4-12

Boooooooooooring day today. The games were really bad (only pros, no amateurs) so I had a tough time getting volume in. Only played 7,600 hands for 3,900 VPP's and a marginal profit. The goal for this week is to get 222,200 VPP's and I am at 204,000.

200k Milestone

20% of the way to SNE. The 200k milestone is $2,600 and the first and smallest of 8 milestones. At 200k VPP's, a player will have cleared $14,000 of the $100,000 in bonuses for the year. The next milestone is at 300k which I will hit around May 5th. To give a little perspective, last year I hit this bonus on December 31st so I am a little ahead of that pace this year.

I ran another $1k under EV today but unlike yesterday I still finished with a nice profit. I played 9,000 hands and made 5,000 VPP's.

End of the Week Recap

Never a good day when you run over $2,000 below EV. While I was due for a run-bad correction, it never feels good to know that your net worth is 2k below where it should be if you had just run normal. One silver lining is that I played almost 9,000 hands today and it felt like I barely played. This is good as it means I am getting accustomed to long sessions and playing a large amount of hands. At the beginning of my SNE chase, 9,000 hands felt like a marathon.

For the week, I played 50,000 hands and made 28,500 VPP's. Despite dropping a couple g's today, I still managed to make an OK profit on the week. Next week my bonuses hit so that will be nice. I am 19.5% of the way to SNE and very happy with my first month of progress.

After playing 6-max almost exclusively for the last week, I have decided going forward I need to mix in 9-max to increase my profit. Today is a great example of what can happen if I stick with the low win-rate of 6-max. One day of this is fine, but what happens when this goes on for 5 days in a row, 10 days, 15 days etc. Luck has no memory and I am just as likely tomorrow to run 2k below as I am to run 2k above. I don't want to go back to full-ring exclusively so I am going to sandwich "short" 2,000 hands sessions of 6-max around 1 long session of full-ring. If I can't get 24 full-ring tables running, I will mix in some 6-max. My hope is that the higher winrate of full-ring will minimize the luck factor involved in 6-max. I also miss being on top of the profit leaderboards everyday with my full-ring play :)

4-9

Since I am already at my weekly VPP goal, I was only going to play a short session tonight and focus on improving my marginal profit for the week. 4 hours later I was robusto (again) for my 6th consecutive disappointing profit of the week. I was like the Robin Hood of poker taking money from other pros only to donate it to the weekend donkeys.

The good news is that since I don't have any losing days this week, even the small profits add up. I am also about three days away from a $2,600 milestone bonus and about five days from a $4,000 regular bonus. After that, it will be another 3-4 weeks before my next round of bonuses.

I have a fixation with watches. The watch I really want is an IWC Portuguese:

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q136/phidelt799/B7Uh5FQBmkKGrHqIOKpIEyjCoKTBMz0YHLDFw_3.jpg

Unfortunately, I just can't get myself to invest that amount of money into a watch yet. However, tonight another pro posted a picture of a watch that I really liked. It's called a Maurice Lacroix Pontos:

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q136/phidelt799/Watch.png

It's about 1/3 the cost of the IWC and I like it almost as much.

4-8

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q136/phidelt799/4-8.jpg

The graph above represents what those of us in the poker community call "robusto". It's when you grind out your loss and don't stop playing until you get back to profit. There are two possible results I have achieved when trying to go "robusto": 1) you get to profit like the graph above or 2) you play for a day straight, post an enormous loss and then waste a month digging yourself out. I always find it funny that psychologically posting a marginal profit after going robusto feels like a great win but if I made the exact same amount and had not been negative I would have just felt OK.

8,200 hands for a little over 5,000 VPP's. 18.6% of the way to SNE.

4-7

Yesterday was a lighter volume, light profit day. Only put in 5,500 hands.

Today, I put in 8,500 hands for 5,000 VPP's. I have been playing higher stakes so my VPP/hand rate is higher. A nice profit today although it was primarily from running significantly above EV (lucky).

I am still unsure about how I will continue my run to SNE. While I have shown a profit everyday this week playing exclusively 6-max, I am supposed to be breakeven but I am running lucky. The games Monday-Thursday are significantly tougher than they are on the weekend so I am hoping I can log a bigger profit on the weekend. However, I just don't know if I can spend 4 days a week hoping to breakeven. Right now, I am leaning towards cutting down my tables from 24 to 18 and focusing more on table selection so by the end of my session I am not playing only other pros. I might also mix in some full-ring and see if I can play both without getting confused.

I am 18.2% of the way to SNE.

4-5

Yesterday played 10,000 hands for a marginal profit and 4,500 VPP's. Today played 8,000 hands for a marginal profit.

