In one of the final events of the recently completed UB.com Online Championship, or UBOC, PocketFives.com contributor Ken wandigoCoppens (pictured) came away with a commemorative watch in a $320 No Limit Hold’em Deep Stack Ante from the Start tournament (Event #24). His reward was $34,000 following a heads-up chop with UB.com member HAMAZRIYA3. PocketFives.com caught up with Coppens to rehash the memorable evening.

Event #24 was the lone UBOC 6 tournament to boast the Ante from the Start format. We asked Coppens to give us his thoughts on the poker genre: “I love the format of Ante from the Start tournaments. My style is to play a lot of pots early and accumulate. With constant antes, it made this even more important. I played a lighter schedule on that day, which helped me focus more on the tournament. A lot of the players seemed to be playing too tight and robotic, which allowed me to pick up a lot of small pots to keep padding my stack.”

The field numbered 529 and a prize pool of $158,000 was awarded. Coppens was ahead 3:2 in chips when the two-way deal was struck that gave him $32,500, or $600 above his ICM. Then, $2,000 and a UBOC watch were left to play for. His chopping partner banked a little over $28,000.

Last December, Coppens final tabled a Mini Full Tilt Online Poker Series (MiniFTOPS) tournament for $50,000 and, just a few days before his UBOC victory, he made the final table of another UBOC event for $14,000. “Over the past few months, I’ve been putting a lot of work into my game and have discovered several leaks that have made a noticeable difference,” Coppens rationalized. “After the second place in MiniFTOPS and fifth place in the UBOC event, my confidence was really high and I was determined to finally lock up a W.”

Although he didn’t dive into specifics about what aspects of his game have received makeovers, he shared, “I’ve really just opened my game a lot more, taking some non-standard lines and being as creative as possible. I got tired of always sneaking into final tables as a short stack and relying on good cards to win. These days, it’s all about aggression and accumulating and I feel I’ve really stepped up on that late game play.” Coppens has over a million bucks from tournaments tracked for the PocketFives.com Rankings, where he resides at #602 worldwide.

Coppens joined PocketFives.com in mid-2006 and now publishes the recurring Weekday Tournament Review for our site. We asked him what aspects of the game have changed considerably over the last half-decade: “With so many strategy forums and training videos out these days, people are becoming more and more skilled at MTTs. There are a lot more ‘reg-infested’ tables than there once were, so it’s not as easy as just raising and stealing the blinds. Poker now is all about the aggressor. You have to be willing to trust your gut and fire that second and third barrel when the situation calls for it.”

Coppens was one of 16 members of the online poker community to find gold during UBOC 6. Check out our complete list of final table resultsto see who else excelled. If you don’t already have an account on UB.com, which happily takes action from the United States, sign up nowand get 30% rakeback.