This was the week of my B Day so I was definitely worried about staying on pace, and what my liver would look like by the end of today. Oh and for those keeping track, by week I mean Sat thru Friday for blog purposes. Went to Dave and Busters on Saturday, had a good time playing that dang Horse racing game they got with Mike N.. You pretty much sire a horse, hit 2 buttons during the race with one hand, while holding a beer in the other. Boy I love that place. Tues went to Reposado with the wifey for my actual B day dinner. Wasn't to impressed. Wait was what I imagined the line to get into heaven looks like, and the food was meh at best. Something about fancy Mexican food just doesn't seem right. Tacos El G FTW. Took down The Stable tourny last night due to a suckout with the good ole 5 9 off, which is a pleasant turn for me lol. Poker was pretty standard again this week, as I am still running like dog poop but have managed to keep the losses down and, man my game has improved a ton. Ive almost gained a 1/4 on my non showdown winnings, while my showdown winnings are down due to the ev line on my graph looking like the damn continental shelf. Ev isnt that huge a factor as I always have been able to have winning months even being below all in ev, but as an example I fired two shells with middle pair about a million times time today against some station knowing I waas good, and checked back the river only to find the guy hit his flush about 80 percent of the time lol. My best skill though seems to be raising limpers who have 20bb in front of them having them call me and I hit top pair with like ak. Only problem is these guys have a4 and the flop comes a42. Hmm I dunno what the odds are there(ok I do) but I don't think limp calling hands with 20 bb is a good idea eh? (unless ya got aces, or you have the superuser codes on UB ):p. On the most important note, I am still ahead of pace on a week I didn't play 2 days, and I am not worn out, or the least bit worried I can't do this. Every day actually gets easier, but let's see how I feel if I run bad for 100g hands lol. It has happened before and will happen again. I suggest you look up the standard deviation sights to see what I mean. Still have a few leaks like not 4 betting agro regs enough but I am working on it. Still missing value in some spots but thats a price you play mass tabling. I think working out everyday has been keeping me sane and feeling good, and I recommend to any grinder that it should be a top priority. It gives you energy, releases stress, and breaks up the day. Maybe I'll be the first Mr. Olympia, and SNE ever.........uh ok never mind.

Total VPP needed for pace 38,314.98
Total VPP Earned 42,018.43

S I just finished up my first week of my SNE chase and there are two things that have caught my attention. The first is I cannot believe how much I have been dreaming of poker when I go to bed. There were times I played late into the night, went to sleep, and played a whole session in my dreams, only to wake up and play some more. Worst part was it wasn't like the table was Shakira, Jollie, and Fox. I did not like this at all. It gives you no down time to review how you played in your mind as your constantly going over new hands. The only reason I played in the late evenings was because I had slacked on my schedule, which makes me come to my second conclusion. I really need to keep to my schedule. I realized if I get up on time workout and eat a good breakfast it is so much easier to deal with the amount of hands I am putting in. The 3 days I did this I felt great and actually finished off early. The days I did not I was feeling pressure to "catch up" and keep myself on pace. My plan is to really work on the consistency of my schedule.
So now to the poker. I am down a few g in Monies right now and running horrible but this has actually been a good thing to start with. I am not down on myself at all and that is a good sign. I feel like the amount of tables is getting easier to deal with everyday, and my muti tabling game has improved in just one week, even if my results are not where I want them to be. My wife had a good thought on this. She said it's like knowing how to juggle 4 things at once, and now you have added a fifth. It is gonna take some time to get used to. So spirits are up as I go into my second week. Time for some rungood!

VPP needed by Jan 7th 19177.88
VPP Earned so far 22125.46

As I lead up to Jan 1st, I am getting more excited and nervous by the minute. The tails of triumph on the forums are exhilarating and very motivating, just as the tails of failure are scarier than the Ole H E double hockey sticks. It being the holidays and all I have spent a lot of time around mine and my wifes family. Pretty much everyone knows now that I am out of the Kiddie pool and am going to be playing poker full time. I was wondering how most were going to react to this as poker is not your normal profession to say the least. How were people going to react? What were they going to say? I was very pleasantly surprised and grateful that everyone was so understanding and most were down right excited for me to try this. I heard a lot of, "well I know how you don't just dive into things"( I mean I did have the same job for 14 years lol) to them saying things like " Well if you need any help accomplishing your goal let me know". This has made the thought of the upcoming emotional grind a lot easier. Lets face it, in poker, no matter how much the odds are in your favor, or how good you are (or think you are) there are going to be huge ups and downs. I feel like I am programed for this already, but this is an extreme version of what I am used to that I am about to undergo. So to all of my friends and family I want to thank you for the support, and let's make 2011 even beteer than 2010! Happy Holidays!

