I don’t know about you, but it feels like we constantly write about Brazilian success stories here on PocketFives. Obviously, the Brazil pokercommunity must be doing something right, as another one of its members has excelled in a major tournament. This time, it was Bernardo Dias, who goes by bediashere on PocketFives and was part of a four-way chop in the PokerStars Sunday $100 Rebuy for $35,000.

“I feel great,” Dias told PocketFives, “especially because there were many good players in that tournament. One of my goals for this year was to final table it for the first time. I just didn’t expect it to be that soon.” The tournament had over 1,000 entries and shelled out a total prize pool of $325,000, an average of $325 per head.

Every player involved in the four-man chop had an account here at PocketFives, including gifuhorna, whom we recently interviewed about his win. “We were four-handed and were all good players,” he said. “The chip leader said he would look at the numbers and everyone agreed quickly. I took more than third place and we still had $5,000 to play for.”

Dias just passed $2 million in tracked scores in his PocketFives profile and is ranked #404 worldwide. He said of breaking the $2 million barrier, “It’s a lot! I just want to play my best during every session, but statistics are very important and when I stop to remember how much I have made playing poker, I feel proud of myself.” About three-quarters of his damage has been done on PokerStars, the largest online poker room in the world.

As we led off with, Dias is from Brazil, a country whose members have been recording five-figure haul after five-figure haul recently. We asked Dias to talk about the success of Brazilian players. He responded, “We all know poker is an individual game, but people can help each other in many ways. The Brazil poker community has a unique union. They truly support all Brazilians because they are from the same country. There are a lot of Brazilians at the highest levels of poker nowadays. It’s really nice to see that!” Maybe there’s something in the water.

He has been turned onto poker since he was a kid and used to play with his friends and father. In 2006, he transitioned to online poker and made his first deposit. His first online games, and the seeds of his bankroll, came in freerolls and sit and gos.

We’ve talked about a variety of games PocketFivers played before they switched over to poker, from chess to Counter-Strike to squash. For Dias, tennis was his former passion. He narrated, “I tried to be a professional, but gave it up when I was 19. I had some injuries on my back and wrist. I was kind of tired of the routine of training and had already started to win money in poker.”

One of his biggest scores came in 2009 in the PokerStars Sunday Million. He finished fourth in that tournament for just shy of $80,000 officially and explained its impact on his poker career: “It was unbelievable! I wasn’t a professional already, but it gave me a lot of opportunities and opened my eyes to how much more I could win playing poker.” The Sunday Million had over 7,300 entrants that week and PocketFiver sumai took it down for $225,000 officially.

Currently, he has a group of players he coaches at bediaspoker.com and said, “I’m very grateful to be able to teach them all I’ve learned over the years and hopefully help them in some way to achieve big things in poker like I did.”

When will we interview the next Brazilian who makes waves in a major tournament? We’re guessing pretty soon.

The Sunday $100 Rebuy runs weekly on PokerStars. If you don’t already have a PokerStars account, sign up through the links on PocketFives to get a 100% up to $600 deposit bonus and one free month of PocketFives Training. Get started here.

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