Known as inca7baron PocketFives, Miguel Silva is up to $1.2 million in career online tournament winnings. He officially hit $1 million last month and told us that while he’ll definitely take a new profile badge, “I’d rather have $1 million in profit.” Wouldn’t we all?

Silva, who calls Portugal home, started playing poker four years ago. “I never though it would last so long,” he told us, “but when I won a live tournament, I decided to make it a full-time job because I saw it as very profitable and it was fun too.” He’s up to #236 worldwide in the PocketFives Rankings, his best showing ever.

In 2011, Silva took fourth place in the Sunday 500 for $26,000, his largest score to date. Two years later, he appeared at the final table of the Super Tuesday for another $21,000, his second largest score to date. All told, he is at nearly 3,000 tracked in the money finishes and is averaging $417 a pop.

The Sunday 500 helped launch his poker career and, in his case, gave him a considerable amount of confidence going forward. “I was more comfortable with my game after the Sunday 500 since I had a nice bankroll, but it still was not great. Poker is a game for believersand I still believe I will beat it.”

Silva is the 11th ranked player in Portugal and #1 in the municipality of Mortagua (pictured). “Nowadays, poker is a very popular game, and every day we see more people playing online and live tournaments. The government is starting to review poker legislation and we think we’re going to have good legislation for players. They say that at the end of the year we are going to see the results of it.”

There are over 1,000 Portugal PocketFivers with PLB scores. Visit our Portugal poker community.

He started playing in home games and told us he fell in love with poker from the get-go: “I’ve always enjoyed playing games of strategy, and this was the best because I could combine the strategy of the game with winning money. Playing good poker is a combination of good math skills and some mind games, and that is very stimulating.”

Outside of poker, he hangs out with friends and tries to go to the gym every week. He’s also a fan of playing League of Legends so he can “decompress.”

He concluded by telling us, “I’ll keep working so I can win more money and get a comfortable bankroll so I can play high-stakes games and EPTs with the best players around. I’m a very competitive guy. I always play to be the best.”

We’re reasonably confident we haven’t seen the last of Silva. Congrats to him on his new $1 million profile badge.

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