Back in November 2016, when Canadian Troy ‘teckidtq’ Quenneville turned up to play some live poker at the World Poker Tour partypoker Million festival in Punta Cana, the regs probably didn’t think anything of him. After all, he had just two live cashes to his name, combined to the tune of $559. But Troy was something of a Trojan horse.

He ended up winning $220K for a runner-up finish in the $5K World Poker Tour main event, followed by victory in the $2,500 partypoker Million for $400,000. This Trojan horse won $620,000 in just a few days.

“My recent success can be best credited to confidence,” Quenneville tells me. “I have continued to study and talk with the players whose games I respect the most and that allows me to stay ahead of the curve and outplay my opponents at the highest stakes available to online NLHE MTT players.”

Quenneville cut his teeth on the online felt, where he’s racked up more than $3.5 million in tournament winnings. He’s also been on an online tear of late, with his two biggest career cashes coming in the months of February and March. First he won the Super Tuesday for $75K, then he took down the partypoker Super High Roller for $51K.

His story, like so many others, began back with the Moneymaker boom.

“It started with friends in a basement and progressed to where I was amongst a community of some of the very best MTT players living in a beautiful beach town in Costa Rica,” he says. “But while I was happy, variance was getting the best of me. I lost for two years and while deep down I knew I was playing winning poker, it’s so difficult to remain confident when so many people around you are most focused on results.

“I decided it was time I completed my degree. I then had a Mechanical Engineering degree in my hand and no money in my pockets and all I could think of was my one true passion. I was being pressured by my parents to find a job and move out, but I knew I had to follow my passion, and while it still seems crazy given my results at the time, I truly believed in myself. There were some people whose opinions I respected the most in poker who believed in me, and one of them gave me a chance.”

As we obviously know now, it was an excellent decision and that belief paid off.

“From the very start, things went great. I was doing nothing but winning and we ended our deal on good terms when I wanted to play the highest stakes. I found a new backer who was able to give me that opportunity and we won a package to the Caribbean Poker Party in the final satellite offered. There were two tournaments there I was interested in playing.”

And wouldn’t you know it? Quenneville finished in second place and first place in the back-to-back events.

“Thankfully my heads up match in the WPT $5K only lasted one hand, because it allowed me to register the partypoker $2M guaranteed with just five minutes to spare. I went on to win that event for $400K and my first real live title by a long shot. It’s still sinking in. But the run good hasn’t slowed down as you can see with my recent online scores.

“I do hope to play more live, but don’t expect to find me at the World Series Of Poker all summer paying 30% taxes and dealing with egos and ignorance that are pumped up tenfold in Las Vegas. So yeah, I prefer my desk.”

With trips to Panama in the bag (“My two best friends finished sixth and 11th in the Main Event and I ended up profiting over $100K on the week” he says), Quenneville is now in Macau for the PokerStars Championship with his roommate Otter8759, and good friends munchenHB, APJennings, and David ‘dpeters17‘ Peters. When he’s not on the road, though, he calls Costa Rica home.

“My normal life consists of fine foods, golfing, relaxing and traveling, hopefully all with my girlfriend Paulina. We live in San Jose, Costa Rica in the tallest building in the country, which makes for beautiful mountainous views but makes the earthquakes a little extra scary. We love it there, and life has never been better.

“I would like to thank my parents most of all, for giving me every opportunity growing up and teaching me great values. But I am grown up now, Mom, so let me breathe!”