10% Done

Over 10%, actually.

Of course I'm referring to my (ill-advised?) pursuit of SuperNova Elite. I finished January safely past 100K vpp's in my pursuit of a million of the suckers. I'm well ahead of pace, and just behind pace for my unofficial goal of 1.25M vpp's (which is worth about an extra $30k compared to just the 1M).

It's going pretty good, I guess. Yeah, I'm really sick of poker, but I'm pretty sure I'm less sick of it then I would be of any other job. It's kinda how it always was, really. Fun when you're hitting flops and dragging pots (that should be on a t-shirt), and no so much when not. Only difference is, when I put in an 8-hour day and I'm running like shit the whole time, that's a fresh new hell.

It's starting to look more and more, btw, like Stars might change the min buy-ins to discourage short-stacking. If you didn't know, I have been SS"ing the last couple months . When I let that slip on cardplayer, btw, I got a few emails/PM's asking me follow up questions, and I promised to address it all in a blog. Only I haven't. So I will soon. I've just been sucking on blogging this month in general, and haven't really had a desire to write a poker blog especially after eight hours 24-tabling.

But I was saying, it looks like Stars might raise the min buy-in. I say might, cause they're not saying anything about it. But I would have thought it close to impossible a few months ago, and now it's at least possible. I have mixed feelings about that, should it come to pass. I am actually enjoying SS"ing, and there is definitely more to it then people think (again, I'll address this in an exciting blog down the road). I'm trying to get better at it, and even though I've been a loser in the game so far I'm way, way ahead after bonuses. So it's kind of low stress that way. I think I can start beating the games, but if I don't I still get paid (so long as I don't fall so far as to have my losses start being a significant portion of the bonuses -- that doesn't seem likely).

But on the other hand, I recognize why people think it's bad for the game. And I had never even tried it in my life before a few months ago, so I'm not really too stressed about having to abandon it. Basically I think if Stars studies it and feels that it will eventually lead to the games drying up in a significant way, then they should go ahead and make the change. But if they think the games will continue to thrive (which, in terms of numbers, they surely are doing now) then I don't think they should cave to the very vocal minority of full-stackers who are currently waging a propaganda war on SS'ers something fierce. It'll be interesting to see what happens over the next few months.

Playing 8 hours a day I sure notice the A game, B game, C game thing. The biggest challenge is staying focused, and I'm getting better at it (one of many things from SS'ing that will help my full stack game when I return to it). Today I was in the BB with 73o. UTG limped everyone else folded. Flop came 763r and I donked. Turn was the worst, another 6. I c/c'd his small bet. River was a random broadway card. I checked and he made another small bet. I thought I was rarely good, but this guy had given clear indications he didn't have a clue and I had really good pot odds so I called. He had 63 for the boat, only I dragged the pot. It seriously took me like 30 seconds to realize that the flop had actually been 733, so I had flopped 3's full of 7's and he had turned 3's full of 6's. FML, time for a break.