2012 + 2013

So it's that time of the year again! The last day of 2012 and we're still here, guess the Mayan's weren't right about everything! I figured before we all get drunk tonight i'd write up one last blog post to finish off the year.

This year didn't really go the way i wanted in terms of poker and i think i know why for the most part, I've been pretty lazy! I started the year off and by the end of February i had probably played about 20k hand's lol  For the first time in my life i moved away from the site i love playing on, Pokerstars! It just has by far and away the best software for poker and i learnt this year i am a massive software nit and love the Stars client. I messed around on some small euro sites with high rake and soft table's for a while, made some money, then had to come back to Pokerstars because i could no longer put up with the shitty software of other sites. So this is my graph from Everleaf poker this year, rake was crazy high and i got 50% of it back:

So that went pretty well, i was winning at 4.6bb/100 here and with that massive amount of rake i was pretty happy tbh! I also played some small amount on Cake before moving back to Stars:

My bb/100 at Cake was actually 11.2 :) Obviously tiny sample and i must have ran pretty well i guess! 

So then i moved back to Stars, after being lazy again for a few months and just letting my bankroll dwindle away i had to start at 50nl. Thing's didn't go so well, after my first 90k hands i should have been winning, and i was but only a little, because in my last 20k hands there i actually ran ~30 buy-in's under EV (expected value) probably the worst I've ever ran in my career to date! I think this was Pokerstars' way of punishing me for leaving lol

So my winrate at 50nl was only 1.4bb/100 with an EV of 3.4bb/100 which also isn't that great tbh :( After this terrible run at 50nl and being lazy i had to get staked, i didn't want to, but didn't have much of a choice other than move down to 25nl, and i didn't really see that as an option. So a friend in my Skype study group threw some money at me and after agreeing on a percentage split said go play 100nl again, which i'm very pleased to say went well:

So my first 130k hands back to 100nl on Stars i'm winning at 6.45bb/100 which feel's awesome. I also managed to get back my Supernova VIP status playing 100nl after my hiatus from Pokerstars earlier in the year! At this time i started mixing in 200nl ZOOM also and started to talk to my friend/backer about Supernova Elite in 2013, he was all up for idea and with about 12 hours left of 2012 i'm ready for the monstrous challenge ahead of me! 

I realized that the only times this year that i had no money, or things weren't going well, are also the times when i became complacent with my work and I've decided i'm not going to let that happen again by going foe SNE in 2013 :) My highest volume month so far was about 125-135k hands and that was about 18 month's ago lol My aim for Jan, Feb, March & April is 300k hands+ per month, so you can appreciate how much extra effort will be needed i hope! So my graph from Pokerstars since getting staked looks like this: 

I've been really struggling at 200nl ZOOM since moving there, i also feel like I've been running really poorly there so i hope that turns around soon and i can have a reasonable winrate, though i know 200nl is quite a lot harder than 100nl ZOOM imo. This is the same graph in bb's:

So overall winrate since September 27th (when i got staking) is 4.93bb/100 which i'm really happy with! 

Now onto 2013 and my goals for the year and targets for the first few months. 

• Make Supernova Elite
• Profit at the tables
• Make a combined total of $150k or more from rakeback and table profit
• Apply for Pokerstars Online Pro
• Keep this blog, my 2+2 thread and my Twitter updated as much as possible
• Keep up my gym routine and eat healthily
• Finish SNE by December so i can take a long overdue holiday to Southeast Asia with the girlfriend
• Get ahead of pace and stay there in terms of VPP's, i think this one is crucial for me, i will be attempting to accumulate over 100kVPP every single month until the start of May and then pick up that pace once again in September allowing for some downtime from the tables in the tiny, tiny summer that we get here in the UK :(
• Have fun and try not to get too down when i experience large downswings that come naturally with this kind of grinding.

And i think that just about wraps up this long blog post, sorry if i rambled on a bit but i thought it would be cool to finish off this year with a review and some target's for the following year! 

So i hope you all have a wicked NYE and an excellent 2013, i wish you all the best of luck and maybe i'll see some of you at the table's. If you like my blog don't forget to share it around and let others know about it :) Thanks for reading, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 

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Merry Christmas!!!

So there's about 25 minutes left of Christmas day here in the UK and i figured it was time for a blog update. 

