In the middle of February, PokerStarstook the liberty of running two Sunday Warm-Ups in a single day. With nearly $1.6 million given away between the two tournaments, plenty of PocketFives members threw their hats into the ring, including Parker Talbot (pictured), who affectionately goes by the name tonkaaaa on our site. We sat down with Talbot to talk about his memorable Sunday.

Heads-up in the Warm-Up, Talbot faced off against PokerStars pro Andre aakkari Akkari, a World Series of Poker bracelet winner who has over $2 million in tracked cashes here on PocketFives. Talbot recapped heads-up play: “I feel like I ran so awful. He made a pair like every hand and I don’t think I really had any, but I guess he played well and beat me. It would have been nice if we could have chopped it up.”

When all was said and done in the 3,773-player tournament, Akkari walked away with $118,000, while Talbot scooped up $88,000 for second place. The top 540 players finished in the money in the $215 buy-in tournament. Here’s how the final nine cashed out:

1. aakkari – $118,473.37 (aakkari)
2. tonkaaaa – $88,288.20 (tonkaaaa)
3. cyberkanguru – $62,254.50
4. dimka1089 – $43,389.50
5. KingOfFilth – $32,070.50
6. eddymaksoud – $24,524.50
7. Finik73 – $16,978.50
8. stofzuiger73 – $9,432.50
9. instigator85 – $6,036.80

In September’s PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker Main Event, Talbot finished in 17th place and collected $37,000. Last June, shortly after his full-time career began, he final tabled the site’s Sunday 500 for $25,000. So what will he do with nearly $100,000 in new capital? “I just recently bought a condo in Downtown Toronto, so most of it will be going to paying off the mortgage on that. I’ll also possibly invest in some other things.”

Talbot’s online poker setup consists of what he describes as an “old school table” along with twin 23-inch monitors, a standard mouse, and a Herman Miller chair. The latter is “the most key part of the setup in my opinion. It’s a super comfortable mesh-back chair. You have to have a nice one when you spend at least eight hours in it every day.”

He spends most of his poker day playing sit and gos and usually begins between 8:00am and 10:00am. “I’ll fire up some games and decide if I want to play MTTs or not. I have mostly switched to sit and gos lately. It’s hard to find soft games anywhere these days and most high-stakes MTTs are really tough as well. I’m outclassed in most of the smaller field games like the $109 Rebuy, so I’m just trying to make money the hard way.”

Talbot started playing full-time eight months ago at the end of his second year in college. “I was grinding 180-mans and small-stakes MTTs and was backed by a friend with a 70-30 cut for me. I was trying to grind out a bankroll by playing lots of games and then won a $3 Rebuy 3X satellite that went into a two-hour late registration in the Sunday 500. I ended up getting fourth in that. As a result, I went on my own, grinded some mid-stakes games, and can remember getting second in the $109 2X shortly after on my own.”

When it was time to return to college for his third year, Talbot made an important life decision: “A few months later, it was time to go back to school and I decided that I didn’t want to and that it made more sense for me to grind full-time.”

He now has his sights set on a $1 million cash badgeand Supernova Elite status on PokerStars in 2012. He’ll soon be moving in with Dylan WhiteRabbitoHoneyman, the 82nd player in the PocketFives Rankings, in Toronto. Honeyman already has a runner-up finish in the PokerStars $100 Rebuy to his credit this year.

Visit PokerStars to register for this week’s Sunday Warm-Up.