One of the players PocketFives has constantly gotten interview requests for is Caio Pessagno(pictured), who calls Brazil home. Therefore, we wanted to give PocketFivers what they’ve asked for, an interview with the #4 player in the PocketFives Rankings. Pessagno’s month of March included a win in the Full Tilt Super Sized Sunday for $55,000, a win in the Sunday Second Chance for $54,000, and a final table in the Full Tilt $350,000 Guaranteed for $13,000.

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“I keep rising slowly and naturally,” Pessagno said of his ascent up the PocketFives Rankings. “I play the minimum games at each level, always winning and proving to myself that I need to win and know each level and part of the game before playing with the best competition. I am really feeling great about it all!”

He has every reason to feel great. In January, Pessagno took down the MiniFTOPS Main Event, officially booking a payday of $120,000. That tournament drew a crowded field of 8,929 players and the buy-in was $70. On why he decided to enter the tournament, Pessagno told us, “I entered with a big dream like everyone else and knew if I got the chance to win it, I would not throw it away. There was a huge field and we know the chance is small always and many hands and situations have to hold, but this was the chance I have worked for.”

In the beginning, Pessagno remarked that the MiniFTOPS Main Event took on a Turbo format. Consequently, he grinded a stack of eight to 15 big blinds in the early going. He added, “People have started going after me since I have been playing MTTs regularly,” which probably made his journey through the MiniFTOPS finale even more difficult. Seven of the top eight finishers in the MiniFTOPS Main Event in January were members of PocketFives, including three in the top 200 of the Rankings.

Speaking of the Rankings, they’ll next be computed on Wednesday. We could see Pessagno jump up even further, but will there be a run at the top spot? Maybe, but what we do know is he takes a considerable amount of pride in promoting Brazil: “I have a lot of work to do promoting poker in Brazil this year. We are competitive and always go for the top level.”

He got started in poker after catching poker television shows and playing in home games with friends in 2005. He started grinding full-time at the end of 2009 and explained, “I started to believe that I could be a poker player in 2007 when I discovered SharkScope and saw the graphs of guys like the_venetian and Spacegravy and I knew I could win regularly playing poker. Then, I started the same line of learning those guys took: sit and gos and a lot of volume.”

Pessagno also has victories in the PokerStars $55 DNG Sunday Special, Big $109, Full Tilt $100,000 Guaranteed, and Sunday Mulligan under his belt, just to name a few. He is just a few thousand dollars away from scoring a $3 million cash badge.

Finally, we should point out that Pessagno is the top ranked player in Brazil, which is home to nearly 1,000 PocketFivers with tracked scores. He hails from Sao Paulo and is a member of Team PokerStarsOnline. He won the PocketFives Monthly PLB title in January with over 3,100 PLB Points.

See who else is making waves in our Brazil poker community.

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