New Full Tilt Poker Pro Felipe Ramos Interviewed

Brazilian Poker Pro Felipe Ramos has just become Full Tilt Poker's latest signing. He talks about his start in poker, his career so far, and what he hopes to achieve with Full Tilt Poker, in an interview with PokerStrategy.com

Full Tilt Poker's latest signing, Felipe "Mojave" Ramos (pictured right) is one of the more well known poker players in the Latin American region. In his 3 short years as a poker pro, Ramos has earned over $400k in live tournament winnings and was also the champion of the Brazilian Series of Poker (BSOP). All in all, his overall tournament winnings amount to around 1,3 million.

In an interview conducted by PokerStrategy.com, Ramos talks about joining Full Tilt Poker, his early poker career, and his plans for the future.

Check out the interview below:

PokerStrategy.com: Hello Felipe, congratulations on joining Full Tilt Poker! How does it feel to be part of such a team?

Felipe Ramos: I am really pleased to join Full Tilt Poker and their team full of stars. I am a huge fan of many of them, especially Erik Seidel and Patrik Antonius.

PokerStrategy.com: How did you get in contact with Full Tilt and what made you choose to join them?

Felipe Ramos: After my contract with PartyPoker expired, I had a couple of talks with Full Tilt Poker, with some of their guys I met during this WSOP. Before that, I had also been contacted by their local managers, which i must thank for their patience and cordiality.

They showed so much interest in working with me, and it was just a matter of time before we got into an agreement and started this partnership. I am very happy with it and I think that joining Full Tilt Poker is the best move for my carrier. Full Tilt Poker offers a huge variety of games and a lot of support for my career. It's a perfect marriage.

PokerStrategy.com: Let's talk a bit about your beginnings. How did you come across poker?

Felipe Ramos: I worked as a manager in the financial market for 6 years and was also a musician. One day a friend from work invited me to play poker and I started to get into it. After a few months with a little bit of dedication and study, I had scored some impressive results locally and decided to dedicate more time to poker, instead of music

Discipline is what separates the pros from the others

Photo source: superpoker.com.br

PokerStrategy.com: What made you start playing poker professionally?

Felipe Ramos: I had a pretty great run one year, and was making much more money in part-time poker than in my regular job even though I had a pretty good position in the company.

I got offered a sponsorship contract from Bestpoker at the end of 2007, and that was exactly what I needed to give me more stability and generate more opportunities for me. It made me feel more comfortable, and I decided to quit my job after some very careful and planned consideration. I loved poker, and it was the natural thing to do.

PokerStrategy.com: What do you think separates the pros from the other players? What abilities do you need to become a pro?

Felipe Ramos: Discipline. Pros have the discipline that every player needs, but most of the other players don't take it that seriously. I know a lot of great players (part-time players) that can become even better ones if they had more discipline.

Anyone can play poker, but the more you dedicate yourself to poker, the better player you become. You get to develop new abilities that are extremely necessary to survive in such a competitive world, and you will realize how important the word dedication can become in your world.

PokerStrategy.com:  You have some nice results so far, both in live and online poker. Which one do you focus more nowadays and why?

Felipe Ramos: I was top a 25 online player in the world, sometime in 2008 and 2009 but decided to invest more time in live tournaments and cash games to get the experience I needed to face the game. That is exactly what I have been doing in the past few months, but now I am planning to divide my time better, and get back to online poker very strongly.

I like deep stack tournaments

Photo source: thehendonmob

PokerStrategy.com:  You're quite young but you have already gained quite a lot of experience. What are your favourite tournaments?

Felipe Ramos: That's true. I can say that in my very short poker career, I have been through what I consider several "key moments" that have given me so much valuable experience. Experience is something that means so much to a poker player. If I could have the same opportunities now as what I had in the past, I can only imagine how much more I can get from them. That is why I am working so hard to get those opportunities again.

My favourite tournaments are the deep stack ones. It doesn't matter if it's the EPT, the WPT or the WSOP. I love tournaments with good structure, and those with big fields because I feel very comfortable playing in them. In these events, I feel that I can put myself in in different scenarios, and then explore them.

PokerStrategy.com: Now that you've become a FTP pro, what is the next step in your career? Do you have any particular goals set up for the near future?

Felipe Ramos: When I started playing professionally my goal was to be one of the top poker players in my region and to get good exposure in the poker world in 3 years. 2010 is my 3rd year as a professional and I think I've done a quite a good job so far.

I am also a PLO specialist having final tabled the biggest 5 Omaha tourneys in poker: WSOP, WSOPE, EPT, WCOOP and FTOPS.

I'm not sure If I have totally accomplished my goal (I will leave this to the critics to analyse), but I am very happy where I am now, and I am very satisfied with everything that I have learned and achieved, and with the player I have become. My new goal now is to try to maintain a profitable and solid carrier.

As I am now mostly playing in only the big tourneys and cash games, and often against the best in the world, things can get pretty ugly. If i can stay profitable, that would be a quiet great accomplishment. On top of that, I am still looking for a big tournament title. After having lots of opportunities during this past 3 years, I still haven't won a big one. This is probably my biggest obsession and I am dealing very consciously with it, so that it does not become a huge frustration if it takes too long. I am definitely getting one very soon, I can feel it.

PokerStrategy.com: Do you have any poker pros that you look up to?

Felipe Ramos: For sure. I have a group of about 20 poker players that I admire and follow all the time. I can't tell their names, because I don't want them to know that I admire them and I also don't want to talk too much about my strategies and how I am studying poker to improve my game right now.

I can tell you that nowadays I admire the 'poker professionals' much more than the 'poker players', mainly because I can learn much more from them. People like Erik Seidel, Mike Sexton and Daniel Negreanu have very different styles, but they are so rich in so many ways that you can learn so much by just watching what they are doing. Of course I love the young guns, but only in terms of their poker abilities.

PokerStrategy.com: What's your advice for people starting with poker?

Felipe Ramoe: Love poker, understand and respect it. Play poker as a hobby, with family and friends and get yourself entertained. If you want to be a pro, go deep into studying and practising. You must understand that to become a good poker player takes time, and it is very important to play under your limits. Getting advice from a pro is also extremely recommended.

Finally I would like to say "Thank you" to Eoin and the PokerStrategy.com community.

Note: Eoin is our counterpart in Full Tilt Poker