What motivates you to play poker? Is it the money? Is it the fame? Is it the competition? Is it the women? For UK’s Billyth3kid(pictured), succeeding in poker was originally in part about proving his naysayers wrong. Recently, he finished fourth in the PokerStars Sunday Millionfor $73,000, the largest cash we’ve tracked for him by a factor of three. You can find him on PokerStars under the user name MR_LITHUANIA.

PocketFives: How are you feeling about your big Sunday Million final table?

Billyth3kid: I’m on cloud nine at the moment. I haven’t been able to sleep since the score. In fact, I played poker for 24 hours after the cash with a few hours’ break for food.

PocketFives: Talk about how the Sunday Million went in general.

Billyth3kid: I went to Vegas for three weeks in June and that didn’t go great. I chunked off a lot more money than I hoped. Then, when I went home, I was a little lazy getting back to the online grind, but in the past two weeks, I have really gotten my ass back in gear.

I started grinding on Sunday at about teatime and played a few Majors on PartyPoker, PokerStars, and 888 and successfully managed to brick everything until I only had the Sunday Million left and a few other bowls. I have run deep in the Sunday Million before and had an epic blowup and didn’t want that to happen again, so I decided to concentrate on the Sunday Million and stop registering for the day. That seemed to work well and I managed to hit the final table with an average stack. It was good to see a good friend of mine, squire1888, on the final table also.

I had a pretty rough seat at the final table. There were a few early bustouts, meaning that all of the stack sizes were very similar apart from one big stack on my left, which caused me a lot of ICM problems. I couldn’t really open much and play my usual game. I got quite lucky with laddering and there were a couple of coolers and bad beats handed out around the table, allowing me to take some tasty pay jumps.

When it got down to five- and four-handed, the ICM wasn’t as much of an issue and I could go for it, but sadly I busted in a standard hand pretty much as soon as we got four-handed. I was still very pleased with my score and, after it, I was never sleeping, so I decided to just grind on, which ended up being for another 24 hours or so with a small break. I obviously thought it was polite to chunk some money back off after this score.

PocketFives: Do you have any plans for the money?

Billyth3kid: I probably won’t buy much. I’m just happy to get back the money I lost and blew partying in Vegas. I’ll just gamble it all again and see what happens this time. I will also book a holiday, treat my family, and go on a celebratory night out with friends.

PocketFives: Talk about the play of Scotland’s squire1888(pictured), who finished third. He has a pretty rabid following on PocketFives.

Billyth3kid: He is a great player and a good guy whom I have gotten to speak to quite a lot in the past few months. From what I’ve seen, he has had an epic couple of months and is doing great. We were on the same table when we were down to two tables and he was opening a bunch and 3betting and 4betting often. We had a few battles and it was fun. He is a tricky player and I’m sure we will be seeing more big scores from him in the future.

PocketFives: You’re from the UK. What do you think of the royal baby being born?

Billyth3kid: To be totally honest, I could care less. I’ve been too busy playing poker. I don’t even know what they have named him, or her.

PocketFives: Ha, great answer. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Billyth3kid: I’d like to say thanks to all of my friends, family, and backers for the support and also to the friends I’ve made in the poker community whom I’ve leaned heaps from. You know who you are! An even bigger thanks to everyone who told me playing poker for a living was a bad idea. I really couldn’t have done it without the desire to prove you all wrong.

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