David Berinsky, a 32 year old from Pittsburgh, PA won the "Poker and Pigskin Championship" at The National League of Poker. NLOP is a totally free site supported by advertisers and sponsors.

This online event culminated ten weeks of free poker competition. Berinsky won a $10,000 buy-in to the 2007 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, NV. This was just one of the thousands of prizes that have been awarded by NLOP.

Big Fan of NLOP

Berinsky has been playing on NLOP for about a year and has been a big fan – even before winning this $10,000 prize. NLOP "was a great find because it's different. It gives you the luxury of not having stress on your wallet and you can focus more on your game. NLOP has very cool prizes that people cannot afford to buy themselves."

Its cards and cars for muuzicl

In addition to poker, Berinsky loves custom cars and muscle cars. He creates custom car interiors for fellow enthusiasts. Appropriately, his screen name is "muuzicl" and he's been muscling the online competition for the last eight months. But he's hardly a poker novice. For the last two years he's been refining his game –mostly in pub leagues. However, his victory in the "Poker and Pigskin' Championship suggests he's adapted his game to the online version.

Shifting gears throughout a tourney

He approached the championship event with a determination to be patient and to stay focused. "It is not etched in stone that you have to see every flop. Be patient, get your read on the other players and the cards will soon come" Berinksy advises. "In the tournament, I was able to do what I like, which is stay within the chip average and only worry about my table. You can't worry about the other tables. Things like that will break your focus. When we got down to around 110 players, I noticed people were playing tight, (prizes awarded to the top 100) so I changed gears and was able to accumulate extra chips uncontested. Once again, when we got to the final 15 or so, I repeated the same process with the same results".

"At the Final Table, I was 5th in chips out of 9 players. I was card dead early, folded a lot of blinds and got to the final 4 as the short stack. Then, I started to play super aggressive. Finally, I was heads up with a huge chip lead. Two hands in and I'm dealt Ace-King in the big blind. The other player moved in with pocket 7's and they held up. I had to brush it off and not do anything dumb. I folded a couple of hands before the flop and then came THE HAND. I had 5/3 of clubs in the big blind. The other player limped in on the button and I checked. The flop came with 3 clubs. I checked. He moved all in with top pair. The rest is history! I was on cloud nine the next day realizing that something I dreamed about was finally happening.

I look forward to the tournament in Las Vegas. Thank you NLOP. See you in Vegas!"

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