Two of the last three online poker players we’ve interviewed here on PocketFives have hailed from Brazil. The Brazil pokercommunity dominated the online poker scene two weekends ago, including Julio Oliveira Lins, who goes by powerpokerbron PocketFives and chopped the PokerStars Sunday $100 Rebuy for $39,000. A three-way deal, which Lins said he brought up to his opponents, ended matters in the 847-player tournament.

“I was the one who made the suggestion to chop,” Lins explained in an exclusive interview with PocketFives. “I had been out of a makeup since two weeks ago when I won the Big $162 and the money was very important to me in that tournament. Plus, I don’t think chops are bad at all. I make chops even in small tournaments, especially if I’m playing a lot of tables.”

Lins won the Big $162 on PokerStars six days prior to his chop in the $100 Rebuy on August 12 and came away with an $18,000 payday. Last October, he walked away with a second place finish in the Sunday Second Chance on PokerStars and officially landed $32,000. All of this winning has vaulted him to #205 worldwide in the PocketFives Poker Rankings, his highest position ever, and he’s #12 in Brazil.

Let’s get back to chopping. Lins mentioned that he doesn’t mind wheeling and dealing, and extrapolated by saying, “If I’m playing a lot of tables, it will be probably be best for me so I don’t have to divert attention from all of my other tables. Against regular players, I don’t think the edge will be good enough to justify not making a deal. It’s not that I have a problem playing until the end or anything. I will do it if I think I have a huge edge. In the Big $162, for example, heads-up, I was playing against this very weak player and chopping was not even mentioned.”

Brazilhas been a poker powerhouse as of late. It feels like many of the feature articles we’ve published here on PocketFives recently have had references to the South American nation in them. Plus, the country is just four years away from hosting its first Olympic Games. “Brazil is definitely a very weak country overall for poker,” Lins conceded. However, there’s a silver lining: “Brazilians are most well known for being bad players, although we have some very good players who are playing at a very high level.”

He started taking poker seriously two-and-a-half years ago playing sit and gos. “I was working in a crap job at the time and U.S. Dollars were very high in value in relation to Brazilian Real, so I was making a lot of money,” Lins recalled. “I decided to study and make it my main source of income.”

He was at a crossroads, as time was scarce playing poker and working at his “real” job. He told us, “I was working half of the time and playing poker the other half of the time. I was going to sleep very late and had to wake up early. I was not doing my job as well as I could and I am a very proud person, so I wanted to do my best no matter what. Therefore, I quit my job after a while.”

His goal is to bink an event during the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker, which kicks off September 2.

He also admitted that he was quite excited about the prospects of Full Tilt Poker returning to action: “It’s going to be very good for poker, I think. Nowadays, I am playing $22 freezout tournaments with some very sick players who have average buy-in of $200. They don’t have much of an option and so play on PokerStars. Once Full Tilt is back, the mid-stakes guys are probably going to become softer again. My main focus short-term is to play on my own and beat these stakes. So, having Full Tilt back will definitely be a good thing for me.”

We’d be amiss if we didn’t mention the other Brazilian poker player interviews we’ve had recently, including Thiago kkremateCrema winning the August 12 PokerStars Sunday 500and Bruno brunovolksVolkmann winning that day’s 888 Poker Sunday Challenge.

Visit PokerStarsto play in this week’s Sunday $100 Rebuy. If you don’t already have an account, sign up through PocketFives and show your support for our online poker community. Plus, you’ll get a 100% deposit bonus up to $600 and be able to play at the world’s largest online poker room. Get started here.