Helio Neves

Charles Hawk: How did you discover poker?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I discovered poker by watching WSOP on ESPN, around 2006-2007. Got some micro-stakes homegames going and then jumped to play money tables and freerolls on Pokerstars. Grinded the micros during college and in 2009 started HUsngs and never looked back.

Charles Hawk: How old were you in 2009?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: 19

Charles Hawk: Were you in university back then? How your social life changed after starting with husngs?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I was studying computer engineering, which I kinda am still. I take a small amount of classes in a semester, or just none, so I don't get overloaded and can focus on poker. Hopefully will finish it before 2030. I think the biggest social life changes with poker, at least for me in Brazil, are that making as little as 3k usd/month you will be a lot richer than everyone around, specially people on their early 20s. Besides that people will usually think you're crazy and/or awesome for being a poker pro, usually more on the crazy side.

Charles Hawk: Are you good with handling money?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I think I handle it well, I don't spend a lot buying things, only my car, but I do travel around Brazil and abroad maybe too much. But I love it so that isn't stopping anytime soon I guess.

Charles Hawk: What car do you drive? How old is it?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Just a Hyundai i30. 2011 year.

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Charles Hawk: Let’s move back to the poker questions. How many tables do you usually play at once?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Usually do 2 to 4 HUsng hypers, depending on action at the moment. I was known at turbo HUsngs for doing up to 18 tables at once, but with hypers that's just not possible sadly.

Charles Hawk: Wow! Tell me more about that! Maybe you have some screen shots or graphs?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I just gradually pushed the max amount I could do, whenever I felt comfortable I just tried 1 or 2 more and even though it obviously made me play worse, I think $/hour-wise it made sense to push it like that.  It was during 2010-2011 times too, so games were a lot softer, and with Turbo HUsngs you can afford to lose even 5% of your ROI, and still have a decent ROI! I usually didn't do more than 12 though, and I remember battling xlx_luix_xlx on 20 tables for a couple hours.

http://i.imgur.com/qzAso.png" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/qzAso.png

http://i.imgur.com/8al7E.png" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/8al7E.png

life time turbos: http://i.imgur.com/W1NM3td.png" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/W1NM3td.png

Charles Hawk: Which limits you were multitabling like that? What was your bankroll management policy?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I never used BRM to decide which stakes I would play in. I was always against this concept, why does it matter that you have X buy ins for that limit if you don't beat it? I just waited until I was completely confident in beating the current limit to try the next, and save up a good enough BR to take a huge downswing and still keep at it, instead of the more commonly used "shot-taking" that leads to having to depend on variance to be successfull while moving up. For the most part of my career I haven't played a stake with less than 200 buy ins BR.

Charles Hawk: If I would ask you a brm policy advice today, would you tell me the same thing?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Now moving up is even less about shot-taking, and more about being accepted into groups. So I think now not only you have to be more conservative, you also must make sure you have the skill level to beat the best regs on the next limit. Surely you can shot-take a certain amount of buy ins as well and think about it as a lesson, by improving against better players. But it really requires a combination of a huge BR and a very high skill level to move up beyond the $30 level these days. On the smaller limits, you can use much smaller amount of buy ins to move up, since the skill level won't be much harder and it is important to run away from the high rake of micros as soon as possible.

Charles Hawk: Are you familliar with chadders0 situation? He is taking aggressive shots trying to become a $1000 reg.

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Yep.

Helio “hneves182” Neves: The higher the stakes, the harder it gets to be accepted, and at the $1000 level they really aren't looking to share the fish with anyone else. I think Jossel took over a year of battling to be able to share lobbies, so it really requires a lot of endurance.

Charles Hawk: Do you think chadders0 has what it takes to become one of the $1000s players? 

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I don't know him besides briefly contacting him to stake him for the weekly $215 HUmtt years ago. Only he can show us if he has it or not, but the fact that he is still battling after all this bad run says a lot.

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I'm sure he is playing not to "prove he is the best", but to be a reg at those stakes and make money.

Charles Hawk: How much did you make in 2012 and how much in 2013?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: 2012 around $65,000, 2013 around $35,000 in SNGs before RB

Helio “hneves182” Neves: In 2012 I was pretty bad but hypers were still the easiest thing in the world and I just bumhunted. 2013 I learned the value in battling regs, and also tried playing up to $300s. Even though money-wise it might seem like it didn't pay off, I improved a lot and longterm that's more valuable. Also some run bad involved.

