In recent days, Paul Vas Nunes (pictured), better known on PocketFives as pvas2, was part of a five-way chop of the Full Tilt Sunday Brawl and earned $29,000. The online poker player from the UK took down his fourth Sunday Major in the process, a pretty impressive accomplishment, and was gracious enough to spend a few minutes talking about his latest score. Oh yeah, we got to talk a little squash, so get excited for that.

PocketFives: Congrats on the Full Tilt Sunday Brawl chop. How are you feeling about it?

Paul Vas Nunes: I’m feeling pretty good. It was my first big win on Full Tilt, where I haven’t played as much or had nearly as much success as I have on PokerStars. The Brawl is one of my favorite tournaments of the week, so it’s nice to win it, although I feel I should have tried to get a better deal or played it out without one. It’s probably natural to feel that way after winning when you chop five-handed though.

PocketFives: How did the five-handed chop come about? That’s a lot of people to agree on something.

Paul Vas Nunes: I was the chip leader and had just doubled someone up. I thought it was worth reducing the variance to get a good-sized win guaranteed and everyone clicked to discuss a deal. We were all fairly similar in chips at the time. I tried to get a bit more than ICM, but they wouldn’t agree on it.

PocketFives: Do you have any plans for the money? We believe this is your fourth Sunday Major win.

Paul Vas Nunes: Nothing specific. I won the Warm-Up in February for $100,000, so this is a nice bonus. I typically don’t make any big purchases because MTT poker has a lot of ups and downs. I had been on a big online downswing last year (over $100,000), so I have made some adjustments to my game and am trying to avoid those sorts of swings. I want to have enough money saved up to keep most of my own action in the good tournaments.

PocketFives: Do you mind sharing what adjustments you’ve been focusing on?

Paul Vas Nunes: I used to be very lazy with studying for poker or doing anything other than playing. I’ve always had quite a lot of success playing on Sundays, which are obviously the best days of the week, so I didn’t put much effort into getting better because I had been crushing so effortlessly. I got Holdem Manager 2 about six months ago. I started playing more often, watching more training videos, and going back to basics.

I don’t have a very big group of people I talk poker with on a regular basis because I won the Sunday Million when I was still very much an amateur player, so all of my poker friends at the time weren’t capable of talking much about hand histories of high-stakes MTTs. Consequently, I tried to get out there a bit more, talk to other players at EPTs, and join in some discussions. I neglected a lot of these things before that, which as a professional player you can’t really afford to.

PocketFives: How did that Sunday Million win change your career?

Paul Vas Nunes: When I won it, I didn’t even mean to play it. I was studying at university and needed some extra money, so I focused on grinding T$ through the Sunday Million satellites and won something like 14 of them in a week. Then, I won a last-minute satellite that I couldn’t un-register for, so I played the Sunday Million and somehow won.

I instantly splurged and bought a car, a TV, and a few nice things I couldn’t afford as a student at the time, but didn’t go crazy and instead wanted to focus on playing more poker. I didn’t just jump into the highest games because I knew I wasn’t the best in the world or anything like that, so I took my time and played mainly on Sundays with a few days added in here and there. After a few months of learning, I moved up in stakes and it sort of spiraled from there.

I didn’t start playing EPTs for at least a year after the Sunday Million win, but did play a couple of WSOP Europe side evens in London since it wasn’t too far from me. I really loved playing and didn’t want to go in over my head too much.

PocketFives: Are you headed to the WSOP in Las Vegas this year?

Paul Vas Nunes: Yes, I plan to. I went for the entire time last year and didn’t have much success, with just three cashes. It was too much being there the entire time. This year, I plan to go for the last four weeks, which is still a long time. Last year, I decided to travel to a lot of stops and see the world, but this year I am more focused on playing in the softer tournaments and making the best financial decisions I can.

PocketFives: What do you do away from poker?

Paul Vas Nunes: I love to travel with my fiancée and we just moved into a new house, so that hasn’t left much time for poker with all of the things that moving involves, but I am trying to stay up-to-date now. I also used to play a lot of squash, which I love, but haven’t had a lot of time to recently because of all of the traveling for poker. I was competitive as a junior player and played for my county, so I hope to get back into that.

PocketFives: Squash– now that’s a niche sport.

Paul Vas Nunes: Ha, I suppose it has gotten that way since it keeps missing out on getting into the Olympics when it 100% should be in. It is one of the toughest physical sports in the world at the highest levels.

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