Last month, Brazil's Pablo Brito Silva, or pabritz (pictured) here on PocketFives, came away with a win in the PokerStars Sunday Storm. If you're not familiar with the tournament, it's an $11 buy-in contest that generally attracts around 40,000 players. Yes, 40,000 rabid poker fans turn out for this tournament on a weekly basis, meaning that the top prize typically tops $30,000. It's not for the faint of heart and, with so many players, a win is definitely worthy of a feature article.
Silva collected $32,000 for claiming victory in the Sunday Storm. He is ranked #27 in his home country of Brazil and #2 in his hometown of Salvador. Following his groundbreaking win in the Sunday Storm, Silva told PocketFives in an exclusive interview, "On Sunday after the tournament, I could not believe I had won." The top 5,300 players found the money. That's about the same number of people that entered the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up, Sunday 500, and Sunday $100 Rebuy... combined.
In celebration of his $32,000 score in a tournament that brought out 40,000 people, Silva slept for three hours, woke up, and began grinding once again. At the time, the MicroMillions was brewing on PokerStars and Silva told us, "I didn't celebrate because it was MicroMillions time and I needed to grind for the TLB. I had been playing very solidly in all of the tournaments. I didn't want to make any mistakes, so I reduced my risk and played accordingly. Down the stretch with a large stack, I played more aggressively and could put pressure in others' stacks."
We asked him what an optimal strategy was to navigate a mega-field tournament like the Sunday Storm. His response: "I think it's a good strategy to play solidly in the early and middle stages and more loosely in later stages. It's basic and not hard to do. I found some regulars along the way, but encountered many new players without experience."
If you check out his cash list, you'll see that Pabritz has had a considerable amount of success in rebuy tournaments, specifically the $100 Rebuy on PokerStars. In late 2011, he won it and finished second twice for over $100,000 total, so we asked him why he had as much success as he did: "Last year, my game was very focused on those tournaments. I was playing bigger stakes than I am today. I think I made some adjustments to my game and it worked."
On the adjustments he has implemented, Pabritz explained, "I did not have many results in the $100 Rebuy, so I talked to my coach, who at the time was William hellzito Arruda, and changed my way of playing early in the game. We also improved my post-flop play. I just tried to play my A-game."
Silva got into poker originally by playing Five Card Draw as a kid with friends, "but without expectation, just played for fun. In 2008, my uncle introduced me to online poker and I really liked it. I started playing freerolls and some cheap home games with friends. In 2009, I won a promotion to play in a live tournament in Rio de Janeiro. From there, I started to build a bankroll and played sit and gos at Full Tilt. In January 2011, I started my MTT career."
Brazil is quickly becoming a powerhouse in the poker world. It stands at #4 in the PocketFives Country Poker Rankings, with a combined PLB score of its top 20 players of just over 91,000. Brazil is also ranked #4 in total PLB score at 644,000, trailing the United States by 80,000. The South American country has reeled in 11 Triple Crowns.
18/12/2012, 9:22 am