In recent days, Tyson POTTERMarks (pictured) came out on top of the field in the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker(WCOOP) Main Event, cashing for an amazing $2.2 million. The $5,200 buy-in tournament drew 2,443 players and offered up a healthy prize pool of $12.2 million, one of the largest ever seen in the online poker world. The stacked final table saw each player walk away with at least $112,000. To top it off, Marks also took down the PocketFives.com Monthly PLB for September, helped in large part by the 3,495 PLB point boost from the WCOOP Main Event.

Marks told PocketFives.com that last month was a whirlwind: “I got my first Triple Crowna few weeks ago and thought that was pretty sweet; this is just ridiculous.” Marks turned in the second highest Monthly PLB score ever registered at 5,376, trailing only the 5,521 points put up by Yevgeniy Jovial Gent Timoshenko (pictured) in September 2009. That month, of course, Timoshenko won the WCOOP Main Event for $1.7 million. The two are the only PocketFives.com members ever to post Monthly PLB scores above 5,000.

In the days leading up to Marks’ WCOOP Main Event win, he finished second in the Full Tilt Poker $75,000 Guarantee for $16,000, took fifth in the Full Tilt $30,000 Super Turbo Guarantee for $2,700, and landed third in the site’s $24,000 Guarantee for $4,200. Marks admitted, “I was feeling really confident that week and felt like I was playing my super A-game. Before the WCOOP Main Event, the biggest tournament I had ever played online was the FTOPS Main Event, so I was definitely looking forward to it.”

What’s a man to do with $2.2 million? He told PocketFives.com that he’ll allocate part of his take to purchasing a home, most likely in Montana. He can be found at #49 worldwide in the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankingsand sits atop the Sortable Rankings for the Treasure State.

Predictably, the $2.2 million haul and wildly successful month of September will change his online poker career forever: “I should have no problem staking myself for live and online events. Not to mention, there could be sponsors, etc. that I become involved with and that could give me a lot of extra opportunities.” All told, he banked nearly $2.4 million over the course of September in 61 qualifying cashes.

On the first of September, Marks took second in the Full Tilt $200 Turbo ($50,000 Guarantee) for $10,000. Outside of the WCOOP cash, he told PocketFives.com that the Turbo was his most memorable payday during the 30-day stanza: “That is one of my favorite weekday tournaments, so that stood out.” On other cashes, Marks admitted, “After the second place finish in the $75,000 Guarantee, I remember being really upset about it. I got it in very good heads-up multiple times, so I felt like I should have won that one at the time.”

We’ve made it a point in recent feature articles on PocketFives.com to ask players about the origins of their online handles. Marks, who plays as POTTERPOKER on PokerStars, explained, “Four or five years ago when I set up my account, I was reading the Harry Potter books. I was already into sci-fi books and a friend recommended them to me. It’s the sort of thing where I didn’t think, ‘Hey, people might know me one day, so I should pick a really sweet name.’ I just used the first thing that popped into my head.” Marks has one month remaining until the penultimate Harry Potter movie is released on the big screen.

In case you’re wondering, here are the top 10 Monthly PLB tallies in the history of PocketFives.com:

1. Jovial Gent (September 2009) – 5,521.34
2. POTTER (September 2010) – 5,376.04
3. Jymaster0011 (August 2010) – 4,638.39
4. BeL0WaB0Ve (August 2008) – 4,402.83
5. mementmori (May 2010) – 4,172.75
6. ckingusc (September 2008) – 4,014.08
7. SCTrojans (September 2007) – 3,968.72
8. shaundeeb (March 2009) – 3,956.72
9. therookieqq9 (November 2008) – 3,886.08
10. jet5087 (August 2009) – 3,643.30

Visit the Monthly PLB Wall of Champions for more information.

*To find out more about our Online Poker Rankingsprocess, PLB scores and Pro Polling, please visit our Rankings FAQpage.