Cory Carroll, WPT World Championship - Day 4, WPT Season 6

You might describe Cory Carroll as an international man of mystery.

The Canadian poker player from Nova Scotia hit it big in 2007 with a $500,000+ first-place finish at the WSOP Circuit at Caesars and then proceeded to finish second to Jonathan Little at WPT Mirage for nearly $600,000. Carroll also finished in the money at the WSOP Main Event but then vanished like a modern-day Houdini.

Four months later he reappeared at a prelim event for the WPT Five Diamond and cashed for $14,960. Fast-forward to the 2008 WPT World Championship and he is once again in the poker limelight after accumulating a ton of chips on Day 3.

PokerListings.com caught up with Carroll on the last break before play ended on Day 4 and tried to find out what the cordial Canadian had been up to.

The alliterative Cory Carroll.

So first of all, Cory, how has your day gone?

Today's going alright. I still have the same amount of chips that I started with pretty much but I have a big stack so it's definitely manageable. I have durrrr [Tom Dwan] on my left, which is making it pretty difficult. I've had to tighten up quite a bit because he's such a great player and he's got position on me.

Other than that I've pretty much just been coasting, nothing too crazy, no big pots. I'm just waiting for an opportunity or a spot to hopefully pick up some chips. I've got around $2.1 million right and I started the day at $1.9 million.

How do you approach a tournament that has the caliber of players the WPT World Championship has? Do you have to make adjustments to your game?

Well the good thing with this tournament is that the stacks are so deep there's a lot of play. My strategy for any tournament is to get a lot of chips early or bust out and move on to the next one. I was fortunate to get some chips early on in this tournament. I like to play a lot of pots and the more hands you are involved in the more chances you have to make your opponent make a mistake.

What's been your most important hand so far?

I had a big flush draw on Day 1 versus durrrr and I managed to spike it to stay alive but other than that I haven't been involved in too many big pots. I've just been picking up lots of small pots and there's no real hand that sticks out to me.

You wouldn't like having this guy on your left either.

A lot of pros think the Bellagio has the best structure in the world; what do you think?

I don't think you can argue with that. This is the best structure out of any tournament anywhere. I think it is necessary with so many good players to weed out the ones that don't belong.

You had a couple big scores last year around this time and the poker world hasn't seen much of you since. What have you been up to?

Well I'm pretty lazy [laughs]. I don't enjoy playing poker tournaments all that much because it's so time-consuming and you can play for four or five days and not cash for that much. I usually only play 15 to 20 tournaments a year and the rest of the time I play online probably once a week.

Other than that I just like to relax and when I get that itch I go out and play a few tournaments.

Cory Carroll at last year's WSOPC Caesars Las Vegas.

What is it about this particular tournament that makes it so appealing?

The prize pool. It also depends a lot on if I'm already in Vegas or I'm back in Canada. If I'm back in Canada I usually don't make it out. I played it last year and I loved the structure plus $3 million for first place. You basically can't go wrong.

You've got about $2 million chips right now. What's your approach to the last level of play today?

I'm not going to get too aggressive. I'm just going to wait for the day to end. I'm really tired and I haven't slept much in the past few days so hopefully we can knock out the next player in the next 30 minutes or so and [I can] come back fresh tomorrow and start being aggressive.

I know you are probably not thinking about it right now but what are your plans after this event? Are you going to play the WSOP?

Yeah I'm going to take the month of May off and my tentative plan is to play all the bigger events at the World Series. I always have a plan like that and I don't seem to play as many events as I want. I'll probably get six or seven events in this year and that will be good enough for me.

Thanks so much Cory and best of luck in the tournament.

Thanks.

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Cory Carroll took a hit before the day ended and finished with around $1.3 million chips. Not all is lost, however, and Carroll still has plenty of big blinds before he is forced to make a move. If he gets a little luck the easygoing Canadian looks primed to make a serious run at a final table that could include the likes of Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan and Amir Vahedi. Not bad for a self-described "lazy" poker player.