How Iwan Robert, a lovesick French nurse, moved to Prague and pulled off an evening of sheer poker madness

A few weeks back, veteran PokerStars Blog writer Howard Swains and that i stood looking ahead to an elevator in Barcelona. He checked out me with the look he gets when he's feeling mischievous. He spoke a word I COULD NOT even spell: Anomalisa.

It was a movie recommendation, one he vowed to not spoil for me by telling me anything about it, but one he insisted I should see.

So, upstairs I went right into a hotel room that gave the look of almost any hotel room, grabbed a drink from a mini-bar that gave the impression of some other mini-bar, and settled right into a bed that appeared like some other bed. I pulled up Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa on my laptop and settled in for one more night at the road.

If you've seen the film, you recognize what comes next, and if you've not, I CAN do you a similar favor Swains did me and never spoil it for you one bit. I WILL BE ABLE TO only reveal this much: it's, in part, a study of that moment whilst you see something totally different in a sea of sameness.

And it is usually a connection to at least one of the wildest stories to come back out of PokerStars this month.

Little did Swains or I DO KNOW on the time that there has been a Frenchman around the border who had already declared Anomalisa a "masterpiece" and was only a few weeks clear of distinguishing himself from sameness in some way we almost never see. When given the danger to discuss his poker achievement and provided a platform to mention anything he desired to the world, he took that chance to indicate to the Kaufman film and declare, "I BELIEVE everybody should see it."

Iwan Robert, 34, is a nurse, person who deals with the psychological stress of his job by burying himself in cinema. He's made films of his own, and he devours the most productive of the silver screen. It was what led him to Anomalisa and the quest for something to make his heart beat faster in a global that may often feel tragically mundane. It is a search that pushes him into dance clubs, into the arms of women, and infrequently right into a drink...or sometimes more.

"Sometimes too much, I MUST admit," Robert said.

He eats good food, surrounds himself in trance music, swims to maintain in shape, and travels up to he can in that constant quest for something new. For many searchers, this type of life is a made of having something clear of which to run. That isn't true of Robert. His life has been, by his estimation, rather ideal.

"I had this perfect childhood. My parents are both teachers, they usually did a very good job as parents," he said. "I'VE also a sister who has two daughters. It's absolutely magical to look them. They fill me up with joy."

There may be a brother within the picture, one Robert calls "emotional" and likewise "a greater poker player than me."

By this point, a reader might be surprised poker has managed to slide in as a subplot to Robert's life story. It was this month, however, that the sport gave Robert a highlight reel like few have seen.

Imagine Robert at age 21 and swept up in what he still calls the Moneymaker Effect, one among countless youth of the early 2000s who discovered poker after amateur Chris Moneymaker won the arena Series of Poker.

"I had this intense feeling just like the one you'll be able to have whilst you meet a woman for the primary time and also you connect directly. It was almost mystic. I literally felt in love with the game," he said.

Robert is a romantic, one of the crucial hopeless variety, and his love of the sport led him right into a group with whom he's made his biggest and strongest group of friends.

"I have friends mostly because of poker, and, oh my God, I'm so happy I FOUND the sport like this and that i was capable of meet them," he said. "I absolutely cherish the friendship we've got together."

These are men, a few of whom lived together, who would celebration and play cards six nights every week. They bought their very own poker table and started a marathon game where money got passed from side to side among friends. It was the kind of bonding experience so that they can persist with a person forever...but it won't make him rich. At one point, the gang had a collective epiphany: would it not be smarter to check out to take other people's money?

So, Robert found online poker where he started with tournaments and quickly decided he was more of a cash game player. He worked his way as much as the $200 games and built a bankroll of $7,000.

And then he got drunk. Or in his words, "stupid drunk."

You can write the remainder of the tale yourself. Wasted, he sat in a $1,000 game and lost all of it. His poker bankroll was gone.

"That night numbed me a lot," he admitted.

Robert moved back to tournaments, and within two months had built his roll back as much as $5,000. He got to work as a nurse, and kept poker as a hobby.

Two years passed, he moved to Prague, and he thought he might fiddle with some tournaments again. It could prove to be the verdict that turned this September into one who stood out within the sea of sameness like a beach ball in a bowl of soup.

People who make it their business to maintain track of poker results spend numerous time PokerStars through the month of September. That's when the sector Championship of Online poker runs, a time after we re-visit the heroes of the sport demonstrating the most efficient in their talents. We meet new champions here and there, but unless a reporter is paying close attention, results can begin to run together over the process greater than six-dozen events.

PokerStars compounded that issue this year with the introduction of the companion Mini-COOP, a small stakes series meant to present the more frugal poker player an opportunity to experience the structures and thrills of a championship-style series.

It was on this series where Robert found himself in the course of a moment that floored even veterans like Jason Somerville.

If you can not watch the video now, here's the recap:

Robert (referred to as Ethanolol on PokerStars) entered two events within an hour and 1/2 one another. One had 12,000 entrants. The opposite had 18,000 entrants.

Robert won them both.

"I ran like Jesus. I USED TO BE within the zone. Nothing could reach me. AN EXCESSIVELY strange feeling," he said.

A back-to-back win isn't remarkable. Terrence Chan did it in SCOOP in 2009 in his specialty, limit hold'em. That said, Chan's opponents numbered within the hundreds. Robert defeated around 30,000 players to win his back-to-back titles, winning greater than $15,000 on lower than $15 in buy-ins over the process one night.

"When I NOTICED the 2 final tables were coming, I USED TO BE conscious that it was complete madness. I USED TO BE defying the variance," he said. "AFTER WHICH once I won either one of them, I USED TO BE shocked somehow, but I USED TO BE aware that subnormal just happened and that these scenarios will not exist somehow in real life. But it surely did!"

Indeed, it did. And that is the reason why you will see Iwan Robert, an anomaly of the primary order, playing the big-time $5,000 WCOOP Main Event.

I know what you're thinking: he's doing it again, isn't he? He's drunk at the moment and going to spend 1/3 of his winnings on one tournament!

In this case, no. He's not.

Impressed by the performance, the folk backstage at PokerStars gifted Robert a free entry to the WCOOP Main Event, so now, his love of the game--the one who defied the chances and raised a large number of eyebrows--will see him competing against the most efficient on the planet for online poker's biggest championship.

For numerous people, it'd be essentially the most exciting thing that's ever happened to them. For Robert though, it still doesn't rank as high as that another feeling that sticks out against the mundanity of every passing day: love. Say what you will, but this poker anomaly is a huge softy still within the seek for that one beautiful life aberration you can not buy on the card room cage.

"I know guys will laugh at me, but I'm an helpless romantic. There may be nothing to match between love and poker," he said.

Want to check out for yourself? Click here to get a PokerStars account.Brad Willis is the PokerStars Head of Blogging. Follow him on Twitter: @BradWillis.

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