VICTORY!

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeehawwwwwwww!! I feel amazing right now-relieved, proud and happy to have retained my Supernova Elite status until hopefully September. I hit the 50K VPP mark around 8:40pm PT, which of course is 11:40pm ET, meaning I only had 20 minutes to spare before midnight! I honestly wasn't sure if I would have enough hours in the day to make it before June 1 despite putting in a ridiculous amount of hands over the last few days. The plan was to wake up today at 6:30am after having a 3 hour sleep and grind for 12 hours with an hour break in between somewhere. Well, the alarm went off at 6:30am and I obviously felt terrible so after pressing the snooze button 7 or 8 times I rolled out of bed closer to 8am instead and started the grind. I grinded until about 2:30pm and only had time for a half an hour break to get some food, shower, and take a quick walk outside to clear my head a bit. I got back to it around 3pm and grinded non-stop always trying to have 24 tables running at a time...things were fine for the first few hours but around 6pm my fear of the games slowing way down started to become realized as the traffic dropped. As a result, I found myself playing more 400nl/600nl tables as well as a handful of 6-max tables-whatever it took to keep the VPP's coming in. I made sure to check my pace every couple of hours and as it got closer to the deadline I would check more frequently to make sure things were going according to plan. Three days after I began my operation to keep SNE, mission accomplished! It wasn't just about my pride to keep SNE that kept me motivated throughout the last few days- it's also extremely beneficial to be a SNE for monetary reasons for the upcoming months. Basically, by putting in the work now I can be lazier in June, July and August because I can purchase a $4K cash bonus by hitting only 50K VPP's instead of the 70K VPP's I would otherwise need as a Supernova. Now, I have the option to either have more free time or more money! Oh, and also as fishylol said, I can't exactly say "hey baby, I used to be SNE but now I'm just Supernova..."

This grind was by far the most intense poker related challenge that I've done this year and for some reason it felt even more difficult than my end of the year push for SNE last year in December. Tony G's got nothing on me when it comes to heart! I played 40 hours of poker in 3 days, that's #%@!ing crazy. I'm only beginning to fathom how much poker and how many hands that I played just now because if I thought about playing 40 hours of poker 3 days ago I would have just told myself F$@K it! Not only did I put in the volume but I also was able to keep my focus and stay level headed as I fought off tilt after getting smoked by variance for most of the grind to crank out a sexy profit.

Overall, I earned about $7K in profit in table winnings alone over the 3 day grind and perhaps the most amazing feat was that I had my best day EVER in terms of money won at the cash tables TODAY and it happened during the final stretch of my grind. As I mentioned in my update today, I managed to break even during the first half of today's session after a disappointing spell of runbad over the final few hours. The start of the 2nd half of the session was very good but then the variance started to even out a little bit again as I gave some of the money back. However, I caught absolute fire at the high stakes tables that I was playing and won 3-5 pots all over $1K to set my new personal best day at about +$4,500!

BINGO!

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (9 handed)
SB ($810.95)
BB ($200)
UTG ($696.60)
UTG+1 ($390.60)
MP1 ($400)
MP2 ($166)
Hero (MP3) ($551.20)
CO ($311.45)
Button ($496.15)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with 5, 5
4 folds, Hero bets $12, 1 fold, Button calls $12, 1 fold, BB calls $8

Flop: ($38) 8, 4, 2 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $24, Button calls $24, 1 fold

Turn: ($86) 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

River: ($86) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $80, Button raises $200, Hero raises $435.20 (All-In), Button calls $260.15 (All-In)

Total pot: $1006.30

Results:
Button had A, 3 (straight, five high).
Hero had 5, 5 (full house, fives over twos).
Outcome: Hero won $1058.35

This is the hand that started the rush. I think that everything is pretty standard. I carefully considered whether I wanted to shove the river or just call the raise for 2 reasons: 1) I didn't think that I could get called by much worse by shoving and 2) along the same lines, a good player will pretty much only be showing up with 22 or 88 (maybe 44) here given the action since there was pretty much nothing invested until the river...however, I ultimately decided to shove because I felt that calling would be too nitty against a random because I'd be pissed if they tabled 2x, a straight, or especially 44. Also, you never know what randoms will show up with-he could be sitting there with a horribly played AA/KK and think he has the nuts! He snapped me off pretty quickly with his lol straight.

I was really fired up after winning this pot and may or may not but definitely did an actual fist pump and yelled profanities of joy to nobody in particular.

BANGO!!