Marginal profit is my biggest fear with playing 6-max. While the number of hands and VPP rate is phenomonal, the game just isn't very profitable. I have played about 40,000 6-max hands and have a good feel for the game and the other professionals playing the game. I have looked up all the pros and very few are winning players, the ones who are are marginal winners at best.

While breaking even and taking $100,000 in bonuses is great, the swings involved with being breakeven are huge and create an incredible emotional rollercoaster. When you are a significant winning player, you will go through downswings but they are short in duration and light in volatility. When you are a breakeven/ slight winner, your downswings can be very damaging.

I have a couple options, I can go back to playing full-ring and play 40% more hours to get to SNE but with a considerably higher hourly winrate. I could also try to breakeven at 6-max during the week, hit my VPP goal and then use the weekend to work on my profit. I'll keep grinding 6-max until Friday and see where I'm at.

4-3 - End of the Week

Day #2 of 6-max went very well:

If I hadn't dropped over a grand to ikasaxd (top profit player of the day) I probably would have been first instead of third. I actually didn't plan on putting much volume in today since I was already at my weekly VPP goal but I still wound up playing 6,500 hands for 3.600 VPP's.

This week I played 50,000 hands and made 26,500 VPP's along with a profit above expectation. Next week, I would like to play at least 50,000 hands again and be over 180,500 VPP's or 18.5% of the way to SNE. I didn't clear any bonuses this week and I won't next week but in two weeks I will clear a $2,600 milestone bonus and a $4,000 standard bonus.

4-2

Forgot to post last night, yesterday was a pretty standard day playing 8,000 hands and posting an average profit. A nice start to the month.

Today was much more interesting. When I started playing cap, I decided to play full-ring (9 players at a table) instead of 6-max (6 players at a table). A month ago there were 24+ full-ring tables to play between 11AM and 10PM. However, over the last week I have really had trouble getting 24 tables going so my VPP/rate was lower than I had planned. This forced me to play a lot more hours this week which is not good.

I decided today to try 6-max which usually has a lot more tables running. I have avoided 6-max because there are a lot more good professionals playing on these tables than the full-ring tables. Win-rates are usually considerably lower on 6-max than FR. However, I am going to have to learn to play this game if I want to get to SNE without playing all day everyday.

9,000 hands and 5,200 VPP's today. 16.2% of the way to SNE.

The benefit of playing 24 tables of 6-max is you get 2,000 hands/hour as opposed to 1,500 hands/hour. The VPP/hand rate is also higher so I can get 1,100 VPPs/hour at 6-max versus 650 VPPs/hour at full-ring which means I need to play 40% less hours to get to SNE.

For my first day of 6-max, I posted my first losing day in weeks. I would have had a profit if I hadn't tried to play at home with the kids running around. Playing 1,500-2,000 hands an hour requires all my concentration and emotional control and playing at home isn't conducive to that. My dad was in Italy for the last couple weeks which allowed me to play at his house in quiet which I think is a large part of my profit last month. I will have to figure something out going forward. Don't be surprised if you see A and A on ebay in the near future.

March Wrap-up

I started the month learning a new game cap because the game I had been playing for the last year was eliminated. When I first started cap, I wasn't sure the game could be played with a profit. I thought breakeven would be best case scenario living off bonuses and SNE milestones.

About half-way through the month, I was significantly in the red but I really started to gain a feel for the cap game. At that point, I was hoping to maybe get back to even. Fast forward to the end of the month and I am fourth in the world in profit. Having played a little high stakes cap, I know I still have some learning to do but I am ecstatic where my cap game is at currently. I still don't know what my long-term winrate will be but breaking even is no longer my goal.

Here is my graph for the month, it's a good visualization to see where I started to figure out the game. I am really struggling with the question of if I should post my profit amount. I firmly believe that people should be more open with money and maybe if our society wasn't so secretive about finances we wouldn't suck so bad at it. However, my beliefs don't currently outweigh my hesitations so I am going to keep my loss/profit off this blog for now.

I played 178,000 hands this month and made 76,000 VPP's. Next month, with no hockey and no vacation planned I should play over 200,000 hands and I would like to be in the top 3 for profit. I cleared $8,000 in bonus this month and next month should clear $6,700.

3-29

First two days of the week have been pretty uneventful. Running well and good profit for the start of the week. I have been having a tough times getting 24 tables at my normal limit so I have been mixing in a lot of higher stakes games which has been good for my profit but bad for my volume. I did hit my fifth ever royal flush:

C has to work late tomorrow so I will miss my afternoon session which means I need to put in extra volume this weekend. Currently at 147,000 VPP's and need to be at 163,000 by the end of the week.

