On the second Sunday of 2012, Mexico’s David weavelEmmons (pictured) took second place in the PartyPoker $100,000 Guaranteed High Rollerfollowing a two-way chop. His reward was nearly $30,000 in real money and his second largest tracked score to date. He shot up to #25 worldwide in the PocketFives Rankings last week and has seemingly flown under-the-radar up until this point. When we talked to Emmons, he was fresh off spending a day at the beach in Cabo San Lucas and needless to say, we were quite jealous.

“I love the PartyPoker High Roller on Sundays and, with the added benefit of no rake this month, it’s an easy play,” Emmons told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “The structure is great and being a relatively new PartyPoker player, winning money on a different site is fun. I’ve had a couple of runs in that tournament, so it was nice to finally cash in. I got heads-up with a friend here in Cabo, so we just chopped it. I haven’t chopped in at least a year, but Party is so top-heavy that I didn’t mind.”

On why Emmons decided to sign up for PartyPoker, which is offering rake-free tournamentsthroughout the entire month of January, he told us, “When I first moved to Mexico, I immediately got on PartyPoker and started playing cash until I got back on PokerStars. Since then, I’ve played the $99 Rebuy and $120 Speed every day to boost my high-stakes MTT volume. On Sundays, the $100K and $200K are both great.”

He plays under the screen name uprobwontbeton the world’s second largest online poker room.

Emmons’ #25 ranking is his highest mark to date. He was up six spots on the week thanks to holding down the 23rd best Sliding PLBscore and the 27th highest Pro Poll tally in the world. We asked Emmons for his take on being positioned in the top 25: “I’m sure most people would agree with me that it doesn’t feel good until you’re #1. Even at that point, your ranking on PocketFives doesn’t correlate directly with how much money you are winning, losing, or have.”

He added, however, that being highly ranked worldwide still carries a certain level of prestige: “I am proud to be a ranked player. When I was early in my career, I dreamed of being in the top 100 and read the profiles of all of the top 100 players on PocketFives. But, because I play fairly high-stakes cash games, profit definitely matters more to me than my ranking.” He’s #4 on the Sliding PLB for Mexico and #2 in his home region of Baja California.

He lacks a signature live poker score despite all of his success online, but has a major ace up his sleeve in that department. What is it? Emmons’ roommate is none other than 2011 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event winner Elio the real roksFox (pictured), a New Yorker who relocated to Mexico to play online poker. “He’s awesome and one of the most down-to-Earth guys ever,” Emmons said of Fox. “He was really quiet and in the zone in the WSOP Europe Main Event. He has a lot of fun in Cabo, but has kind of been over grinding as of late.”

Fox and Jon apestyles Van Fleet (pictured) have been two of the most influential poker players on Emmons’ career, so he’s been brought up in good hands. Emmons explained, “Ape taught me that it was possible to make a living doing this five or six years ago. He had a lot of faith in my ability and he’s been a mentor my entire career. Smok has been a great friend and helped my transition from cash games to tournaments be as smooth as it has been.”

Emmons relocated to Mexicoa year-and-a-half ago and noted that the move wasn’t due to Black Friday: “Black Friday didn’t really bother me. As it happened, I knew I would have to move and was excited at the prospects. I gave away almost everything I owned, which felt great for my hermetic soul. Even if poker comes back in America, I will probably continue to travel the world until I feel like settling down.”

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Emmons has pounded the online poker world for $1.7 million in tracked tournament cashes, $1.2 million of which has been on PokerStars. He’s a MiniFTOPS champion to boot.