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.