jacosta24

The number one reason I play poker for is profit. Don’t get me wrong I have fun playing poker but I’d rather be on the beach sipping a Corona, with a pretty senorita by my side than at the poker tables grinding my ass off. When it all comes down to it poker is work and if you not mentality and physically ready to work chances are your going to fail or not be as successful as someone that gives there all to there craft. People that have dreams of becoming a professional poker player must remember it’s hard work to have the will to drive you to win continuously and it’s the hardest you’ll have to work for an easy living.

With that being said I had a decent week but I only made 3 final tables, 2 down from my weekly average. I feel like this week was fueled by lack of motivation and fear of failure. I had a busy work week at my regular job so I understand my lack of motivation was mostly from fatigue, but the fear of failure came from watching the leaderboards. I cracked the low-limit leaderboard this week on Thursday at 43rd place and jumped to 23rd place by Saturday. So this week I watched myself closely moving up and down the board when I should of been watching my play and my bankroll.

I usually have a deep run early in the week but this week I didn’t have one till Thursday! I was getting nervous but I kept my head on straight and kept grinding and finally I got lucky. Thursday morning I built a big stack early in a tournament and rode it to the final table and a 2nd place finish. Once at the final table I played a conservative game and let the other players do my dirty work unfortunately it gave a great player an opening and he took advantage. He ran over the table by raising and re-raising every chance he got and by the time we got heads up he held an 8 to 1 chip lead and was made quick work of. I wasn’t too disappointed, I made some nice profit and it wasn’t like I wasn’t trying to win, it just wasn’t in the cards.

Friday I told myself I was going to play all day after work but prior obligations restricted me from putting in the heavy volume I wanted to, but all for the best, I still handled my business and played a 66 sng freeroll and proceeded to run over the field. I think I would of won the tournament but when we got 4 handed I lost internet connection while about to raise in the big blind with pocket kings!! When my internet connection came back I was mid hand facing a bet on the flop, I called and led on the turn and river but my opponent stuck it out with the 10-4 on a ten high flop and hit two pair on the river! I was left severely crippled after that hand and was shortly eliminated after my K-Q failed to improve against A-6. I got 4th place and I was so mad at myself for playing that time out hand that way but I put it past me and I will use it as a learning experience.

Saturday was supposed to be an all day grind session but I ran extremely hot in my second tournament. Put it like this a starting stack in this tournament is 1,500 by the time we got to the 2,300 average I had 17,000! I played an “controlled aggression” strategy from there and coasted to the final table. Once there I won a big three-way pot with K-Q vs 4-4 vs K-J after spiking a queen on the turn. The player in second place turned hyper aggressive and eliminated the 3rd place player and heads play started with me holding 70% of the chips in play. I even built it up to 88% but my opponent didn’t care he proceeded to chop me down and before I knew it I only held a slight chip lead.

This player kept raising the button and c-betting away so I decided if I got a chance I would slow play him because nothing else was working. He raised on the button and I called with Q-10 the flop came Q-6-2 and I quickly checked. He bet a quarter of his stack, I paused for a second and called. The turn came a Jack I quickly checked, he bet a little less than half is stack, I paused once again and called. The river came an other Jack and I quickly checked again and he shoved all-in. I snap called and he showed 6-9 I WON!!!!! I was so pumped I literally switched up my style and changed gears like the pros talk about and took the victory from my opponent’s hands!!

This week I played 14 tournaments, cashed in 3 profiting 12 tournament buy-ins and bringing my bankroll to 76 tournament buy-ins, nothing’s better than showing profit.

Good luck out there.