2011: A New Blog

Hey everyone, happy new years! I do believe you are allowed to keep saying that throughout the month of January so it's not too late. When I first started this blog, I did it with intention of leaving out most things poker related. This is because I had originally wanted this blog to be about my life and travels primarily, in order for my non-poker friends to follow and enjoy it. Ho
wever, I have decided now to make this a poker-specific blog, with plenty of references to the Supernova Elite program at Pokerstars, so that poker players may follow my progress throughout the year. Of course, I still intend to post interesting stories and travel experiences to make this blog more enjoyable to read.

To start off, I'd like to first off say that I currently have no set-in-stone goals for 2011. By goals, of course I'm referring to VIP Player Points (VPPs or vee pee pees), as it is illogical to have any sort of profit goal in poker. Last year, I played more online poker than I ever had, reaching 2,251,097 VPPs, which was good for 3rd in the world behind 'WizardofAhhs' and 'jorj95.' I'm definitely ready to beat that total this year, so I suppose this is my only "goal." My general aim this year will just be to play as much as I can while I am at home (I want to travel lots too!)

With all the grinding that I will be doing, taking into consideration the number of tables that I will play at a time, I totally expect and would be satisfied with breaking even at the tables for the year, before rakeback I mean. I don't have the mentality or mindset that I'm better than the other solid regs (beserious, spacegravy, DDBeast, et al). In the tough regular-filled games these days, a -1% to 0% ROI is nothing to be embarrassed about at all. Any extra positive ROI is a bonus for me. This is not to say that I don't try my best to trick or outplay them every chance I get :) Last year, I had a 0.012% ROI over 19,472 games in the 9-10mans. With an avg stake of $171, it was a nice bonus return for me. Adding in the VPPs and SNE stuff made it a pretty epic year for me in 2010. Breaking even is totally underrated!

So on to 2011 we go. It started with a 7 day break as I traveled to the PCA in the Bahamas. I made it to Day 2, and was able to resteal from Isildur1. My third resteal was with ATs - I had approx 25k at 600/1.2k (200 ante), and it didn't go quite as smoothly this time as he woke up with QQ and busted me. He's an extremely friendly guy at the tables though so I enjoyed playing with him. Afterwards, I bricked a 2k side event (losing AA to TT then AQ to JJ). I'm just flummoxed as to how people can grind out live MTTs; the variance is simply brutal. After I flew back, I haven't missed a day playing. Since this is my opening post of 2011, I'll outline my sessions a little bit. Currently I play every 9/10/18 man sit-and-go with a buy-in of >$109 up to the $2,190, including non-turbos and knockouts. I also table select the 6man SNGs that have a buy-in >$235, up to the $1,110. If I am not at at least 25 tables, I register for $60 18man SNGs and additional $119 6man SNGs till I reach my comfortable table count (from 25-35 tables). For most sessions, my VPP/hour is in the 2200-2700 range, varying heavily depending on high stakes traffic. I've gotten into a solid routine of waking up, getting quick food or lunch out, then starting a session by 2-3pm and playing nonstop until 8-9pm. With these 6 hour sessions, I've been averaging about 15,000 VPP per day. Occasionally I'll play longer, or add a second night session to get another 2-5k VPPs.

This month's results have been great. Like I was saying before, I only expect to breakeven, with the hope of winning @ the tables, as it does feel good. I had a bit of a tumble session today, and was -$8,877, but I still couldn't be happier with my month's stats. I am +$18,502 this month, with 311,326 VPPs earned. My total VPP count for the year is 361,326 since I got the 50k bonus for playing the WSOP Main Event last year.

Here's my (swingy) graph for the month so far, with rakeback (blue line) and total profit (green line) shown.
So it's been a very good start to the year for sure. I just plan to put in the hours as I have been the past 4 weeks. There isn't much else to do anyway since it's still pretty cold outdoors, so my love of biking is put on hold for the next few months. I will be posting more regular updates than in the past, with results and interesting topics that I think of. Best of luck to everyone out there grinding!

-andrew