Joe Ebanks – ender555

Ebanks at the San Jose LAPT in May

Joe ‘ender555’ Ebanks has an MTT resume to stand up to the toughest scrutiny.

The Ohio native has been on an absolute tear, so much so that he has shot into the Pocket Fives top 10 rankings (making number #7 in October 2008, with only legends such as AJKHoosier1, Chris Moorman, Kevin Saul, Shaun Deeb & James Campbell above him).

This is some achievement, especially considering Ebanks was a self-confessed sit and go and cash player until about a year ago. He did this with some success, having an RIO of 11% from over 700 PokerStars sng’s since he first began his online journey. But the switch to multi-table tournaments transformed the career of Ebanks, who says he now devotes his entire time to the biggest guarantee events going.

At the age of 23, he already has combined MTT prizes of over $1million: and that is just on PokerStars and Full Tilt (where he plays as ‘sampson724’). This unbelievable heater has been going on throughout 2008 (with over 19 five-figure cashes on these two sites alone), but he first really came to the online worlds attention in March. In the space of 11 days, he final tabled the Full Tilt $750k GTD (5th, $33,238), took down the Stars $100 re-buys ($21,300) before going back to FT to win their $65,000 GTD event ($21,263). This bankroll boost of over $75,000 was put to good use, winning the $100 re-buys twice more with two runners-up finishes, before making online poker history in August.

Over the weekend of 2nd-3rd August, Ebanks final tabled three major tournaments across three different sites: the Ultimate Bet $200,000 GTD (5th, $11,000), the PokerStars $250,000 GTD (2nd, $66,649) & took down the Absolute Poker $150,000 GTD for $37,500. Over $115,000 made in just 24 hours alerted the tournament community to his talent (see a P5’s thread here) and shot him further up the online rankings.

He says he aims to improve his live performances over the coming months and in his only deep run to date, at May’s San Jose LAPT, he was adamant that updaters mention his online alias in with his real name. He managed to final table this tournament, eventually busting in 8th for $19,303 when his AK ran into the AA of eventual runner-up Max Steinberg.

Joe’s love affair with the $100 re-buys continued after his historic August achievement, with another victory and runners-up spot in the same month to take his profit to over $300,000 on Stars alone. Given his online results, it wouldn’t be surprising to see his name mentioned increasingly among the best MTT players in the world in subsequent months. (View his P5′s profile here).