemming from a bad beat, a tough decision, or a well-timed call, “so sick” is used relentlessly on poker TV shows. For PocketFives member sosick, who hails from Poland, “so sick” is a way of life. He goes by Pawel in the real world and won last week’s PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up for $104,000.

His first six-figure score was indeed “so sick.” Pawel told PocketFives in an exclusive interview, “That was my first six-figure score and my first Sunday Major title, so I will always remember it.” He added what would be even sicker: “The next step for me will be seven-figures.” The tournament drew over 3,300 players, 15% of whom landed in the money.

We talked to Pawel a few days removed from his monumental win and he hadn’t had much time to celebrate yet. Why? “All I had time to do was drink a couple of beers with my friends just after winning. I had the second day of the PokerStars.fr SCOOP Main Eventon Monday, so I had to forget about my score and be ready to play my A-game the very next day.”

Pawel ultimately finished 44th in the French SCOOP Main Event and walked away with just shy of $5,000. On the €1,000 buy-in tournament, the Polish player remarked, “It wasn’t too hard to concentrate on it one day after winning the Warm-Up, as that was also a big tournament with €200,000 for first place. So, that was enough motivation. Plus, winning two big events would be a great accomplishment.”

He went out of the SCOOP finale after losing a coin flip with pocket queens against A-K and had come a long way in a tournament that awarded 20,000 in starting chips. The blinds increased every half-hour and over 1,200 players signed up.

Nearly 150 PocketFives members have filled in Polandas their location in their profile, but Pawel told us that some residents don’t look too fondly upon the game: “Being a poker player in Poland is not easy. Most of the people here, especially the older ones, still think it is pure gambling. At the same time, they view the national lottery as a game of skill that’s not as addicting as poker.”

Given that public sentiment, Pawel noted that his status as a “semi-pro” might be more palatable. He has a full-time job with a U.S.-based company and called for poker players to be viewed in a more positive light: “Hopefully, it will change and people will not think about poker players as gamblers and families will be proud to have such individuals.”

Two friends got him into the game originally. “One was telling me a lot about it, about how great it was, and about some poker schools that gave you a free $50 to start,” Pawel narrated. “The same year, I went to the USA for a work-and-travel program and met another friend who got me into poker. He was playing some micro-stakes games in the evenings, explained the math to me, and showed me how it was possible to win money at poker.”

“We all studied math, so I understood it quite fast,” the recent Sunday Warm-Up winner boasted. “I went bust a couple of times at the beginning, but finally found my place in short-handed cash games. Then, at a live game, I met [fellow Polish players]Pyszalekand Olorion (pictured), who were playing MTTs for a living. They inspired me to start playing high-variance MTTs in place of those nice cash games, but it definitely was worth it, as MTTs give you a lot more emotions; that thrill when you play at a final table in a big tournament is great.”

We’ve asked a few of our recent interviewees what their advice to up-and-coming poker players would be. Pawel responded, “Keep learning and keep playing. Just think about how to play your best your very next hand and the results will come sooner or later. Also, look for your leaks and fix them.”

Visit PokerStars for this week’s Sunday Warm-Up.