Last month, London’s Nayeem Syed (pictured), known on PocketFives as dancingbudha, took third in the PokerStars Sunday Millionand earned $91,000, his largest online poker cash to date. There were 5,528 entrants that day and he was the highest-finishing member of the PocketFives community. Syed is #20 in London, #164 in the United Kingdom, and #1,919 worldwide in the PocketFives Rankings.
PocketFives: Nice job final tabling the Sunday Million. Tell us how you’re feeling about it.
Nayeem Syed: It feels really good. It definitely wasn’t expected at all. I ran quite lucky and won quite a few flips to make it so far.
PocketFives: Any plans for the money? How will this change your poker career in any way?
Nayeem Syed: It is my largest score, beating my Sunday 500 second place finish in May of this year. I will continue to take small stabs at poker every now and then until I can get regular scores more frequently. As for the money, it was quite well-timed, as I could use it as a financial guarantee for some moves I am looking to make in mainland Europe. They ask for a big bank balance.
PocketFives: Walk us through how the final table played out. Where did you enter the final table in chips and how did it go?
Nayeem Syed: I entered as the chip leader, but was card-dead throughout and the few times I did get a hand I didn’t get any customers. So, I ran down to half of my starting stack until everyone knocked each other out and there were just two players left.
That’s when I made my first move, shoving with king-high against the big blind who called with ace-high, which held up. In hindsight, with 15 big blinds left, I could have waited a bit longer for a slightly better hand and given my opponents a chance to knock each other out, which would have meant quite a pay jump.
PocketFives: How did you get started in poker? Why was it appealing to you?
Nayeem Syed: I started playing on PokerStars exactly five years before the date of this tournament. I was a chess player, but when I saw more and more people move towards poker from chess, it got me curious and I started looking more into it. I started off playing at my local casino where I was getting regular wins in the £20 Rebuy Turbo, walking out with about £600 a few times a week.
PocketFives: Do you play full-time?
Nayeem Syed: I have a lot of work to do on my game still, so I would look for some good training so I am more consistent with my results before I can commit to playing full-time. I work in IT and am looking to continue with it until I am more consistent with poker or can get my property business in a good state. I am doing a few property deals at present.
PocketFives: What do your friends and family think of all of your success?
Nayeem Syed: They have been all very happy with the results, but unfortunately none of my friends or family are into poker, so I am lacking a good peer group that I can talk poker with regularly. In my opinion, that usually helps a lot towards improving one’s game.
PocketFives: Do you play live poker and/or cash games? We know there’s a ton of live action in London.
Nayeem Syed: Yes, I have done some live tourneys in London, although I have not been too successful at it, just an occasional win here and there in the smaller circuit events. I have also had very little results the few times I have taken a stab at cash games. I generally get very bored with live games, as they are much slower. I think I will stick to trying to win a ticket to a bigger live event so the time-to-money ratio is better.
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