BPOIII Mid-Stakes Main Event Winner: Michael T. Hasten

by Bodog Poker | May 21 2009

The Bodog Poker Open III had three different main events this time, and the winner of the mid-stakes main event was 24-year-old part-time MTT grinder Michael T. Hasten. The Peoria, Illinois native is not your regular young online MTT expert; he still works his full-time job at a local hospital where he puts in three 12-hour shifts a week. When he's not helping out at the hospital he's helping himself to some juicy prize pools online. Michael averages between 20-30 hours a week playing poker, but despite his limited play he has lots of MTT cashes under his belt.

Michael won $8,951 of the Bodog Poker Open mid-Main Event $32,550 prize pool after beating out 216 other players. Online Michael goes by the username "scareface0928". He uses that name on Bodog and the other online rooms, but he's a Bodog regular who's been part of the Bodog community for years. Some of his recent cashes include a fourth-place finish on March 29 in a $215 buy-in event for $47,220. He also finished fourth in a $33 buy-in $250K event on April 5 for $21,370, and he had an outright win on March 16 in an $11 buy-in $30k guaranteed event for another $5,363. Not bad for a part-time job to supplement your income.

He's been playing poker seriously for six years and trained under the tutelage of "themaven" and "BodogAri" before they ever had their poker school. Michael started out playing cash games but has become strictly an MTT specialist for two years now, since his roommate started helping him with his game. His roommate is an online professional who goes by the username of "rjules12", and the two are heading to Sin City to try their luck in the big live prize pools.

Michael intends to take his online skills to the WSOP this year for the first time. Work only allows for a short vacation of a week or so, but he intends on making the most of it. "I'm going to play in a couple of $1500 events, the one on Saturday the 27th and the one on the 29th if things work out. My roommate and I will be staying with other players we know in Vegas for the week."

Michael prefers Bodog over other online poker rooms and says Bodog has the best structured tournaments of any online poker room. "The overlays are the best and you don't have to play against thousands of players. The Bodog community is a friendly group where a new player can get advice from the other players. I've never had one problem at Bodog."

Outside of poker, Michael plays basketball with his friends before they sit down to grind. The rest of his time he likes to spend with his fiancée Laurie. As lucky as he is on the poker tables, Michael considers her to be the luckiest thing to come his way yet. He realizes how difficult it is to find someone who will support him in poker, which she has always done, and looks forward to getting married next year.

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