I hope you all had an excellent Christmas with your families and hope that Santa brought you all the present's you asked for and more. I had a pretty awesome Christmas myself, i spent more time and money, collecting and buying presents this year than any other but i'm pretty sure that has something to do with having a girlfriend this year and having not had one for quite a while before! Was all good fun though because i got my fair share of present's back and love  all of them, was actually really surprised a couple of hours ago when i spread them out over my bed to see what i had, to see this ridiculous amount of presents :) 

So that was pretty awesome! As you can probably tell i have a bit of an obsession with superhero's and Arnold Schwarzenegger, so i got a load of t-shirt's with Superman, Batman and Hulk on, along with 3 Superman pj bottoms and 2 Arnie books! Along with 2 awesome pairs of Nike trainers and enough chocolate and sweets to put Willy Wonka out of business! :) Got a ton more present's including a watch, hoody, photos, wallet, belt, scarf and ton's more, was a really great Christmas. I hope all of yours was too, was just what i needed before this massive grind i have coming in 2013 for at last the first four months, it was really great to see all my family and some friends and just eat, drink and chat all day. This is a picture of the presents before they got destroyed and ripped to pieces, along with the rest of my family's under the tree:

So all in all i had a brilliant Christmas. I hope everyone is enjoying following the blog so far, and let me know if you have any topics you'd like me to discuss in the comment's below or on Twitter! Think i'll post up some sort of routine for poker and life/gym before the New Year and take it from there. Also don't think i'll be playing much poker from now until New Year, think i'll enjoy this precious rest!! Good luck all, thanks for following!

Mike.

Hi!

Hey Everyone,

I am a professional online poker player and i have been playing for a living for just over 2 years now, i play exclusively on Pokerstars.com and i play the ZOOM 6-max games. I have been playing ZOOM now for about 2 month's and before that i was playing the 6-max ring game's. I've worked my way up from 25nl, through the stakes, and am now playing a mix of 100nl and 200nl ZOOM. 2012 didn't exactly go the way i wanted it too, mainly because for the most part, i have been super lazy :( So i figure it's about time to make a change! In 2013 i'm going to attempt to make Supernova Elite playing 4 table's of 200nl ZOOM and also 2 table's of 100nl ZOOM. I get 430 - 450 VPP's per hour playing this 6-tabling mix, so it will take me about 2275 hours to achieve this ;( And i want to be done by December so i need to average just over 50 hours per week!! So far i have mixed result's at ZOOM, i seem to do well at 100nl and not so well at 200nl, though admittedly my sample for both is very small and imho i feel like I've mostly ran like aids so far at 200nl ZOOM! Probably didn't help that the same time i moved up to 200nl i also added two more table's of ZOOM haha, stupid idea i think! For those of you that don't know Supernova Elite on Pokerstars is worth about $105k to me in rewards spread out across the year :) 

Anyway here is my 100nl ZOOM graph so far: 

I'm winning at 6.76bb/100 over 103k hands with an EV winrate of 4.87bb/100.

200nl ZOOM not going so hot like i said, regs are definitely considerably better and there are quite a lot less fish there imo, still a very beatable game though as i haven't ran very well so far:

As you can see either i'm getting crushed here or running bad, maybe a bit of both tbh. I'm fairly confident that long term even 6-tabling i will have some sort of positive winrate there though, although more than likely pretty small. My winrate here so far is 0.61bb/100 with an EV of -1.19bb/100 

This last graph is 100nl ZOOM, 100nl ring games and 200nl ZOOM combined with Supernova rakeback. These are pretty much all the hand's I've played since moving back up to 100nl:

So $12.4k total profit for the last 3 month's or so, with a combined winrate of 5.17bb/100 and EV 3.39bb/100.

As you can see from the redline in the last graph, I've changed my game a little recently, and am hoping to see some positive results from it soon! Though i have been mainly break even pre rakeback since moving to 200nl which is not all that much fun tbh 

So my goal's for 2013:

1. Make Supernova Elite.

2. Profit at the table's (i would like to hit an overall winrate of 2bb+/100 but considering the massive volume and being forced to play when i don't want to i'd take anything over 0.8bb/100 tbh)

3. Keep this blog updated regularly to track progress.

4. Apply for and obtain Pokerstars Online Pro status (more of a dream than a goal, but anything is possible if i work hard) 

5. Keep up my solid gym routine and eat well.

6. Finish SNE by start of December and take a looooooooong overdue holiday somewhere hot with the gf! 

7. Get ahead of pace in Jan -April and make >100k VPP's per month.

I also may update about my gym going/routine/progress, i am some what of an aspiring natural bodybuilder and have been training on and off for over 8 years now. Had a solid routine for at least 2 years non-stop though. I live in Solihull, UK, just outside of Birmingham, and go to Ironworks gym, which is just about the best gym ever, and that helps a lot with motivation  I am 25 year's young. 

Anyway, I've probably missed a ton of thing's, and am happy to answer any question's any of you may have. But good luck to us all in 2013 and i hope you enjoy following this blog and continue to read and share it all year long! 



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