Our Verdict:
Few online players have made as big a splash in live tournament play as "gobboboy". The 21-year-old from Illinois will be remembered as one of the most stunning successes of 2007.
Gobboboy - otherwise known as Jimmy Fricke - came to attention during the PokerStars WPT Caribbean Adventure in January. In only his second live event, the teenager finished 22nd to claim a prize of $28,255. But that was just the beginning of a remarkable month.
The following week he travelled straight to Melbourne to compete in the Aussie Millions. He stunned onlookers by cruising through the field and knocking out several established pros on route to finishing second behind modern-day legend Gus Hansen. It was an incredible performance. Using a mixture of aggression and quick odds calculations, Gobboboy left a trail of players in his wake as he bamboozled them with skills learned online and landed a life-changing $795,279.
Gobboboy's tournament results are all the more impressive because he took up poker only two years ago. Originally a Magic player, Gobboboy became one of many budding followers of the card strategy game to successfully transfer to online poker. He built up a bankroll slowly on PokerStars and had a couple of big wins in late 2006, coming eighth (out of 1,063) in a $1,000 buy-in on PokerStarsUltimateBet to claim $45,000.