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (3 handed)
Button ($400)
SB ($174.15)
Hero (BB) ($400)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J, J
Button bets $12, 1 fold, Hero raises $32, Button calls $24

Flop: ($74) 9, J, Q (2 players)
Hero bets $48, Button raises $132, Hero raises $316 (All-In), Button calls $232 (All-In)

Turn: ($802) J (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($802) 7 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $802

Results:
Button had K, 8 (one pair, Jacks).
Hero had J, J (four of a kind, Jacks).
Outcome: Hero won $801

Quads will do pig, quads will do.

BONGO!!!

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (8 handed)
Hero (BB) ($619.35)
UTG ($273.75)
UTG+1 ($736.20)
MP1 ($570)
MP2 ($677.90)
CO ($261.60)
Button ($355.45)
SB ($735)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, K
2 folds, MP1 bets $18, 2 folds, Button calls $18, 1 fold, Hero raises $66, MP1 calls $54, Button calls $54

Flop: ($219) 10, 4, J (3 players)
Hero bets $144, MP1 raises $498 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero calls $354

Turn: ($1215) 10 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($1215) 6 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $1215

Results:
Hero had K, K (two pair, Kings and tens).
MP1 had 2, A (one pair, tens).
Outcome: Hero won $1212

This was the biggest pot of the day. I wasn't too concerned about being behind when the money went in on the flop because this guy was a random that was playing pretty much every pot but talk about a SICK sweat! I was surprisingly at ease with the outcome of the hand before the turn and river were even dealt since I already had a few huge pots under my belt so I could afford to take this hit. Needless to say, after such a sick fade more fist-pumps and cries of joy were to be had! The neighbours were probably getting curious at this point.

Just for good measure, I had two straight flushes today! Here's the only one that HEM recorded, which was much smaller than the other pot that I won unfortunately.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB
(3 handed)Button ($172.15)
Hero (SB) ($801)
BB ($400)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 7, 6
Button calls $4, Hero calls $2, BB checks

Flop: ($12) 7, 5, 8 (3 players)
Hero bets $8, BB raises $28, 1 fold, Hero calls $20

Turn: ($68) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks

River: ($68) 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $48, BB calls $48

Total pot: $164

Results:
Hero had 7, 6 (straight flush, eight high).
BB didn't show
Outcome: Hero won $163

I'm no homophobe, but I do prefer my flushes STRAIGHT!

Ahhh yeah, I am definitely looking forward to taking some time off for the next 2-4 days of June! I'll probably spend a lot of time working out and cleaning up my place/room and do some laundry/chores and try to get up to date with my blogging. I'm actually looking forward to doing a monthly recap of May now that I cranked out an $18Kish month in almost literally 3 days lol. OH YEAH, and the Cancuks are in the Stanely Cup FINALS baby!! I'll definitely be sweating every game against Boston and I'm calling the Canucks in 6! It's time...




Oh, there might be an issue with blogger when it comes to leaving comments for some users (I know I can't even make a comment right now, it's an issue on blogger's end and I think they're working on it) so if you want to hit me up send me an e-mail or tweet if you can't post.

EDIT: Yeah, seems to be an issues with logging onto google accounts...hopefully blogger fixes it soon!
gl at the tables guys!

No Time For An Update!

Well, there really isn't a whole lot of time but here we go!

I played my 5 hour session last night and ran very well, taking like $2K off of the tables. I earned 3K VPP's in the process and left myself having to earn 8K today.

I just finished up my first half of today's grind and it started off really well and then ran about as bad as I have all month. Seriously have no clue how some of these idiot regs make any money but I guess if they run as good as they do against me all of the time then I can see it (no, I'm not talkin about you gutter :P You're just a box). I could post a dozen hands but there's no time. I thought that I pretty much lost that $2K that I won last night after this session but the start must have been much better than I remeber because I was EVEN!

4K down, 4K to go. Only taking a half hour break right now then back to the grind...honestly no idea if I'll even make it to 50K, it's going to depend on if I can maintain having 24 tables up at a time. Obv going to try my best, hopefully I can run better and make some money in the process. Should be a decent month regardless!

gl at the tables, apologize in advance if I say stuff in the chat today...def in a tilted mood!

Poker MARATHON

These last couple of days have been insane trying my best to retain my SNE status for the rest of the year (well, until September). I am playing my ass off and giving it everything that I've got and it's still could be all for nothing lol. Yesterday, I grinded for 14 hours! Yes, 14 f*cking hours playing 24 tables of 200nl+ at a time. Today, I've played for about 6 hours and am about to start up another 5 hour grind before taking a 3-4 hour sleep and then I'm going to have another 12 hour race against the clock the following day.

