The largest payday of the 2010 PokerStarsSpring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) belonged to Ryan toetaguFair, who collected over $1.1 million after an outright win in the high-stakes Main Event. The $10,300 buy-in tournament shelled out one of the largest paydays in the history of online poker and added even more padding to the Floridian’s resume. Fair shot up to seventh in the PocketFives.com Sliding PLB for his home state and sat down with PocketFives.com to recap his place in poker history.
PocketFives.com: We’re talking to you one week following your win in the SCOOP Main Event. Tell us how you’re feeling.
Ryan Fair: It’s pretty crazy, but my whole life I’ve been like this. I don’t really get too up or too down. All of my friends were more excited than I was. I was excited because I was on a bit of a downswing after my World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event cash. This event, besides the money, got my confidence back and confirmed to me that I wasn’t playing that bad. I have four top 15 cashes in huge WSOP events and that’s what was happening to me in big online tournaments; the money is in the top three spots and I wanted to close one out.
PocketFives.com: What are your plans for the $1.1 million?
Ryan Fair: I do a lot of charity work, so I’m going to be putting two or three kids through school with it. I’m probably going to donate some of it to cancer research as well. I’ve been fortunate my whole life and these kids should have the opportunity to get a good education.
PocketFives.com: Last year, you finished 31st in the WSOP Main Event for $253,000. What are your plans for this year’s tournament series?
Ryan Fair: I’m going to Las Vegas for Memorial Day to party, but will then be ready to play in WSOP events. I need to be more patient in them. Sometimes, even though you have hands, it’s for all of your chips. Sometimes it’s good to let people get eliminated and play it like a sit and go rather than just going balls to the wall. If you know someone’s bluffing, call them.
I live day to day and don’t even have my plane ticket or hotel room booked yet. As much as I can while I’m there, I’m going to play all of the No Limit events and probably the $25,000 Six-Max event.
PocketFives.com: Your competition at the final table of the high-stakes SCOOP Main Event included Sweden’s Sumpasand Greg DuckUHobson (pictured at left), who finished second and fourth, respectively. Talk about your competition.
Ryan Fair: At all of the major points in the tournament, I was playing with people from the final table. It gave me a good sense of who they were and how they played. I think there were only a handful of people at the final table who I hadn’t played with for hours upon hours. Sumpas is really good, but was calling too many 3bets out of position and didn’t take the chop, which would have been a great deal for him.
PocketFives.com: Remind us all how you got started in poker.
Ryan Fair: When I was in college at the University of Florida, some kids asked me to play in their home game. I was playing on PartyPokerbeforehand and didn’t know how to play, but was beating them anyway. I was just going off my feel of whether a person was strong or weak despite not necessarily knowing how strong my hand was. It’s more of a business skill than a poker skill and that’s how I was able to beat them. I played online on UB.com and was successful there. People found out that I was doing well, asked me if I wanted to play bigger, and it snowballed from there.
Relive all of the action from the 2010 SCOOP by clicking over to PokerStars.