Acoimbra Donates $100k Challenge Profits to Charity

In his latest blog posts, Andre ‘acoimbra’ Coimbra described his plans for the year, including reaching the SuperNova Elite status, making strategy videos and running a marathon. He also announced giving away all his $100k challenge winnings to charity.

Andre 'acoimbra' Coimbra

Portuguese Andre ‘acoimbra’ Coimbra’s $100k challenge at PokerStars was one of last year’s highlights in the poker world and was followed by many via the pro’s blog and the international forums. ‘Acoimbra’ aimed to boost his $100 bankroll to $100,000 in a year, exclusively playing multi-table tournaments. Eventually, he racked up some $70,000 in winnings, which is a respectable sum, regardless of not meeting his desired goal. More importantly, PokerStars is likely to have gained quite a number of new registrations from recreational players who had seen Coimbra play. In turn, the Portuguese’s popularity and advertising value increased exponentially.

‘Acoimbra’ has recently announced that he would not keep his challenge winnings but donate it to Associação Portuguesa de Pais e Amigos do cidadão Deficiente Mental, an organization to support people with mental diseases and their families.

In addition to the remarkable act of charity, the Portuguese shared his plans for this year with his followers.

“If you followed my challenge last year, you know that I spent quite a bit of time sharing what I learnt with my followers through hand analysis, strategy videos and even free coaching!

“To be honest, the best part of the challenge was the great feedback I got from my followers and finding out that my challenge/content had a positive impact on other people’s lives!

“I want to keep sharing what I learnt last year in a more structured way and actually write a book to help anyone that might want to adventure into the tournaments world.

“I’m planning to dedicate about 20 hours per week to my book during the months with less traffic at the hypers and I expect to have it ready by the end of the year.

“Apart from the book, there were some video requests that I ended up not fulfilling during the challenge. Stuff like how to use holdem manager or how to manage a bankroll. In 2014 I want to dedicate some time producing those videos and it’s also possible that I produce some low stakes tournaments/sit-n-gos videos,” he writes.

Coimbra then goes on to describe his SNE and VPP status: in 2013, he asked PokerStars to set back his VIP level from SuperNova Elite to Bronze Star so that he could guide the followers of the challenge through the perks of the different levels as he reached them. The room decided to give his SNE status back this year, yet he wants to reach it again, for the 5th time in his career.

He is also only 250,000 VPPs short of the 5 million lifetime VPPs, which would grant him access to the coveted PokerStars Hall of Fame, obviously making this a priority target for him in 2014. While he keeps playing MTTs, he would resume playing hyper Sit n Gos to these ends.

Yet another goal is to improve his health besides playing: he is preparing for a marathon and is back doing regular exercises.

While not accepting a new challenge this year, ‘acoimbra’ is definitely keeping himself occupied in 2014 as well.