Charles Hawk: How are you improving these days? Your 2014 results looks good.

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I like my results this year so far considering the high amount of reg battling involved. I only got coached when I transitioned from turbos to hypers, by cog dis in 2011. Nowadays besides talking strategy with some friends, I mostly improved reviewing games and HUD stats on PT4 after sessions.

Charles Hawk: There are some players who are not really using hud: as an example Ryan “MOCA CHOCA89” O’Donell or Olivier “Adonis112” Busquet.  Maybe its straight-forward and obvious, but still, could you tell what are the main advantages of using HUD?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I didn't use for turbos, but for hypers I think it's important because it helps you sway close decisions based on small detail in the opponent's ranges that you just couldn't do from the top of your head, and a 20 chip difference in EV matters way too much in hypers. In the case of higher stakes guys though it might not be that useful since their play varies a lot more so stats can be often misleading.

Charles Hawk: Let’s talk a bit about your grinding routine. Do you have any?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I don't organize that much. I just sit and decide if I'm feeling good enough to play, and if I don't think so I just procrastinate or go do something else until I feel the urge to play. Some days I'll play 12+hrs straight feeling like I'm on my A-game all the way and some days I'll play 30mins and be done. I think I judge how close to the A-game I'm playing quite well.

Charles Hawk: What do you like to do when you are not grinding? What are your hobbies?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I like working out, playing tennis, any sport or physical activity in general. Also love travelling, hanging out with my girlfriend and playing guitar.

Charles Hawk: Are you a fan of music as well? What are you listening while grinding?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: A lot of different things really, mostly Rock/Hip Hop/Reggae.

Charles Hawk: Please introduce me with some of your favorite Brazillian songs :)

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Most of what I like are english speaking songs, not many good stuff here, although Charlie Brown Jr. used to be pretty great:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez50-2B-Ivo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez50-2B-Ivo" target="_blank">www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez50-2B-Ivo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez50-2B-Ivo

Charles Hawk: Nice. Don’t understand what he raps but it’s very energetic! Give me more Brazilian tracks.

Helio “hneves182” Neves: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ9dlL6KsQE">http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ9dlL6KsQE" target="_blank">www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ9dlL6KsQE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ9dlL6KsQE - these guys were pretty good too. The son of the lead guitarist is one of the greatest MTT players of Brazil too

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Charles Hawk: How many poker pros you have in your Skype?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I'd say 200, closer friends maybe 20-30.

Charles Hawk: How many of those friends, with whom you have shared at least a sentence or two is in the relationships?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: No idea how many have girlfriends, haha.

Charles Hawk: How about your closest 20-30 friends?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Probably half or so.

Charles Hawk: I know that you also have a girlfriend. Is she playing poker as well?

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Helio “hneves182” Neves: Not really, doesn't even know the rules.

Charles Hawk: How did you meet?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: We met at a Charlie Brown/50 cent concert actually, and just hit it off. 4 years later she isn't sick of me yet, so that's cool.

Charles Hawk: What was your results back then, when you met with your girlfriend?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Was probably playing $55 turbos. Doing ok.

Charles Hawk: From interview with MOCA CHOCA89:

So you are basically playing all day long now? Do you have any strategy or specific tips how to stay fresh and sharp for as long as possible?

Good music and NO GIRLS around when on the grind. I have to be very clear on this, I have only ever had big downswings when a female is present in my life. I will only settle down when I am done with this game. Until then, playa 4 life mentality goes ;) or a woman who can understand what focus means and doesn't ask you every minute 'how's it going?' Anyone know any? If so hook a brother up :D

Helio “hneves182” Neves: :D Mine never asks. If i go like "yo, just won the sunday million" she will be like "cool"

Charles Hawk: :D What is her occupation?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Studying to be a dentist.

Charles Hawk: When you started your relationship, did you need to explain yourself or something?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: She was always ok with it, just trusting me I guess.

Charles Hawk: Are you living together?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Yep.

