Back in May, the inaugural $200 buy-in Pennsyl-MANIA had a $250,000 guarantee, which is crushed by drawing 2,774 entries (1,760 unique + 1,014 re-entries) and generating a $515,964 prize pool. Coming out on top of that tournament was Dillon ��D-Low1527�� Longenbach, who secured $69,670.79 after a heads-up deal with ��justbuy44��, who took $58,175.62 in prize money.

��It is honestly surreal and very humbling it still has not fully sunk in,�� Longenbach told PokerNews after winning the largest online poker tournament ever held in Pennsylvania. ��A lot of people told me I was wasting my time focusing so much energy on poker but nobody is saying that now so it really validated all the work I have been putting in to become a better player.��

Longenbach a PA Superstar

Longenbach grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and graduated in 2012 from Council Rock North High School.

��I was not what you would call a star student so I decided against pursuing further education,�� he said. ��I started working in the warehouse at a small equipment company Springer Pumps, LLC. at the age of 19 and have been there since eventually working my up to Warehouse manager and inside sales.��

Longenbach, who had two brothers and a sister, has squeezed in poker in between work and time with his girlfriend of three years.

��I was about 10 years old when Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP and I started playing with my dad and friends shortly after. I eventually started playing on sites such partypoker at the young age of 11-12 years old. I can still remember sitting in my father��s living room with sunglasses on to play online poker. I thought I was a big shot. Eventually, I stopped playing for many years and focused on sports before rekindling my love of poker about 3-4 years ago.��

Click here to download PokerStars PA for desktop

Q&A w/ Longenbach

PokerNews: Can you tell us a little about the PokerStars Pennsyl-MANIA tournament back in May?

Longenbach: The first Pennsyl-MANIA was awesome. It was a great tournament with a great structure. I enjoyed the longer levels of 20 minutes as most PokerStars PA tournaments have short levels between 8-12 minutes. I actually only had three big blinds left when we made it to the money. At that point, I was just happy to make it to the money and figured I would be eliminated shortly after before winning a handful of flips and somehow battling back to a playable stack for Day 2.

Another crazy part of the tournament that will stick with me is the botched deal at the final table. I was sitting in third place with five people left and we all agreed to make a deal. The deal would have seen me get $40K but because a few players were having technical difficulties we couldn't complete the deal. When play resumed I went on a tear eliminating the last four people to claim the title and top prize. I have had some other small tournament wins and final tables but nothing anywhere close to this size!

Any plans for the money?

My only plans with the money at this point is to make a down payment on my first home with Shelby, my longtime girlfriend. Other than that, nothing planned at the moment. I do plan on playing more events and look forward to playing some more live events once live poker makes its return.

What do you think helped propel you to the big win?

I have a group of friends we like to call ourselves "Team No Tilt" as we motivate each other to always work on our mental game and not let our emotions factor into our play. They always help in the inspiration and motivation department. Once the tournament was announced it was a no brainier to enter and I have the bankroll for the event so there was no need to play any satellites.

Do you ever play live poker?

Yes, I use to play a ton of live poker mostly cash games at Parx Casino. I have actually only played a handful of live tournaments as I did not really have the proper bankroll until recently to play the tournaments I would have liked. I will 100% be playing a ton of live events once they return. While online poker is great and I enjoy it, nothing compares to sitting at the table and being able to get a live read on someone.

What is the story behind your screenname ��D-Low1527��?

My nickname since I was a young kid as always been ��DLow�� and my two favorite numbers are 15 and 27, so I figured it would make a good screen name.

Play is midway through Level 21 with blinds of 3,500/7,000 and five-handed play has continued with "Morning Waffles" losing a pot to get crippled down to 21,000 at the end of last level before finding several doubles to make their way back into contention.

Prior to their most recent double, "Morning Waffles" had chipped back up to 76,000 and was in the big blind. "TryptophanMan" opened to 21,000 in the cutoff and "Morning Waffles" three-bet the pot to 66,500. "TryptophanMan" called and "Morning Waffles" put their last 10,404 in on the flop , which "TryptophanMan" called.

"Morning Waffles":
"TryptophanMan":

"Morning Waffles" was ahead with aces and faded what they needed to as the board ran out to give them aces up and bring them up to the middle of the pack in the counts.

