At the end of May, Lithuania’s prof. ch4os(pictured, image courtesy Triobet and PokerNews) finished third in the PokerStars Sunday $109 Rebuy and earned $22,000. It was his second largest online MTT score to date and marked his best showing in a Sunday Major. He’s the 14th-ranked player in Lithuania and a rising star with an interesting back-story, including one heads-up sit and go that was completely out of his league.

PocketFives: Nice job final tabling the Sunday $100 Rebuy. Tell us how you’re feeling about it.

prof. ch4os: It is my biggest career hit and I am happy about it. However, I feel like in the end I could have played better. I was a chip leader for most of the final table and four-handed I had a commanding chip lead. But, soon after, I lost with aces blind-versus-blind against JT after my opponent made a big pre-flop re-jam and sucked out.

I didn’t play a lot of hands for some time after that and finished the tournament in third place after 5bet jamming ATo and getting knocked out by AA. I definitely could have missed this spot, in my opinion. So, it’s a bittersweet feeling, to be honest.

PocketFives: Do you have any plans for the money?

prof. ch4os: It goes into bankroll and allows me to play some higher buy-in MTTs. Right now, I play all MTTs up to the Saturday $320 Super Knockout. I hope to do well and then feel comfortable enough playing in the Sunday 500, Super Tuesday, and Thursday Thrill. This score also allows me to play more satellites to the EPT.

PocketFives: How did you get started in poker?

prof. ch4os: The first time I was introduced to Hold’em was when I was in my second semester in university. I was visiting my two former classmates (they play as Velni@z and Pajacas on PokerStars). They were studying in Kaunas and renting a house. So, that’s where I was introduced to a game and played my first ever poker home game.

I remember us having a sheet with poker hand rankings because at that time it was quite hard to even remember what beat what. Later, home games became a usual activity for us and I was playing home games regularly with my friends.

I started playing online a bit later. For a time, I played on a bunch of different sites such as Betfair, Titan, Triobet, Unibet, and Full Tilt, where I was grinding out bonuses while being about breakeven at micro- and low-stakes sit and gos and cash games.

As I improved, the results slowly were getting better and I was making a few hundred bucks. A month before the Black Friday, I felt like becoming a full-time player was a valid option. My funds, however, got frozen and I stopped playing online.

In 2012, I started playing again. I started from micro- and low-stakes sit and gos and cash games on PokerStars and Full Tilt. In 2013, I started grinding sit and gos up to $30 and had some MTT scores, which helped me build my roll and, since then, I have been playing exclusively MTTs and sit and gos.

2014 was the first year I managed to achieve Supernova status and this year I am planning to try the EPT series for the first time. Last year, I played the Estrellas Main Event and I’ve won a satellite to this year’s event also, but this time I am planning on playing more tournaments. It would be great to win a satellite to an EPT Main Event; however, I’m probably going to play one anyways.

PocketFives: Have you had any success in live poker so far?

prof. ch4os: I have played cash games and tournaments here in Vilnius and also some in Riga, Latvia, but have little experience in bigger live tournaments because they are rare here. The best tournament in Vilnius, which takes place twice a year, has around 200 entries. Most of the others do not even exceed 60 players. The only two big-field live tournaments I’ve played were the Estrellas Main Event and Barcelona Cup last year, but I definitely want to play more of them.

PocketFives: Tell us about inadvertently registering for a $5,000 heads-up sit and go.

prof. ch4os: The most memorable moment from playing poker is the shock I had when a heads-up window popped up unexpectedly at the start of one session while I was already playing around 12 tables with an average buy-in of $20. That heads-up was a $5,000 regular speed sit and go and was worth nearly half of my bankroll at the time.

I somehow registered for it while using Table Ninja’s SNG Sensei and manually registered for MTTs at the same time in a different tab. I was in shock for a few seconds, but then got a grip, sat out every other table, and tried to play my best.

I remember making two thinner value bets that got called and I was a 2:1 chip leader after some time. Then, I flopped a full house, checked it back, got check-raised on the turn, and the guy jammed on the river with ten-high. It was all surreal.

I knew I should have felt happy for winning, but the feeling of relief of not losing $5,000 was much stronger. I am quite a big bankroll nit and felt really fortunate it turned out for the good. I changed my settings of what limits I could register for instantly after the match.

By the way, I want to send shout outs to Fabregasas, Siriku1, Velni@z, and Pajacas.

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