If you had been browsing on YouStake.com, the site that allows poker players to sell pieces of themselves in tournaments around the world, a little over eight weeks ago you would have seen a listing for a 2016 World Series of Poker package for David Prociak and you probably would have had one thought.

Who the ?#A*&%! is David Prociak?

A quick glance at his live results would have shown you nothing too special. Two small cashes back in 2007 and then an eight year gap with nothing. Since October 2015 he’s won $439,176 – with 75% of that coming from a runner-up finish at the Rock N Roll Poker Open at Seminole Hollywood in November.

So if you passed over Prociak’s WSOP package on YouStake, nobody would have questioned your reasoning. Then the unthinkable happened. Prociak, an amateur poker player from Florida, won a WSOP bracelet and $156,546.

“It meant the world to me personally, since playing these live tournaments I’ve come up short on winning a meaningful tournaments and I really wanted to win something. The fact that it was a bracelet event made it so much better. I wanted to feel validated,” admitted Prociak. “It translates well when my friends and family ask how I’ve been doing in poker and I can tell them I’ve actually won something. Second place doesn’t sound as good no matter how much I’ve won.”

There were only a few people that took a chance on Prociak’s WSOP run and cashed in big.

“I actually only sold 3% for my WSOP tournaments,” said Prociak, who actually cashed in three WSOP events this past summer. “I had more action available but not many invested.”

Now he’s got another package for sale on YouStake and not surprisingly, he’s finding it to be a little bit more popular than the first time around.

“It went from 3% now to 10% sold so far. And I’m sure it will go up when I let people know I put it up,” said Prociak, who hasn’t begun to promote his latest package, which includes three different tournaments at the upcoming Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open.

Prociak is hoping to sell up to 40% of his action in those three events. While winning an SHRPO event would be nice, he’s also motivated by his quest to win Seminole Hard Rock Poker Player of the Year. He’s currently leading the race.

“I’ve been sort of forced to play tournaments because of my top finish in the Rock N Roll Poker Open,” said Prociak. “I was high on the Player of the Year list and they have such great prizes, I decided to play all the events on their schedule and then came in second place in the Immokalee event which moved me into first place.”

---

Current SHRP POY Standings

1. David Prociak – 746.3888
2. Timothy Miles – 609.1075
3. Zoltan Czinkota – 537.0438
4. John-Christian Templeton – 487.4575
5. Herbert Woodbery – 483.8925

---

“If I win the POY that’s a $44,000 package and I’ll be playing even more. To begin with I only wanted to play the WSOP Main Event and the SHRPO main event and that was it,” said Prociak, of the prizes that come with winning POY.

The 33-year-old small business owner initially turned to YouStake to get himself more involved n the poker world and build a reputation for himself as somebody that is a solid investment.

“Selling my action on YouStake for the WSOP was just to have some interaction with the staking community, it’s not about the money,” said Prociak. “I figure I make some people some money on there and they may want to buy a piece of me in the future as well which would allow me to play more events and events that I wouldn’t regularly play.”

Coming off of winning his bracelet and playing back in his home state of Florida, Prociak believes he’s a solid investment at this point and those browsing on YouStake this week should strike while the iron is hot.

“Well you see players with momentum sometimes and whether it’s confidence or whatever, it seems to perpetuate their game and carry them to keep doing well,” said Prociak. “I’m doing well because I don’t play the same standard game as most of the grinders you see playing and my confidence in my game keeps me from second guessing myself even when some outside observers of my game may think those things are mistakes.”

That confidence comes from doing something that every poker player dreams of – winning a WSOP bracelet – and it’s something that even Prociak is having a hard time convincing himself happened.

“It still feels unbelievable to think I’ve actually won a bracelet, it’s just the biggest accomplishment any poker player could have.”