When I decided a month ago that I was really gonna go for this, I immediatly thought about what would I need to make this as easy as possible. I am by nature an anal organizer and tend to over plan pretty much everything. When worrying what kinda route I should take to the BevMo down the block this is a real problem , but in this case I think it goes into my favor. Hopefully this entry and the planning I have done can help some of you thinking about Multitabling on these poker sites. I went on twoplustwo.com, which is the largest poker forum on the internet. From there I spent the next 2 weeks combing through threads to see what people had done, learned, and used to go for SNE. It was very insightful on what people thought, and how they went about going for it. I used to tile on a 32 inch HDTV which was fine, but I quickly learned that HDTV can not duplitcate the resolution of a computer moniter. I also learned it was better to have 2 moniters so you could use one for your tables and another one for your Pokertracker/Hold em manager, and other stuff. Of course with the most popular other usuage being porn and pokersoup, not necessarily in that order :). A good Video card that supported 2 moniters was also a must. What really struck me as a great idea was the use of a SSD(Solid State Drive) for your pokertracker. With playing so many hands there is a ton of data you need to bring up to do things like review sessions, filter out certain data to see how you are playing at certain levels or on different streets. With a SSD this makes these things almost instant compared to a normal Hard Drive. Last but not least was a good chair. With spending so many hours sitting you are going to need a very comfortable chair. With All this info I decided on what I needed to start my journy.

I Bought a Gaming computer with an AMD Phenom II 64 bit 6 core processor(overkill but I am an overplanner) 6gb ddr ram(needed for running multiple programs IMO) With an ATI Radeon 1gb video card that has 2 Dvi port that can support 2 moniters. Thee Hard Drive is 1 TB(huge) I also got that SSD drive and it is only 64gb cause all you need to run on there is your Windows and Pokertracker. For moniters I went with a 30 inch dell and a 27 inch Samsung. I am still waiting to try out some chairs to decide what I need. Any suggestions? Here is some pics of The setup.

This guy works for beer! I highly recommend him to set up your computer :)

I am getting excited as I get closer to January. I barely have played any poker as I am trying to relax a bit and get all this craziness set up before the Holiday season really hits due to Christmas. Hope you all have a great Holiday and I will see you at The Stable!

Well after 14 years in the childcare business, starting from an aide and working my way up to being a partner at a private after school program, I have decided to take at least a year off to challenge myself to reach one of online pokers most sought after goals. Supernova Elite on Pokerstars. I intend to use this blog to record the journy for myself, and anyone who is interested. This will include bi weekly updates on my pace, and anything that comes to my mind regarding this challenge.
Supernova Elite is basically Pokerstars top VIP level. You can find the details on what it takes at :
http://www.fpppro.com
http://www.pokerstars.com/vip/supernova/elite/
It starts on Jan 1st and basically the goal is to reach 1 million VPP(VIP player points) in one calender year. Basically if you reach this level you get around 63-70 percent rakeback when all is said and done. That means if you just break even for the year you are looking at over 115k in rakeback(including tourny packages) Last year there was only 209 people who reached this goal and this year is looking like it will be close to 300. Without getting into too much detail (check the links) I will have to multi table(14-20) midstakes (200nl-600nl) for at least 5 hours a day 5-6 days a week to obtain this goal, all the while trying to remain profitable(or breakeven) at the tables for the year. This is tough for a number of reasons. Things like game selection, and playing during hours more regulars are on lower your winrate, as well as the added number of tables.
I have made it to Supernova(One level below elite, but ten times easier) the last 5 years playing 3 hours a day at a decent win rate, and have quite frankly gotten very bored with both my job and poker. I felt that this would be a good time to challenge myself. I hope those of you who follow this blog will enjoy the journy weather I crash and burn(very possible as people go crazy trying for this), or make it to glory!