LAS VEGAS -- I first discovered Andrew Brokos when I was directed to an article in the aftermath of "Black Friday". It was perhaps the best thing I read regarding the situation. In that piece, entitled "Gray Friday", Brokos departed from the standard fare that saw poker players rightfully complaining about the unfortunate circumstances they'd found themselves in. Instead, he found his silver lining in a departure from the computer his eyes had become affixed to. He chose to look at Black Friday as an opportunity to get back to a better-balanced way of life.

It's a remarkable thing to be capable of putting an authentic, positive spin on obvious tragedy, which is why my ears perked when I heard he'd made the money. For the fifth time in six years, this articulate, thoughtful man has cashed in the main event of the World Series of Poker. According to the Hendon Mob, the cash game pro only has one other money finish in his career.

"The goal always is to just play your best in the moment," said Brokos. "I've tried hard to keep expectations down amongst family and friends. I communicate with a lot of people who aren't immersed in the poker world and don't understand it all that well. I think they think I'm being modest when I tell them, 'don't expect me to win anything. Don't get too excited.' They see me cash five of six years and they think 'This kid's good. he's just being modest' , so there's a lot of people building my expectations up, irrationally. For me, it's very much about not buying into that, playing my best in the moment and so far, success has followed."

As level 20 drew to a close, Brokos' stack was being reported as a healthy 1.2 million in chips. Despite the bright hopes the main event seems to be offering, he says he doesn't know what his future is looking like, even if he should place in the November Nine.

"I've been kind of back and forth," Brokos said. "I have a real love for poker, I do. At the same time, there are other things I enjoy also, it's always been a balance. I'm sure a lot of other players can attest to this, to want to be really good at poker, but also to know I'm not putting as much time into it as other people are and I never will. I'm never going to be a guy who's grinding 60-80 hours a week. I know people that do and it's hard to say I'm going to be as good as they are when they're just as smart as I am and are putting more time into it. How could I ever be as good as they are? At the same time, I feel like I love poker too much to abandon it completely. I'd say I'm still waffling a bit, but I'm exploring other interests more in the wake of Black Friday."

In preparation for life after the main event, Brokos is reacquainting himself with a notion he hasn't encountered in six years: that of getting a job.

"I've been working on a résumé for the first time since 2005," he smiled. "It's funny thinking about how to describe poker on a resume. I do think there are a lot of real job skills that come out of poker. Raising capital, managing capital, managing money, thinking about how you're going to invest money, making decisions under pressure and time constraints and incomplete information. I'm pretty confident in my ability to explain that in a job interview. The question is, how do you get to that interview stage? But I'm reworking [the résumé], I'm getting that ready, but I'm far from having pulled that trigger in terms of definitely sending out applications."

In other words, if you're a businessperson who needs intelligent, insightful workers who might need a couple of weeks off every July this might be your man. You can reach him on Twitter @thinkingpoker. You could make far worse hires.