Minutes after the final bell sounded on the Bluff Online Poker Challenge we interviewed winner Brian “Sno0owman” Hawkins and found out exactly how he went about dominating the BOPC almost wire-to-wire. We also learned what he’s going to do with his $25,000 in winnings and tell you why he won’t be playing the WSOP this summer.

Well, first off congratulations are in order. You never really made this thing close.

Thanks, I really thought I was the favorite in this thing. Iwas telling my friends that even when I had just $300.

What day was it that things turned around in a big way for you?

Day 5. I was at $1,500 and got 2nd in the $50 $10,000 Guaranteed tourney and it doubled my bankroll and helped me move up stakes faster.

Right, you hold the record for best single day and worst single day. After that big score was there ever any point where you thought you might be in a bit of trouble?

Yeah for sure, it was I believe Day 11. I started the day with about $8,200 or so and ’shaundeeb’ had about $4,000 and he went on to win the $30 rebuy for just over $5,000 which moved him ahead of me.

Some of the players seemed to throw caution to the wind (not to mention proper bankroll management) and took big shots early. How much thought did you put into bankroll management at the start of this?

I took controlled risk, meaning I would play out of my bankroll a bit and took some shots, but if I lost I would move back down in stakes.

Did you concentrate solely on MTTs or did you play any sit-n-gos along the way?

I pretty much concentrated on heads-up SNGs. I knew that was where my biggest edge was. I played around 600 HU SNGs and about 40 tournaments. I made 75% of my money in the SNGs.

What was the range of stakes for HU SNGs you played? When you started playing the Challenge what level were you playing at?

I started with $25 buy-ins. The start was crucial because I was playing these with only about 8 buy-ins worth. So I couldnt afford to run bad. Fortunately I didn’t and when I got to about $500 I started taking shots at the $50s. If I lost like 2 buy-ins I would move back down to $25s until I reached the $500 mark again and rinse and repeat until I had a good run in the $50s, kept the same approach and would take shots at the next level when I had about 10 buy-ins worth. When I had a substantial lead on the field about halfway through I didnt try to push myself to move up as fast because I didn’t want to risk having any big downswings. I ended up playing a few $1,000s at the very end of the competition once I pretty much already had it won and I could afford to have a downswing if need be. Most of my play was in the $200-$300 range throughout the Challenge.

Now you mentioned that you considered yourself the favorite. Who was it that you thought would give you the best run?

Honestly at first I thought it would be ‘The Maven’. I figured he was going to grind 15 hour days everyday and would just run away with it, but I remember after like the first day he played over 150 SNGs and was up just $20 and I saw him registered for a $1 30-man SNG. Once I saw that I could tell he wasn’t gonna get anywehre too fast. I think he took too much of a conservative approach. But after the first week it was definitely shaundeeb and gbecks (Garret Beckman) that I was worried about. Both were very capable of hitting one of the Sunday Majors that Lock Poker has. I would say I was moreso worried about shaundeeb though, because he is a gambler and didn’t mind taking big shots at HU SNGs which made me a little nervous. Luckily he had a really bad run in the $1,000s and $500s which knocked him all the way down.

Now all of you guys are regularly beating up much bigger tournaments. Did you find the Challenge at all distracting from your “day job”?

No, not at all really, but I was always a lower volume player than the majority. I would say it affected me the least in the competition because usually I just play a full schedule on Sundays on all the sites and will just 1 or 2 table on Monday-Wednesday when the other sites have their $1,000 MTTs. So really I was only effected on Sunday. I pretty much had to take those days off from playing SNGs for the Challenge.

In all the HU sessions were you ever playing against other players in the Challenge. Was there any thought put into playing against the competition since a $100 win is really worth $150 on the leaderboard?

My plan was to avoid the other players in the Challenge. There are just so many fish on Lock Poker that I knew I could wait for better spots. Playing versus better players even if I still have an edge versus them can still lead to bigger swings and my goal all along was to avoid big downswings as best as I could. Shaun Deeb did sit versus me in a few $500s and $300s and he got the better of me but he’ll admit he ran pretty hot. I also played gbecks. He was at my $30 rebuy table with about 3 days left in the Challenge and I had a huge lead on everyone at that point. He made a friendly challenge to play me in a $500 HU SNG and he won it, then put a bad beat on me in the $30 rebuy to knock me out but then I got him back in a $1,000 HU SNG and decided to call it a night.

What was your biggest single MTT score?

On day 15 they had the  Sunday Major which was a $162 buy-in. I was 20th with 34 left and the servers went down so they had to chop up the prize pool which was fine by me at the time because my bankroll was $4,800 and I got around $2,000 out of the chop which was about equivelant to 9th place in that tourney. It gave me a lot more room to work with for my HU SNGs.

So since you just freerolled yourself to a $21,000 score, you got any cool plans for the money?

I’m actually at $25,000! HAHAHA. As for the money though nothing special really. Keep trying to save up for all the big live events that are gonna be upcoming for when I turn 21 and I like to donate a decent-sized portion to the government!.

How long until you turn 21 and you unleash your skills on the live scene in the US?

This August finally! Unfortunately I will be missing out on this years World Series of Poker. Oh well, I’ll be ready to collect some money in the 2010 Series.

Great job Brian. You destroyed this thing. Any last thoughts?

Thanks to everyone who put it together; Lock Poker, Dream Team Poker and of course Bluff Magazine. It was a great idea and I think it was definintely a big success and was huge for me as well to get my name out there and show everyone what I can do.

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