Last month, Brazil’s Rodrigo Selouan (pictured), known on PocketFives as selouan1991, final tabled the PokerStars Sunday $109 Rebuy and walked off with $18,000. It was his fourth largest online poker score to date and rocketed him to $553,000 in career online tournament cashes. “I was very happy with this final table,” he told us. “It was great to beat a field of great players and it was good for my confidence, especially so close to the WCOOP.”

There were over 500 entrants that weekend and the prize pool was $180,000. “I played this tournament as a freezeout,” he said, “beginning with my starting stack plus a rebuy plus an add-on. I did not bust; the structure is very good and allows you to play well, so I did not need a re-entry. I think that this strategy increases my long-term EV.” Selouan added that he respected ICM at the final table.

Selouan joined PocketFives in 2010 and said that in 2014, he began to get coaching from fellow PocketFiver Vitor Hugo, who is better known as vitinho dzi. Selouan said it was the turning point of his poker career: “It radically changed the way I looked at poker. I’m very grateful for everything he taught me and teaches me to this day.”

So what exactly did Selouan (pictured) learn from Hugo? Selouan explained, “Everything I know about advanced strategies I learned from him and if I had to name the most important thing, it was learning how to base my decisions using a HUD. Today, I cannot imagine myself playing poker at a high level without a HUD.” Selouan started using a Heads-Up Display, or HUD, during his lessons with Hugo.

The Brazilian started playing home games with friends for fun and soon fell in love with it. He recapped, “I started studying and realized poker could be more than a hobby. You get financial, competitive, and adrenaline-related benefits. Those are my biggest motivations to keep grinding and evolving.”

His largest score, by the way, is a second place finish in the PokerStars Big $109 for $39,000 last November. He’s averaging $230 per cash and closed by saying, “I would like to thank everyone who has always supported me in this journey: friends, family, teammates, and especially Vitor Hugo, who was the guy who helped me get here. Hopefully soon I will achieve great results and become one of the major players in Brazil.”

Visit PocketFives’ Brazil poker community, home to 2,100 registered PocketFivers. Selouan is #27 among them.

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