Last month, longtime PocketFives member and World Series of Poker bracelet winner Dan djk123Kelly (pictured) became the most accomplished PokerStarsWorld Championship of Online Poker player of all-time. Kelly recorded his fourth WCOOP title in a $215 No Limit Hold’em Rebuy and booked a $138,000 payday. “I’ve always really enjoyed WCOOP because there are so many good tournaments in a variety of games,” Kelly told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. Needless to say, he has dominated the annual tournament series.

Kelly’s four WCOOP bracelets have come in four different genres of poker: Razz, HORSE, No Limit Hold’em, and Eight-Game. You’ll notice that three of his four pieces of hardware have come outside of Hold’em and so we asked how much of an edge he has in other games. “I don’t think I necessarily have a bigger edge in non-Hold’em games,” Kelly responded, “but in general the non-Hold’em fields tend to be smaller, so it’s mathematically easier to win a bracelet in one of them.”

In 2010, Kelly booked a $1.3 million payday for taking down the first ever $25,000 No Limit Hold’em Six-Handed tournament held at the WSOP (victory celebration with other PocketFivers pictured). He barreled through a talent-rich field of 191 players and defeated Canada’s Shawn Buchanan heads-up. Earlier this year, he took third in the World Poker Tour’s L.A. Poker Classic for over a half-million bucks. According to the Hendon Mob, Kelly has $2.2 million in live MTT cashes to his name.

What does Kelly have left to prove now that he has five bracelets in WCOOP and WSOP play? He told us, “I don’t think I have to prove anything at this point, but it certainly would be nice to win a WPT or an EPT. I still really enjoy playing poker, and, of course, winning money is fun.”

In fact, winning money is so much fun that Kelly is one of only 15 PocketFives members to sport over $5 million in tracked cashes in online MTTs. Only five members of our community have banked more dough than he has and he is approaching $4 million in tracked winnings on PokerStars alone.

Like many American online poker players, Kelly was bucked from the market on Black Friday and has since taken up playing poker in other countries. PokerStars lists Kelly’s location as Australia, so we asked him how he found his way to “The Land Down Under.” He explained, “I had been to the PCA in January the last four years, but had never been to the Aussie Millions, so I wanted to try something new. Australia also seemed like a really cool place to live. It was great, probably the favorite place I’ve traveled to.”

From Australia, Kelly headed east to Costa Rica (pictured), where many online poker players, using services like Poker Refugees, now call home. Kelly knew friends who were setting up shop in the Central American nation and decided to join the party in time for WCOOP. Maybe he’ll now make a run at the #1 spot in the PocketFives Poker Rankings. He’s currently #115 worldwide and last reached the top spot in December 2009. You can read more about what’s going on in Costa Rica by checking out the PocketFives Costa Rica poker community.

When asked by PokerNews why he chose to travel the world to play online poker instead of camp out in the U.S. and become a regular on the live circuit, where he has also had a considerable amount of success, Kelly responded, “It’s a lot easier. I did do Europe last year – World Series of Poker Europe and a few EPTs – it’s just very high variance if you’re playing €5K, €10K, and High Rollers. It’s such a small sample size that it’s so easy to go on a massive downswing. And the traveling, too. There are so many expenses built in that people don’t even consider.”

Congratulations to Kelly on his record-setting WCOOP victory. You can comment on this interview here or by visiting our thread in the Poker Community forum.