Player	Chips	Progress
TryptophanMan	1,107,451 88,073	88,073
hunterm708	378,417 2,298	2,298
Morning Waffles	157,308 -150,581	-150,581
sawyer2117	135,440 51,970	51,970
Mr.20InchArms	121,384 -13,000	-13,000

Do you either live in the Keystone State or plan on visiting? If so, we recommend you download PokerStars for all your Pennsylvania poker needs. You can download from anywhere, but remember you must be located in Pennsylvania in order to play. Once you get started, you can receive $30 free play or a 100% deposit bonus up to $600.

Click here to download PokerStars PA for desktop.

Click here to download PokerStars PA for mobile.

Welcome to the home of online poker

PokerStars is where you��ll find the best tournaments and games, secure deposits, fast withdrawals and award-winning software. It is where champions are born, and you could be next. Practice your skills with Play Money or join real money games. There's no better place to learn and play poker. Please note that real money play is only possible when physically located in the state of Pennsylvania.

Click here to download PokerStars PA for mobile

The best poker tournaments

PokerStars is home to the best online poker events. Every year they run the best online tournament series in the world. They also host the best weekly tournaments, plus many more every day of the week. With a game starting every second, PokerStars is the only place to play tournament poker online.

Team PokerStars Pro

PokerStars is the only place where you can watch and play against Team PokerStars Pro - their group of elite pro players. Between them they have scores of World Series bracelets, EPT and WPT titles and more, adding up to millions in winnings. And now you can join them at the tables with PokerStars.

Click here to download PokerStars PA for desktop

In Level 19 with blinds of 2,500/5,000, "Lachoy14" raised the pot to 17,500 on the button and saw "AllinWithAJoff" pot-three-bet to 57,500 and "Lachoy14" shoved for 71,956, which "AllinWithAJoff" called.

"Lachoy14":
"AllinWithAJoff":

"Lachoy14" saw the case ace come on a runout of to lock up the double with aces full by the turn.

Player	Chips	Progress
Lachoy14	148,912 54,456	54,456
AllinWithAJoff	141,604 -79,956	-79,956

In Level 18 with blinds of 2,000/4,000, "g0rnman" raised to 8,775 in the cutoff and was three-bet to 30,325 by "TryptophanMan" in the small blind. "g0rnman" four-bet to 94,975 and "TryptophanMan" called the pot-sized reraise, taking nearly 200,000 into the pot as the flop came . "TryptophanMan" bet the pot, effectively putting "g0rnman" all in for 122,102, and they called.

"g0rnman":
"TryptophanMan":

"g0rnman" was ahead with a pair of aces but the turn gave "TryptophanMan" trips, leaving them in poor shape with just two outs to aces full on the river, which instead came to result in their elimination from the tournament.

Meanwhile, "TryptophanMan" has further increased their stack to over 750,000 as the tournament is on its fourth break of the night. Chip counts from all nine remaining players have been posted below.

Player	Chips	Progress
TryptophanMan	750,216 248,224	248,224
Morning Waffles	278,389 88,540	88,540
AllinWithAJoff	221,560 36,400	36,400
hunterm708	175,315 -27,000	-27,000
Mr.20InchArms	158,634 -4,000	-4,000
soccerdad29	99,485 -17,000	-17,000
Lachoy14	94,456 38,228	38,228
fubadbeatbob	68,710 -40,540	-40,540
sawyer2117	53,235 -17,500	-17,500
g0rnman	Busted

In Level 18 with blinds of 2,000/4,000, action folded to "soccerdad29" in the cutoff and they limped. "hunterm708" completed their small blind to put action onto "king12929", who raised their option to a pot-sized amount of 16,000. Only "soccerdad29" called and action went heads up to the flop with 36,000 in the middle.

"king12929" shoved for their last 35,263 and "soccerdad29" thought for a second, faced with a decision for roughly 80% of their stack. After that second was up, they called and hands were shown.

"king12929":
"soccerdad29":

"soccerdad29" called with a pair of eights and an open-ended straight draw, making them a favorite to win the hand despite not having the best hand when all the chips went in. That changed on the turn as they picked up two pair, which further improved as they boated up on the river to eliminate "king12929" from the tournament in 11th place.

Player	Chips	Progress
hunterm708	202,315 -26,240	-26,240
Morning Waffles	189,849 45,240	45,240
Mr.20InchArms	162,634 11,000	11,000
soccerdad29	116,485 63,888	63,888
fubadbeatbob	109,250 56,250	56,250
king12929	Busted