Life update/Future

It’s been a while! I really ought to try and be a bit more consistent with updating, but I’ll give a quick life update followed by brief future plans. I was going to add in a hand analysis as well but the post will likely be pretty dense, so I’ll leave that for a few more days.

Life update

So I moved to Albufeira in Portugal exactly one month ago yesterday. It was a rather spur of the moment decision having never been to Portugal before but it was always a dream of mine to grind abroad if I turned professional, and it would be a shame not to make the most of the advantages being a poker pro offers. I haven’t really been fluid yet with my hours at the tables; it took 2 weeks to get the net set up, and there’s always plenty of distractions here that makes it somewhat difficult to log in proper hours – must change this in the coming weeks!

The place itself is great, great weather, nice beach, good food and the nightlife is really booming – too many nights I’ve planned to grind yet found myself tanking shots at the nearest bar ;) …when really I should be tanking money at the tables, haha…

I will do my best to try get some photos up soon, and may even make a video, so stay tuned!

The future

My stakee was planning on moving here at some point to join me at the grind, but recent law changes mean that to stay in Portugal beyond 3 months, you need to gain a residency certificate. This basically means I’m eligible to stay here until September 6^th before I’d have to leave. It sounds like a massive hassle gaining a residency certificate, although one way of potentially combating this may be to move back to the UK for a short period of time then jetting back out, but there may not be a whole load of value moving back to what will basically be a Ghost town beyond September.

Supernova Elite

With the above in mind, I’ve already started thinking about the future. I’ve been putting serious thought into attempting a Supernova Elite chase on Pokerstars in 2014. I want to constantly push myself to the limits and keep evolving as a poker player; I think it’s important to see clear signs of moving forward so you’re able to consistently yield good motivation and desire, otherwise the job itself would get fairly monotonous I think. This may also help me structure my hours better and practice scheduling my sessions in the coming months (something I’d definitely have to do next year if doing an SNE run) and therefore getting in better volume too.

For anyone reading who isn’t clued up about Supernova Elite; Pokerstars rewards players who play more/pay the site in rake, so achieving Supernova Elite itself is worth $100k. In other words, if you break-even at the tables and achieve Supernova Elite, you’ve had a $100k year, if you lose $20k at the tables, you’ve had an $80k year. Sounds too good to be true, right? Exactly… Achieving Supernova Elite basically means grinding your ass off all year long and as far as I’m aware there are less than 1000 players online who have achieved this ever; this number is completely miniscule when taking into account the number of people that play online poker. Needless to say, it’s one of those things that’s much easier said than done and will require shit loads of hard work. I’ll talk more about it in future posts and the preparation for it and important qualities and skills I think are essential to achieve it should I become more intent on going for it.

Budapest

Right now, I’m thinking of moving back to the UK in early September for a couple of weeks to catch up with friends/family, then jetting out to stay in Budapest for a couple of months. Should I enjoy my stay in Budapest I may elect to move there next year for the epic grind if I’m chasing SNE; I would ideally live with other poker players when grinding an insane amount to keep life interesting and the mind active.
Whilst there, I plan on trialling the pace of Supernova Elite over the course of a 2-3 week period. This will give me a real indication of what I’m in for next year and exactly how many hours I would need to average each week given the number of games I play and my average stake. Above all, this will let me know whether playing the necessary crazy volume is something I would enjoy or not; I don’t believe in sacrificing life EV/happiness just to make more money so if I felt I would be miserable with little time to spend outside poker, I won’t bother going for it. One of the greatest advantages of being a poker pro is the freedom it brings and I don’t see the point in being a slave to gain more money if you’ll struggle to find time to actually enjoy it. In any case, these are all just ideas at the moment, so we’ll see what ends up materialising!

That’s all for now really, I will be updating really soon with another hand analysis, so until then!

MikeyMcD45