Despite the high-stakes events being held as part of the PokerStarsSpring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) and Mini Full TiltOnline Poker Series (MiniFTOPS), the Full Tilt Sunday Mulligan was held as scheduled. A field of 1,235 players turned out, creating a $247,000 prize pool. When the final cards were dealt, Ben steponu Volpe came out on top, banking $45,000. The auditor for a public accounting firm in Chicago told PocketFives.com following his big win, “It’s great. You put in a lot of time grinding those Sunday and weekday tournaments. You air-ball and go through swings, so it’s nice to have success in a Sunday major.”
In April, he came out on top of the field in the Full Tilt $75,000 Guaranteed for $33,000 and, one week prior, final tabled the Sunday Second Chance for $23,000. All of this comes despite holding down a traditional full-time job. On his future, Volpe told PocketFives.com that it’s still up in the air: “I’m going to run with the game as much as I can and as much as I feel I want to. I want to keep my options open and give myself other opportunities. I’m enjoying it and it’s a great source of income.”
Volpe entered the final table on life support, but managed to scoop a sizable pot at the expense of James P0KERPR033 Campbell (pictured at left) with A-10 against A-2. The better pre-flop hand held and Campbell exited the final table in ninth place for $3,700. Campbell, of course, banked $276,000 from the SCOOP Two-Day Event. Volpe revealed his mindset entering the tournament’s final table: “When I came in, I was pretty short, so it was all-in or fold. I wasn’t thinking about who to play pots with. After I won that hand, I started playing more aggressively and felt comfortable.”
He’s scheduled time off from work to head out to Las Vegas for the 2010 World Series of Poker. Last year, he all but bricked out in Sin City, but continues to work on building his live poker resume. He’s come a long way since playing home games with friends during high school: “In college, I was messing around on my own and one of my close friends, Ravi govshark2 Raghavan (pictured at right), had a lot of success. I had a couple of friends from school who were learning and getting better, so I talked to them and played around.”
Raghavan has had a bundle of poker success. He final tabled the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Hollywood Poker Open in March for $105,000. He holds down the 20th spot in the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings and has recorded wins in the PokerStars Sunday 500, Full Tilt $1K Monday, and Full Tilt $75,000 Guaranteed. Volpe detailed Raghavan’s influence: “He learned from some of the best and passed it down to me. We talked a lot and I watched him play. He is hands-down the biggest influence on my career.”
One group that hasn’t shared in Volpe’s success is his co-workers. He explained, “It’s hard to tell people outside of the poker world about the dollar values of what you make. They don’t know what goes into it. They hear $45,000 and that’s a yearly salary. They don’t understand all of the other buy-ins there are.” However, his parents have been kept in the loop about his poker success.
In case you missed it, here were the results from the May 16th running of the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Mulligan:
1. StepOnU – $45,460 (steponu)
2. SHiP THAT – $43,460
3. Obvamentz_IMO – $25,009
4. blaniac – $20,069
5. NYpokerguy – $15,141
6. TotalScience – $11,115
7. dfunks222 – $7,163
8. boNeZee – $5,187 (boNezee)
9. P0KERPR0 – $3,705 (P0KERPR033)
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