Before the online poker world was turned upside down on April 15th, Jason teamwispyHelder was on a tear. He had turned in wins in a $300 buy-in Full Tilt Online Poker Series(FTOPS) event for $213,000 in November and, four months later, blasted through the field of the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guarantee for $135,000. Last September, Helder final tabled a $1,050 buy-in PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) tournament for yet another six-figure score, this time $104,000.

What went right for him in the lead-up to Black Friday? Helder speculated, “I think I just started playing a little better and spewing a little less. I play really aggressively, so it just takes some time to get your style lined up and not just spew heaps all the time. Plus, running good in big spots sometimes helps.”

His aforementioned WCOOP final table saw 3,122 players turn out to the tournament and PokerStars sponsored pro Jason treysfull21Mercier (pictured) rise to the top of the pack for $491,000. Mercier, who is fresh off a win in the PokerStars European Poker Tour’s Champion of Champions event, is #3 on the ESPN poker rankings dubbed “The Nuts” behind Erik Seidel and Phil Ivey.

Helder told us how he became aware of Mercier’s game: “I know he crushes, but he’s not someone I was really aware of when I was coming up through the stakes. I have never done a lot of the online forum stuff or followed lots of poker results, so I learned mostly from people I met in person.”

When asked whom he had absorbed poker knowledge from, one of the first names to come out of Helder’s mouth was Nick gbmantisNiergarth (pictured). On the member of the online poker community since its third month in existence, Helder told PocketFives.com, “I’d say the first player I really learned a lot from was gbmantis. I stayed with him my first summer in Las Vegas and it was a really good experience for me, but I learned a lot from Mike gags30Gagliano and Dave doubledave22 D’Alesandro also.”

If you’ve never heard of Niergarth before, he final tabled a $10,000 WCOOP event in 2008 for nearly $200,000. He’s also a Triple Crownwinner and was once ranked as high as #70 in the PocketFives.com Rankings.

“It was my first summer in Las Vegas and first time playing a lot live, so it was good to stay with an established player like gbmantis,” Helder recalled. “He had a very creative way of looking at poker. He taught me to be more open-minded and in-depth with my decision-making more than any specific skill set.”

Helder was first turned onto poker in college playing $5 home games with friends. Then, he moved to small-stakes internet tables before finally deciding to take a few shots in high-stakes MTTs like the PokerStars Sunday Million. His defining moment, you ask? “When I was still a donk nit, I chopped the Sunday Million in the fall of 2007 and have been crazy hooked ever since.”

For the origins of the moniker teamwispy, we look to the definition of the word. Helder explained that he based his user name on the word wispy, which means “elusive, hard to catch.” He admitted, “I made it when I wanted to play a $5 sit and go and didn’t put any thought into it. I didn’t think I’d be going pro or anything at the time.”

You might even see Helder in this year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas. The annual tournament extravaganza gets underway on May 31st, with the star-studded Main Event beginning on July 7th.

On what tournaments he was targeting at the Rio, the site of the WSOP, Helder explained, “Any six-max event and the Main Event. If I bink anything, I’ll definitely take a shot in the $10,000 six-max event. I love anything six-max, even more so in live poker, which generally is boring and slow.”

At the time of writing, Helder sat at #19 in the PocketFives.com Rankings and owned over $2 million in tracked online poker cashes. He took down the March Monthly PLB title by virtue of accruing over 3,700 PLB Points, the second highest total since September 2010.

We look forward to following Helder and company in the 2011 WSOP.