Calling the fuck off

Hand played on Pokerstars
Seat 4: Hero (4868 in chips)
Seat 6: Villain (4132 in chips)
Hero: posts small blind 75
Villain: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Tc 3c]
Hero: calls 75
Villain: checks
*** FLOP *** [4c Td 9d]
Villain: checks
Hero: bets 180
Villain: raises 330 to 510
Hero: calls 330
*** TURN *** [4c Td 9d] [Ah]
Villain: bets 690
Hero: calls 690
*** RIVER *** [4c Td 9d Ah] [Qs]
Villain: bets 2782 and is all-in
Hero: calls 2782
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain: shows [6d 8c] (high card Ace)
Hero: shows [Tc 3c] (a pair of Tens)
Hero collected 8264 from pot

In this post, I really just wanted to show you how what may appear a difficult call actually becomes an easy one when you break down your opponent’s range in line with the board changing. There’s not a lot worth mentioning about my opponent other than he is a solid aggressive reg.

PRE-FLOP:

So, I’ve got 10-3 suited and getting 3 to 1 this is definitely worth a limp. I’ve hammered on about this in previous posts so won’t go into too much detail: 10-3 suited has exactly 45.7% equity against a random hand and with 3 to 1 odds all we will need is anything >25% equity to make limping profitable assuming we see the 5 card community board. This makes limping preferred to folding.

FLOP: 4c-10d-9d

So, I flop a rather weak top pair on a reasonably wet board. My opponent checks to me and with a myriad of flush and straight draws I must bet for value and protection since my hand is clearly vulnerable to all those draws and potentially overcards. A bet of 180 into 300 looks good, and my opponent slides in a check-raise to 510. With his pre-flop check we can almost certainly remove any overpairs from his range, so his range is fairly open to a pair of 10s, any two pair combination as well as any straight draw/gut-shot or flush draw. Check-raising with a draw is quite often a good line since if your opponent checks you gain a free card and can fire the turn, if your opponent folds you win some chips with an unmade hand (more so than if you had bet out) and if your opponent calls you can still improve, so it is conceivable my opponent being a good reg may take this line with his draws. Obviously since we’re ahead of the majority of that range we estimated and since we have a pair of 10s (reducing the combinations of flopped 2 pairs he can have) we have a fairly easy call.

TURN: Ah

So, the turn brings an A and my opponent fires a bet of 690 into a pot of 1320.

This would appear to be a scare card for both of us. If my opponent had a pair of 10s he may well check and allow me to make some goofy bluff attempt at repping the A – after all, I didn’t raise pre-flop so from his point of view the A can’t have helped me. However, this just means it’s not really a scare card so if he was ahead on the flop he’ll still be ahead now, and there’s plenty of draws I could have in my range so betting with a lone pair of 10s would definitely make sense. You might see a lot of weaker players checking a pair of 10s here fearful of that A. Realising that the A doesn’t constitute a massive part of my range with my pre-flop limp he may also continue with his draws and any air hands he has in hope that I may toss some weak hands such as a pair of 9s or even a weak pair of 10s which isn't looking so pretty. I can be fairly certain myself my opponent doesn’t have an A with his pre-flop check so at this point all we can say is his range is still open to a pair of 10s, flopped two pairs and draws. There’s more draws he can have in his range with the fairly wet board texture than flopped 2 pairs (especially since we hold a 10) so with this in mind it makes sense to call and evaluate on the river.

RIVER: Qs

The rivers another overcard making my hand less pretty than it already was on the turn.

My opponent quickly stacks 2.7k all-in for a pot sized bet. This gives me pot odds of almost 2 to 1 and I’ll only need to be good here around 34% of the time to make calling off profitable; in other words, I'll need my opponent to be bluffing around 1 in 3 times to make money on the call. That’s all well and good, but how likely is it I’ll have at least 34% equity here? What about my opponent’s range?

This is where the narrowing down of my opponent’s range really begins:

We concluded that when the A came on the turn my opponent could still be betting some 10s for value and protection against those draws. When he stacks all-in on the river however, we can confidently remove a pair of 10s from his range. Shoving all-in with a mediocre hand like third pair here will typically only get called by better hands whilst folding out anything worse including any busted straight or flush draw that I may have, so it would make sense to check and invite a bluffing range from some of those missed draws. Whilst, if he had a hand like KQ/QJ/Q8 for a draw that rivered a pair of Qs the same applies: he would most likely check to induce a bluff or perhaps value bet really thin to get called by a pair of 9s/10s than shove and destroy the value of those hands. We also deduced on the turn that the A isn’t part of his range with his pre-flop check, so what does that leave us with?

