In May, New Zealand PocketFives.com member Shaun mathclubGoldsbury (pictured) chopped heads-up with Ryan gutshtallinWelch in the finale of the $215 Two-Day Event held during the PokerStarsSpring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). The epic SCOOP chop earned him $270,000 and Goldsbury is also a two-time PocketFives.com Triple Crown winner. The veteran PocketFiver and Kiwi resident calls in this week to the PocketFives.com Online Poker Podcast.

It’s not every day that you chop a high-stakes online tournament like the SCOOP Two-Day Event. Goldsbury admitted, “That’s the sort of thing that every poker player dreams about, playing in those big-field tournaments hoping to get a good run of cards and have some hands hold. That particular day, with the New Zealand time zone, we’re 17 hours ahead of the East Coast of the States, so I started playing at 6:00am… Then, I got a good night’s sleep and came back at 9:00am on Tuesday morning.”

Since that fateful day, Goldsbury has been exposed to a world of opportunities including being featured in CardPlayer, and possibly joining the World Team Poker New Zealand squad in its upcoming Championship event. Goldsbury sits in second on the PocketFives.com Sortable Poker Rankingsfor New Zealand behind Richard rjmgrace Grace.

Given all of his endeavors, Goldsbury has represented the Southern Hemisphere nation well and explained what the poker scene is like in his homeland: “We tend to be anything from a few months to a few years behind some of the trends going on overseas. I guess poker started taking off here in the last couple of years. It’s still growing. There are a few young players from over here that are going to come through and have some good scores.”

He’s been a resident of a poker house in New Zealand alongside such pros as Neil Puggy82Stewart (pictured) and DoylesRoomBrunson 10 face Chris moorman1 Moorman. What makes these two superstars head and shoulders above the competition? “What Moorman is able to do better than anyone I know is narrow ranges so much better and so much faster,” Goldsbury explained. “He has a much better idea of where your head’s at in hands than a lot of other pros do. Puggy is just a great player. Probably the thing he does better than anyone else is understands all of the sites out there. He understands the different structures, different types of players, and what styles of poker to play on which sites.”

Stewart banked $117 as part of the ChampionChip Final on PokerRoom (now bwin) in 2008 and recently took down the Titan Poker$50 rebuy. Moorman (pictured) is a fixture atop the Online Poker Rankingsand chopped a Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) event last year for over $200,000.

The PocketFives.com Podcast then dove into a discussion of how Goldsbury has been able to stay ahead of the curve since joining the site three years ago. He remarked, “When I started to play, I was by myself and doing self-coaching. As the game has evolved and changed, when I’m in tournaments, I’m trying to be aware of spots where I’m losing chips and spots where I can win chips.” In addition to being a stud on the felts, Goldsbury has contributed nearly 7,000 posts to the community.

Finally, given that Goldsbury lives outside of the United States, he has access to the gamut of online poker sites. Here’s his quick strategy guide to dominating the so-called “Euro” sites: “On PartyPoker, I seem to open less than I do on other sites and tend to re-shove more. You don’t have room to 3bet-fold too much on Party. On sites like Ongame and iPoker, I play a bit more since they have big antes. There are a few of the smaller sites like Paradise Poker and Ladbrokes where you almost just have to sit there, wait for cards, and play an ABC style.”

Listen to the rest of this week’s PocketFives.com Podcast.