Thursday, March 24, 2011

Grinding Along

Hey all! It's been over a week since I posted, so I decided to write a post about some general topics/news.

First, I did another interview recently over the phone with someone from Cardplayer Magazine. It was a pretty different interview from my earlier one with Pokernews - the Cardplayer chat was definitely much less technical. He asked me about my general background, how I got started in poker, and asked me to give some details of the VIP program at Pokerstars. It seems like the Cardplayer article will be geared more towards the general population who may not necessarily know all the facets of Supernova Elite, and who certainly know less than you guys :) I saw on someone's blog that Pokerstars has really revamped the VIP section of their website and so made a visit myself. It now gives exact numbers on pretty much everything related to Supernova Elite; I am really impressed!

As far as my poker grind goes, I just broke 200k VPPs for the month today!! (jokingly excited) In comparison, I got my 200,000th point on Feb 14 last month, and it only took me the last 7 days of Feb to get 200k. It really makes me think I'm super slacking this month, but I've only taken 6 days off so far. I feel like my VPP count these days (lingering around ~1.1m-1.2m) seems so low compared to what I'm aiming for (3M+), so I'm trying not to think about the total points and instead just focus on making good use of my time day by day. "Good use" can mean playing a decent session (15k+ VPPs), or getting in a good ride on by road bike (40+ miles), or even taking a relaxing day off.

For all SNE grinders out there, there will surely be times where it seems the points are adding up sooooo slowly, which is exactly what I'm going through right now. If you find yourself going through that, I'd suggest keeping your mind focused on the short-term grind (day by day or week by week) instead of looking at your total VPP count and that beastly 1,000,000 figure. Of course, have weekly and monthly goals too as they are crucial, but I feel that the process seems much more manageable and achievable by approaching the task one day at a time.

Want to see me get owned? In the past, I have posted a few hand histories where I outplayed some people, but I came across a hand recently in a 1k SNG (I tend to remember hands in these for obvious reasons) that was too good not to include in this blog haha. Witness me get destroyed...

PokerStars Game #59268597040: Tournament #375361369, $1060+$50 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2011/03/15 20:27:49 ET
Table '375361369 1' 6-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: poceiro (1735 in chips)
Seat 2: kenny05 (2480 in chips)
Seat 4: azntracker (775 in chips)
Seat 5: CHAMUCO58 (1570 in chips)
Seat 6: KMIK-001 (2440 in chips)
azntracker: posts small blind 50
CHAMUCO58: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to azntracker [Td 6d]
KMIK-001: folds
poceiro: calls 100
kenny05: folds
azntracker: calls 50
CHAMUCO58: checks
*** FLOP *** [Ks Tc 2d]
azntracker: bets 133
CHAMUCO58: folds
poceiro: calls 133
*** TURN *** [Ks Tc 2d] [Qh]
azntracker: checks
poceiro: checks
*** RIVER *** [Ks Tc 2d Qh] [Kd]
azntracker: bets 100
poceiro: raises 100 to 200
azntracker: folds
Uncalled bet (100) returned to poceiro
poceiro collected 766 from pot
poceiro: shows [3d 4d] (a pair of Kings)


I mean no words can describe this. I shall try though: He was a complete unknown, as was the BB so I completed with a suited-kinda-connector. I decided to lead since I'm good a lot of the times, just want to take it down, and I don't want to check/call vs the limper and lose initiative. I completely give up the turn as that card smacks his range pretty hard I feel (if I wasn't beat on the flop, I'm way more likely now to be). Plus I'm so poor as it is. When he checks behind, and the board pairs on river, I figure my hand could possibly be good but I don't want to face a large bet. By firing a microbet, I can stop the passive guy from raising as a bluff. Alas, I was wrong! Minimum raise in my face, and I fold getting 8.6 to 1 like a fish to the nut low hand. Why he flatted on the flop with the nut low (literally) with no pair no draw, and didn't fire the turn as a bluff, I shall never know :) I will say that I definitely misplayed this hand in hindsight, and that I only played it strangely because I sensed he was not that strong a player and I might be able to get away with it.

To make up for that debacle of a hand by me, this hand a couple days ago heads up in a $565 6max was nice haha. He had A6s, still not sure what the point of this play was. It's great to see bad players floating around all over the place, especially at the highest stakes.


Again good luck to everyone, year is almost 1/4 over, and hopefully everyone is on track. Pace is 224.7k :)

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I guess I am behind pace at my 135k :(

KinitoBW said...

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We are we want to start exchanging our blog link (www.habpoker.com) with english blogs.

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Unknown said...

Hello, I've never commented on any blogs so this is a bit akward, but I figure what's the worst that can happen? He tells me to fuck off? So here it goes.

I'm 19 and been playin poker for a long time, after crunching numbers and reading blogs such as yours, I feel like id like to make a run for 3m vpps next year, Of course this means quitting my 2jobs and focusing on grininding, my game of choice is fr nlhe and id like to play 1/2-2/4 stakes meaning id have to build my bankroll to 20k-40k(I'm a brm nit) as well as have a years worth of living expenses. I came to terms of grinding 12k vpps 5days a week in addition to whatever I may earn playing the Sunday majors( Sunday isn't one of my 5days in the week) I would be 24tabling of course. But one thing I don't have is experince on PS, I ply on fulltilt, and I think its possible I may be underestimating the difficultty of this task

Is it difficult to win 12k+ vpps day in day out? How long should I expect to be playing knowin there will be days I want to play more and days I want to play less? Any tips would be appieciated

Anonymous said...

I dont understand how that raise from 100 to 200 made you fold there?

I understand the way you explained your thinking behind this but that still doesn't explain why you laid down a pair of 10s, I also completly get how the turn would've been able to hit him, but the odds you get on the river make any call worth it, let it be J high or a pair of queens, you should've always called there getting 8.6 to 1.

anyways your blogs are great, I enjoy reading them a lot:)

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Cause Im Classy said...

Hello mate ggreat blog