That pretty much leaves us with a flopped two pair or a busted draw or perhaps complete air. We previously concluded that there’s more combinations of draws he could have than flopped 2 pairs, especially since we hold a 10. Furthermore, from his point of view missed draws are still part of my range so this gives him good reason to jam complete air or a weak busted gut-shot/straight or flush draw since it’s possible I may be holding a better draw that may win at showdown but cannot call a bet. And remember, I can’t have the A either with my pre-flop limp so he may feel he’ll be able to induce a pair of 9s or 10s into folding. One mistake people tend to make here is folding on the basis their hand isn't so pretty. However, having broken down our opponent's range to essentially 2 pair or complete air then holding a hand as weak as 10-3 is really the same as having A-K in this spot; if our opponent won't value bet any hand that's better than 10-3 nor worse than A-K (which I highly suspect to be true) then our hand holds as much value as A-K and we shouldn't avoid calling out of fear just because our hand isn't excellent. If anything, 10-3 is stronger than A-K here since we block the number of flopped/rivered 2 pair combinations he can have since we eliminated the possibility of him having A-x here.

It’s also worth strongly taking into consideration the speed of his jam: he jammed instantly and even a hand as strong as 2 pair should give some consideration to checking or at least take more time to plan out the most +EV move since our range should be full of missed draws. This makes it all the likelier that he is indeed bluffing. All this combined with the fact that my opponent’s aggressive, I’m getting 2 to 1 and he’s not really repping anything that believable meant I took about 2 seconds to call the fuck off, and my opponent indeed tabled 8-6o for a busted straight draw.

Live long and prosper

MikeyMcD45

ICMIZER article

So my second article for the official ICMIZER website has been published and is so far picking up a decent number of likes!

You can check out the article here:
http://www.pokericmcalculator.com

The article discusses in great depths playing the short stack on the bubble, particularly focusing on call ranges against the big stack. This is a very commonly misplayed spot in poker and this article will show how you can eliminate these common mistakes and maximise your $EV in these awkward situations.

Feel free to post in the comments!

 

A sneak preview:

 

The result

And what do you know...

We can only call off with 5% in this spot and it loses money to call with A-Qo. It's not uncommon to see players snap call with A-Qo and even much wider and to do so is simply throwing your money away. Calling off with A-8 suited for instance costs more than 1% of the prize pool which is pretty criminal but something you'll observe fairly often. And remember, this is against a big stack who knows ICM and elects to shove almost any two cards here; if you were up against a tight BTN or a player who didn't know ICM and the power of their big stack then they would be pushing way tighter than this range which in turn means the hero's range for calling off would be tighter.


That’s all for now folks!

My next article to be published on the ICMIZER site will be covering some of the features of ICMIZER and evaluating it with similar tools such as SNG Wizard, so keep your eyes peeled!

Live long and propser

MikeyMcD45

Albufeira report

It’s the 10^th of September and I’ve officially been home from Albufeira for 6 days… *sigh*…

Front window of apartment

In my “Life Update/Future” post in July I briefly touched up on the fact I had moved to Albufeira in June to grind for a few months. Well that time is now up and I’m back in Sunny Scotland….or should I say, constantly pissing it down with rain freezing Scotland….BLLAHHHH!!!!!

Anyway, I wanted to do a mini report on Albufeira for anyone considering going there and to bang some photos up.

 

Apartment living room

Apartment:

As you can see from a few of the photos I’ve uploaded (more at the bottom of page), we were staying in a super old school Portuguese style 2 bedroom apartment. Having been born in 1989 I’ve never lived in 1955 but fuck, it sort of felt like it with the tacky wall and floor design – I would never choose to live in an apartment like that but given we didn’t have a place to stay the day before jetting out we weren’t left with much options! It was also pretty compact in size; ideally I would have rather moved into an apartment with an extra room to set up a grind room and have a separate main living room but beggars can’t be choosers and I was just delighted we had an apartment to stay in before flying out.

Chillin' in the old town, I'm the dude 2nd from left, my stakee is far left

Location/Nightlife:

These drawbacks however were more than made up for in apartment price and location. The rent cost 600 euros a month including bills which isn’t bad at all split 2 ways. The location was nothing short of pure vomit whitey sick: we were living less than a minute’s walk away from Albufeira Square/bar street which is where everything’s going on in the old town and a further 1-2 minute walk to the beach.