Charles Hawk: Do you have any rules about what not to do when you are at your grind? Do you have any problems talking to her while grinding? :)

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Playing hypers is easier for those things, you can stop at anytime, play for as long as you want, and not make schedules. I take advantage.

Charles Hawk: Do you have enough fish at $60 and $100 limits after cartels? From 10 random opponents, how many would be fishes?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: About  50 %.

Charles Hawk: Explain me how those $60 and $100 cartels works?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: The cartel groups work is simple: if you're in, you sit outsiders opensitting. That way we don't have the ridiculously large sharky lines that we had last year.

Charles Hawk: How about playing each other? Are you allowed to do that?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Sure, nobody gets protection.

Charles Hawk: Are those lists only filling up? How about deleting some players from time to time?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Some people get out for not following the rules or voted out for a replacement from someone supposedly better that is outside.

Charles Hawk: How should I apply if I would like to become $100 cartel member?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Each stake has their own rules and changes them trying to make it as fair and transparent as possible. At 100s we currently have a spreadsheet that any member can vote for whoever they want to get in. If that person gets more than half the amount of members "yes" vote, he will get in.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvW5xp0zEEpvdHpQbzFRVGxlN3d..." target="_blank">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvW5xp0zEEpvdHpQbzFRVGxlN3d...

Charles Hawk: What the best things you like and dislike about cartels?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: The best thing is having smaller queues and more games/hour, and worst is having to deal with so many people that can never fully agree on anything.

Charles Hawk: Give me example of trying to agree on something unsuccessfully?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Just trying to decide on rules, anytime you have a large group of people and need to make a decision there's gonna be different opinions.

Charles Hawk: You probably are one of the top regs in those limits? Do you have any rankings between regs in cartel groups?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Not really, I'm sure everyone has their individual rankings on their mind but I'm also sure that each one is completely different from the other.

Charles Hawk:  Tell me please why you are not going up? Do you think you would not beat $200-$300 limits at the moment?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: As I said, I don't like taking shots. If I go for it I'll be 100% sure I will be successful. And I think for that I would need to be ok with playing breakeven poker for ~6 months, I'd need to be prepared to drop 200bi and still keep going, and I'd need to make sure I could beat most of the guys there. I'd just like to feel completely comfortable instead of "testing it out". And I plan on being around for quite some time, so I don't need to rush anything. A lot of those guys that used to move up as soon as they had 20-30bi for the next limit and managed to reach 1k-5k turbos a few years ago aren't around anymore, and maybe that's because they just weren't ready for it.

Charles Hawk: How much VPP you got last year? What are you buying for your fpps?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: 500k, I just do the 100k bonus, I think that's what all supernovas do.

Charles Hawk: How many losing months you had during the last year? How about last three years?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Last year - 2. Overall - since I've started playing in 2009 - only 4.

Charles Hawk: Wow :) Could you tell me how you manage to maintain such stability? What is your lucky formula?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Quite simple really. Just be a winner in the games you play and put a lot of volume! Also, I play a lot more and a lot better when I'm losing, so if I'm doing bad in a month I often work a lot harder and "save it". I think people usually play worse when they're losing, luckily that's just not true for me.

Charles Hawk: Do you have excel file where you writing up your results? If yes, how it looks like?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Yep, it's always good to see how much you've made, and then wonder where the hell all that money is now.

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Just monthly results, divided by SNGs, RB, MTTs, live cash, live MTTs.

Charles Hawk: You are one of those husng hyper pros who are successful in MTTs as well. Do you have any strict policy when to play mtts and when husngs?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I just play MTTs on sundays, and hypers all other days, besides playing some COOP events.

Charles Hawk: How you learned to play MTTs? How HUSNG hyper skills helping you to be successful in MTTs?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Never really studied them, I think any HU player will have a nice edge on postflop situations so as you get better at the rest, you have a good advantage.

Charles Hawk: Have you ever counted what is your hourly rate playing husng hypers?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Not really, I just try to do my best and whatever I get from it I'll be happy with. Even at hypers I think variance is just too big to care about there numbers.

Charles Hawk: but probably there is some number in your head which is more or less correct? $40? $60? $100?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I'd have to look up how many hours I've played, no idea, should be between $60 and $120.