3-27 - End of the Week

Another good profit day mostly from higher stakes. No complaints about this week overall, starting to look more and more like midstakes cap is a game that can be beaten for a profit and not just bonuses. C has jury duty starting Monday so I hope this won't interfere too much with my schedule to get my hands in. 14% of the way to SNE.

3-26

I am not even sure where to start today was so crazy. I put in a couple hour session before the kids B-day party. As I was winding down my session, I noticed one of my tables was blinking. When I opened it, there was a note saying I was taking part in a promotional hand and everybody at the table was going to be awarded some money. Whoever won the hand would be awarded double. Results:

Won the hand:

Receiving a bonus $3,200 is always nice, especially when it is in conjunction with running hotter than the sun and posting another monster day:

That is 5 days in a row with a top 3 profit which is ridiculous. This is a once-a-decade heater and I am going to enjoy it while it lasts.

For tonight's session, I was going to play my normal stakes which is the highest stakes that I can play 24 tables at a time. However, there were a lot more high stakes games running that usual so I loaded up some big boy tables. There was even some 25/50 games running which is the first limit where the amount of money flying around actually makes me nervous. I played for about 2 hours before my nerves gave out and made a nice profit, mostly from running above EV. Between the last two days, I have completely eliminated my -EV of the beginning of the month and am officially running normal.

Playing a shorter session tonight, I am going to have to grind a good amount tomorrow to meet my weekly goal of being at 141,800. Currently at 138,500.

3-25

Top profit in the world again today (I would guess 2,000+ different players play cap everyday). This is a pretty ridiculous heater but I'll take it. For the first time since this heater started, I was actually significantly above EV today (ran lucky). If I am going to complain about it when it hurts me I should mention it when it helps. I moved up to #8 in the monthly profit leaderboard today and should move to #4 tomorrow. Top 3 still have a pretty healthy lead over me. A and A have their B-day party tomorrow so I won't be able to put in the volume that I was during the week but I am only 6k VPP's away from my weekly goal so I should be OK. 14,000 hands today for 5,700 VPP's bringing my yearly total to 136,000 or 13.6% of the way to SNE.

3-24

Another monster day, top 3 in the world again in profit. I know this isn't sustainable but I will gladly accept it while it lasts. I premiered on the monthly leaderboard at #38 today and should be up to top 10 by tomorrow. I am way too far behind the top 3 to crack it this month but with a fresh start in a week I would like to be the top winner next month.

I have only played 100,000 hands of cap so far but I am pretty certain I can play it profitably. If the last two weeks are any indication of what I can expect, then this game is extremely profitable. Even though I am not above EV the last two weeks, it is entirely possible I am just running hot so I won't know for sure how profitable cap is until I hit about 500,000 hands. If I am not running hot and my last week is sustainable then other pros are going to figure out what I am doing and start playing this game. During peak times, there are only about 30 tables running so adding even a couple winning 24-tabling pros could severely hurt my profitability.

That's why I really feel I need to strike while the iron is hot with this game. The games are only playable during peak times between 11AM to 10PM when there are enough tables to 24-table. If things stay as is, I am going to do my best to play as many hours as possible during those peak times before the game becomes unprofitable.

3-23

Most profit of any cap player in the world today, obviously a good day. Between yesterday and today, I should make my debut in the top 50 monthly profit leaderboard which is great considering this is my first month playing cap. Played 10,000 hands and added 4,100 VPP's, 12.7% of the way to SNE.

3-22

Very good day today, made a nice profit to get back in the black for the month (currently earning 37 cents an hour) and knocked out 4,500 VPP's by playing 10,500 hands. Should earn the 4k bonus on Friday.

3-21

Lots of distractions today and didn't get as many hands in as I would like. Still added 2,300 VPP's and a decent profit. I need to be at 141,800 VPP's by the end of the week and I am at 118,200.

3-17

Nice profit today and met my VPP goal for the week. Knocked out about half of my losses for the month during this week. I am on track to hit my next $4,000 bonus next week and then will have a long dead space without bonuses. Currently at 116,000 or 11.6%. Heading to the Dells tomorrow which will be my last vacation time from poker for a long time.

3-16

Good volume today with just a small profit. I will gladly take a year of days like today, VPP's are worth $.10 ($100,000 / 1,000,000 VPP's) so everyday I earn 3,000 VPP's is $300. Not comforting if I lost $5,000 that day but on days like today with only a small profit it is nice to have the VPP money. 10,000 hands today for a total of 3,700 VPP's.

3-15

Yesterday I posted a win for the first time in a week, a grand total of $6. I actually skipped my second night session to make sure I kept a profit. After doing this for many years, I know the psychological importance of having any type of win to break a losing streak. I only gained 2,000 VPP's because of skipping my session so I will have to make that up before we leave for the Dells on Friday.

