Two Sundays ago, the PokerStars $100 Rebuy brought out a field of 943 players and served up a prize pool of $303,000, an average of $321 per capita. At the end of the day, the top three finishers, including PocketFives members Rui RuiNF Ferreira of Portgual and Yaya24 of Sweden, chopped the prize pool. Yaya24 collected a $37,000 payday and officially took third place. His reward was a feature article right here on PocketFives."I had a couple of months where I was running really badly," Yaya24 told PocketFives when asked about his mindset on that day. "I did not go into that Sunday with a lot of confidence, but then I started by shipping one of the $82 Hyper-Turbos, which gave me a boost of confidence. I could then relax a little more during the rest of the tournaments since I was already breakeven for the day."
There's nothing like being breakeven early on in the day. Essentially freerolling, Yaya24 told PocketFives that he came out of the rebuy period in the PokerStars tournament with the equivalent of the starting stack plus the add-on. He evaluated, "I did not have a very good start to it and remember reaching the money with only nine big blinds."
Despite having fewer than 10 big blinds entering the money, Yaya24 did not get discouraged. Rather than giving up and pushing with any two cards, he told us that the poker gods were on his side: "The good run from the $82 Hyper-Turbo returned. I sucked out in a couple of all-ins and got myself some chips to play with."
What happened next? "I played really well until the final table. I got a couple of big bluffs to work and got a lot of value from my good hands. On the bubble, I lost a big pot with A-8 suited versus K-J, so I went into the final table as one of the short stacks. On the final table, I just waited for the other short stacks to bust and then took all the spots I could find. It worked out well and I rushed up to be one of the top stacks again."
As we said, a three-way deal was forged. Yaya24 walked us through it: "When we were three-handed and the discussion of a deal came up, I thought it was a good time to reduce the variance and get a really good cash in after my bad run, so I snap-accepted the deal." Ferreira banked $44,000 and officially won the tournament, while PokerStars member SEFI123 finished second and walked away with $44,000 in tow.In mid-February, Yaya24 took down the PokerStars Sunday Supersonic and earned $41,000, the largest tracked MTT in his PocketFives profile. He called it "a really nice win for me because I had landed in Sweden that day after being in Australia for one month for the Aussie Millions. So, I almost slept in front of my computer that Sunday. I can't remember much about the tournament, only that it was great timing to win it and it gave my bankroll a nice boost after a lot of spending in Australia."
Like several poker pros we've talked to, Sweden's Yaya24 has started working out. In addition, he also hangs with friends outside of the poker tables: "I have started to work out a bit lately, which I have been too careless with before, so that feels nice. Otherwise, I'm hanging out with friends as much as I can. I'm also watching a lot of TV series and movies and doing some traveling for poker tournaments."His friends began playing poker in school, which got him started in the game. He admitted, "I tagged along there, but lost almost every time. But when I started studying at university, I realized it could be a good way to increase my very limited budget. So, I started to put some time into learning the game and after I finished my studies, I started playing full-time two years ago."
Yaya24 can be found at #59 worldwide in the PocketFives Poker Player Rankings and is #2 in Sweden. Speaking of Sweden, if you're from the Scandinavian country, make sure to check out PocketFives' all-new Sweden poker community.