Playing this amount of volume requires intense focus and discipline...my focus has never been an issue while playing but my discipline is why I'm in this mess to begin with. Little things, such as setting the alarm for 6:30am yesterday and then shutting it off and waking up at 11am, really start to add up. It also didn't help wasting 2 hours in the gym just now talking to some cute girl (wasted?) but it is what it is!

This reminds me a lot of last December all over again...I'll be happy to not lose my bankroll but I've actually managed to turn a small profit thus far. Another problem with not waking up very early in the morning PT is that the games get very dead at night and it's nearly impossible to run 24 tables at a time so I'm getting much fewer hands per hour. As mentioned earlier, the plan from this point forward is to grind out 3K VPP's tonight, which will take around 5 hours, and then wake up at 6:30am and do a 4K-break-4K session to close out the month. I've been running abysmally bad over my marathon so far and I don't expect things to change quickly...I've also been playing kinda crappy making too many calls in spots against the most unbalanced players on Stars where they always have it even though they rep like 1 hand. Oh well, we'll see how things turn out.

Anyways, I'm going to try and pull this off for all of the procrastinators out there. About 11K VPP's needed at this point, I'll try to throw an update in tomorrow but we'll see how much time I have.

gl at the tables!

Busy As Tits!

Wow, sorry for the lack of updates everyone-things have been quite hectic as of late but I wanted to post something quickly. You would think that after already missing the first two weeks of the month due to travelling it wouldn't be the best idea to go away again for the long weekend with only 14K VPP's under my belt (but that's just what I did). It also probably isn't the best idea to go out tonight to a friend's birthday BBQ but whatever, I'm not going to sweat it. I currently have earned 25K VPP's for the month after putting in a long grind over the past 3 days and need to average about 6K VPP's over the next 4 days (about 9 hours a day at 200nl+) and it's going to be tough but I'll make it. You can see when 8-10 hours of my day has been devoted to poker over the last little while and 8-10 hours to sleep it can be hard to find the time to blog. Nevertheless, things will slow down a bit in June and I'll have time to recap a pretty blogworthy weekend in Victoria this past week!

As for how things are going on the poker front...not very good. Just been running really bad and being forced to play during non-peak hours is not helping. Somehow I'm still in the black though and have hopes for another 5-figure month. I made a deep run in the VIP freeroll cashing for $2800 after getting knocked out in 25th place...disappointing but satisfying at the same time. Anyways, like I said, my next post will be about my long weekend which will include a tourney report of the freeroll.

Biggest pot won this month:

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (9 handed)
CO ($900.70)
Button ($295.15)
SB ($165.50)
BB ($413.45)
UTG ($232.50)
UTG+1 ($416.40)
Hero (MP1) ($465.75)
MP2 ($447.10)
MP3 ($422.85)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A, A
UTG calls $4, 1 fold, Hero bets $20, 5 folds, BB calls $16, UTG calls $16

Flop: ($62) Q, 6, 7 (3 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $40, BB calls $40, 1 fold

Turn: ($142) 9 (2 players)
BB bets $69.50, Hero calls $69.50

River: ($281) A (2 players)
BB bets $100, Hero raises $336.25 (All-In), BB calls $183.95 (All-In)

Total pot: $848.90

Results:
BB didn't show
Hero had A, A (three of a kind, Aces).
Outcome: Hero won $898.20

Biggest pot lost this month (no it's not a bad beat...it was unfortunate that I was out of position though because I think that I'm pretty much forced to shove the turn here against 2 fish, especially given their ranges based on pre-flop action and the amount of draws that are out there (though if I had a read that btn was a nit I could call the turn and fold to a raise obv)):

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (9 handed)
UTG ($400)
UTG+1 ($405.20)
MP1 ($418)
MP2 ($321)
MP3 ($370)
CO ($431.50)
Button ($251.10)
SB ($223.15)
Hero (BB) ($406)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8, 9
6 folds, Button calls $4, SB bets $6, Hero calls $4, Button calls $4

Flop: ($24) 9, 8, 6 (3 players)
SB bets $8, Hero raises $36, Button calls $36, SB calls $28

Turn: ($132) 3 (3 players)
SB bets $24, Hero raises $148, Button raises $207.10 (All-In), SB calls $155.15 (All-In), Hero calls $59.10

River: ($725.35) A (3 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $725.35

Results:
Button had 7, 10 (straight, ten high).
SB had Q, 10 (high card, Ace).
Hero had 8, 9 (two pair, nines and eights).
Outcome: Button won $722.35

Time to hit the gym then hit the BBQ. Talk to you soon.

gl at the tables!