Today was a great day. Finally ran at EV and played well all day. Made back 1/4 of my losses for the month but still have a ways to go to avoid my second losing month since 2006. Also cleared a $150 reload bonus and earned 3,100 VPP's to bring my year total to 110,000.

3-13

Since Thursday, down 80 BI's or about $3,200 in EV which is insane. I would have never believed it could happen if I hadn't witnessed it personally. In 5 years of playing poker seriously, I have never come close to a short-term stretch this bad. I have certainly run worse but it has been over a long stretch of hands, not condensed into a weekend. Other than a mild freak-out last night where I prepared my resume to find a real job, I am holding up as well as can be.

My bankroll on the other hand has taken a decent hit and forced me to drop down a limit. The biggest problem is that my VPP/hour at this limit is much lower than the limits I was playing which means I need to play a lot more hands to keep up pace. Hopefully I can run better and rebuild my bankroll so I can move back up. I am still about 10 days away from my next $4,000 bonus and a month from my next $2,600 milestone bonus. Just short of 105,000 VPP's or 10.05%.

3-11

It was kind of funny yesterday being down $1,200 in EV but after being down another $1,000 today it's getting a little old. The only good news is that I am supposed to be positive EV so far for this new cap game which is great considering I just started it and I need to be able to at least break even to make it to SNE. Also added 4,300 VPP's which puts me at 99,200 VPP's on the year or almost 10% of the way there.

3-10

In the long-term, poker is a game of skill. The same players are at the top of the profit leaderboards month after month, year after year. However, there is a good deal of luck involved in the short-term. Poker players refer to luck as "EV" or expected value. When you are running above EV you are running lucky and below EV means you are running poorly. Today my EV was supposed to be +$422. This means if I ran average I should have made $422. If I ran above EV I might have made $700. Unfortunately, I ran below EV and lost $778. This means I was $1,200 below EV which sucks. The good news is, I am playing low stakes compared to last month since I am learning a new game. If I had been playing my normal stakes last month I would have been down $10,000+ today so I am thankful for that.

Played 6,500 hands and made 2,800 VPP's. Currently at 95,000 for the year.

3-9

Hockey meetings finished today except for the banquet on Sunday. State tournament starts tonight, normally my favorite weekend on the year but being 10 minutes away from coaching in it I have mixed feelings. Will I still watch of every second of every game? Probably.

I have my weekly VPP goals mapped out to get to SNE by tryouts in mid-November. I want to be done then because besides hockey season being my busiest time of the year, December is a horrible month to try and play poker as all the pro grinders are playing 24/7 trying to get their yearly hands in. It creates slow, tough games where the VPP/hr rate is very low compared to the rest of the year. An hour in the summer is the equivalent of 2-3 hours in December. I will need to play about 40 hours a week to get to SNE. I know this sounds like a normal work week but an hour of poker playing 24 tables, 1,600 hands with massive $$ swings is very draining.

For my weekly goals, I am combining this week with how busy I am and next week with the family vacation. I will be at 115,500 points before I leave on vacation. Today I put in 1,650 points for a total of 92,000.

3-8

The next two weeks are busy for me so I won't be putting in a ton of volume, I still have a handful of hockey meetings/banquets to wrap-up the season and I am gone next weekend for a family vacation. I put in a couple thousand hands and added 1,000 points. I cleared a $100 bonus for getting to 90,000 VPP's and have one more small $200 bonus at 100,000 points. After that, the bonuses range from $2,600 at 200,000 points to $20,000 when I get SNE.

Time to get going...

I am starting this blog to chronicle my chase of SuperNova Elite (SNE) on PokerStars (PS). SNE is the top VIP level usually achieved by about 200 of the 40,000,000 real money players on PS. To get SNE, you need to reach 1,000,000 VPP's by December 31. Thanks to hockey, I currently have 90,000 points which puts me about 90,000 behind schedule. However, now that hockey is done I have an opportunity to catch-up before the season starts again in mid-November.

To give some idea of how difficult SNE is, last year as a full-time, professional player I managed to get to 200,000 VPPS or only 20% of the way there. I tried for SNE once before in 2009 and was crushed by the workload a couple months in. I am hoping that failure will help me this time around. Better planning, clearer expectations and this blog to subject me to public humiliation if I fail again will hopefully get the job done.

To make things even more exciting, PS just eliminated the game I have been playing for the last year. I have been forced to take up a new form of no-limit hold em called "cap" (hence the clever name of the blog). It has been a tough learning curve so far but I hope to be profitable at it sooner than later.