Earlier this year, Australia’s sammejao(pictured) won the Winamax High Roller for the second time. His first taste of victory in it came in 2014 on a Sunday and was good for $20,000, while his latest go-around came during the week for almost $6,000. To win a high-dollar six-max tournament two times is quite a feat, so we thought an interview was appropriate.

“It feels great,” sammejao said of his dual victories. “Six-max is the most fun poker format and also my best game. It’s fun to win a tournament with a higher buy-in because they normally have more challenging players. The first time I won was on a Sunday, so it was much bigger. The structure is a bit faster on a weekday too, so it gets shallower at the end.”

As far as the $26,000 goes, sammejao said it’ll go “straight into the bankroll. It’s hard to earmark the money for some specific purpose when playing MTTs because you have to make up for those tournaments you didn’t cash in.” He is up to almost $650,000 in online tournament scores, which is spread pretty evenly across the world’s largest online poker sites. His largest cash took place over the weekend after a second place finish in the Sunday Second Chance for $34,000.

He got into poker after spending most of his life being a competitive person. He was primarily into solo sports and hobbies like golf, Ping-Pong, and chess. He explained, “My friend Mangejao introduced me to poker and taught me the first steps. This introduction, in addition to some home games that our friends played regularly, got me into it.”

Outside of poker, his passions are traveling and food, which he pointed out “works really well together with being a poker player. After two years as a professional poker player, I stepped down from playing full-time to part-time in order to study engineering. Then, after four years of studies, I realized I didn’t want to be someone’s employee. I’m thinking about what business I want to develop and am playing poker full-time here in Australia. I moved here with my girlfriend to study business, improve my English, and meet new people.”

On Winamax, he plays under the handle der Einstein and said he randomly put two words together to create his screen name. You put the German word “der” in front of nouns and, as far as Einstein (pictured) goes, sammejao said, “Everybody knows he was a great scientist.”

We expect more big things out of sammejao going forward. He is up to 875 tracked in the money finishes and is averaging almost $750 a pop. He is the lone PocketFiver with a PLB score from the Aussie town of Maroochydore and is #575 worldwide in the PocketFives Rankings.

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