Charles Hawk: Do you often play live MTTs or live cash?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Used to in the past, but lately they (Brazilian tourneys) are using an absurd tax system on them, so combined with the high rake, long hours they take, and travel costs, I haven't played much at all the last couple of years.

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Rake is usually close to 20%, and costs for a weekend travel to a Brazilian Series of Poker event would be around $1.5k-$2k.

Charles Hawk: What is the most expensive tournament you have played live and what online? What’s your biggest score in live MTT?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Most expensive $5k LAPT High Roller live and $5k WCOOP Main Event online, best live score $32k win at BSOP High Roller event and online 2nd at the $2k SCOOP Shootout for $40k.

http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=158317">http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=158317

Helio “hneves182” Neves: BSOP has buy ins from $200 to $4k, you can play like 5-8 in one venue, but besides the almost 20% rake you also need to leave 30% of the ITM now to taxes, without being able to discount losses.

Charles Hawk: How about live cash games? Probably no tax problems there?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Yeah, no tax problems there, but the rake is 5% uncapped.

Charles Hawk: What is the biggest game you have attended? Any memorable sessions to tell?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: The games are insanely soft so I played them in the past up to 50/100 (~25/50 usd), but the swings are just too crazy, combined with the large rake and low volume, it's not that profitable compared to online.

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Have quite a few memorable sessions, winning 2000bb pots at 5/5, playing games that ran for 3 days straight, getting back to even after 12hrs from -20k, getting one-outted for 26k pots. Things can get pretty awesome/crazy with live poker for sure.

Charles Hawk: Wow. Does your girlfriend know about that? :)

Helio “hneves182” Neves: She has a vague idea about the swings I go/gone through, no need to go into details :)

Charles Hawk: Do you think it would be possible to be in relationship if you would be live cash reg?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Everything is possible if you make the best out of it, I know a guy who lives in Vegas and is a live cash pro that is married with 2 kids and still manages to put in a lot of hours at the tables, and is quite stable.

Charles Hawk: Don’t you thing that he is a big exception?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Maybe, but as I said, if you work with what you got in the best way possible, everything will work out in the end.

Charles Hawk: Have you played in WSOP?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Not yet, I wanna go to a big event this year but it's more likely going to be PCA, maybe WSOP next year :)

Charles Hawk: Tell me about your sleeping habits?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: My day lasts about 28hrs, so my sleep cycles randomly around the clock. I sleep at night like a normal person one day, then a little bit later the next day, and then at some point I'm on vampire schedule, then it goes back to normal.

Charles Hawk: You did http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/185/heads-up-sng/hneves182-x-evolution..." target="_blank">hu4rollz with evolution and lost in a close battle. Could you tell me more about this challenge?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: We just played some games and decided to do it, I was doing very well against him. So on the actual challenge he got a lot better, probably got some coaching, and I worked hard too and EV-wise it was breakeven for over 900 games out of the 1000. But he had a great run and was 30bi or so above EV so I just tried crazy things in the end and couldn't turn it around. But it was interesting and made me improve a lot, too bad luck was the decisive factor.

Charles Hawk: How Pokerstars is treating you? Did you have any problems which they weren't able to solve?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Pretty good, only the refunds problem - they refund everyone the first few times, and then stop -, they should be more respectful of people playing in third world countries and never deny refunds. At least not to people who rake almost 100k a year.

Charles Hawk: It’s not related with what I just asked, but what would you change if you would be the Pokerstars owner?

Helio “hneves182” Neves: I don't know, many things that could be slightly improved or that would be improvements for me and others would disagree. Besides the refunds, the disconnection treatment for players disconnected before the first hand of a SNG is quite terrible for HUsng Hypers, you don't get "disconnected" (thus having a good amount of time of stalling each hand and allowing you to go back in time after reconnecting fast), you just get treated as "sitting out" and lose in seconds. That's why I ever need refunds in the first place. But that's just small technical issues. Another improvements for us HUsng'ers would be "add table" and "challenge someone" features.

Charles Hawk: Give the best advice you can to all beginners who are reading this hoping to be as successful as you one day.

Helio “hneves182” Neves: Just work hard and understand that poker isn't easy, you're not gonna get good overnight. But with determination and the right mindset anything is possible.

ALL-TIME STATS