The square and bar street are just packed with loads of restaurants, bars and disco bars – most of which stay open till 4am and sometimes later if there were any events on. There were a few solid live music bars in the Square, most notably Vertigo and Rock Café which had some cover bands belting out the likes of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Whilst classic 60s/70s rock isn’t my thing, I was impressed with a few of the bands and the live music scene in general in Albufeira. If you wanted to keep partying till 6am/7am you could easily jump in a cab and head to the new town – that cost around 5-6 euros from the square and was only a couple of minutes away in a taxi so wasn’t bad at all!

It was also pretty convenient living so close to the beach given our usual wake up time was anywhere tween 2.30pm and 5pm (standard!!) so allowed us to quickly swoop down and soak up some sun. Standard bed time was anywhere between 6am and 9am before you call me lazy!

Beach at 6am, walking home after night out in new town

 

The costs of living:

The costs of living were all round pretty decent too. There were enough markets to shop from and the cost of food probably worked out at a similar price to the UK. One downside was the prices of drinks in the disco bars, although this is probably no different from any other tourist resort. You were typically looking at 5 euros for a vodka mix, and there was even a place in bar street that had the arrogance to charge 8 euros, maaaaaad!

Anyway, it ended up not being too bad for us; we found a few pubs where you could get a pint for 2-3 euros, and if we wanted an epic night out we would usually stock up on a litre of Smirnoff which cost 13 euros from one of the local shops which is pretty sick. Hhhhhmmmmm 6.5 euros to tank half a litre of vodka before going out or 5 euros for a single vodka mix? That’s a tough yeen!

Needless to say, we made sure to spend some good quality time pre-bevving at the apartment to ensure we got hammered. Most pre-bevving took place between 12am-2am, and it became the norm to head out around 2am. In Glasgow, your night’s pretty much finished by then so will be pretty weird adjusting to that and just the fact the area where I live in Glasgow is so quiet at night. Wish me luck!


Dancing in the apartment. You can make out some of my poker charts on the wall!

Things to do:

In terms of activities, there’s plenty to do! We took a day out to hit up the waterpark “Slide n Splash” and hired a pedalo for a couple of hours another day which was fun. Besides that, there’s plenty of other activities running that you can take part in like pub crawls, booze cruises whilst paragliding seemed to be one of the most popular outdoor activities. We probably should have spent more time doing more of the outdoor activities that were on offer, although I think we needed the beach on too many days to cure the inevitable hangover!



Tattoo place right round the corner from us. Luckily for us we didn't start drinking till night when it's closed!

Summing up

Our final month was easily the craziest!

From 11^th August onwards there wasn’t a day where we didn’t have at least one friend over visiting, or exploiting our accommodation for free should I say! This meant from August 11^th to September 4^th, there was rarely a day where I wasn’t consuming alcohol – can’t say us Glaswegians don’t know how to drink!

As depressing as it may be to be back in Glasgow for various reasons, I’m actually pleased I’m giving my body some time to recover – my liver really did take a pounding out there and I’d be slightly concerned for my health doing another month out there at the same rate! Unfortunately, this basically meant in the final month poker was pretty much non-existent. I am back in Glasgow however, the nights are starting to draw in and I aim to get serious again volume wise in the final few months of the year.

Ring of fire drinking game. Not quite poker, but just as good!

All in all, I would definitely recommend Albufeira to anyone – either for living for a short period of time or vacation. There’s pretty much something there for everyone whether you wanna chill with the family or go batshit crazy with your buddies. We met some awesome people and I'd like to think one day I might be back.

Next year I’ll be moving away with my stakee to grind poker for a year, and at the moment it looks like there’s a great chance we’ll end up in Budapest in January. I’m also thinking about abandoning the idea of an SNE chase in 2014, and instead getting into the coaching side of things and balance that with playing. I am currently undecided and will trial the pace of SNE regardless in October and take things from there. More on that in the coming weeks!
 
Oh, and if you didn’t see my last post, I’m writing articles exclusively for the official ICMIZER website which can be found at http://www.pokericmcalculator.com

I’ll be writing hopefully between 2 and 4 articles per month and my first article (preview below) will be published very soon, so stay tuned! It should be sick!

Well, that brings a wrap, so until next time!

Live long and prosper

MikeyMcD45

 

 ICMIZER article preview:

ICM calculators although great for telling us the immediate EV of a move fail to account for the bigger picture i.e. what may happen in the following 5+ hands. With this in mind, it's worth thinking about what is likely to happen if we double up against the big stack here. We will become a clear mid-stack on the bubble so our opponent if any clue about ICM will raise and shove wider into us and with more equity to protect our all-in call ranges will tighten up which basically means we’ll have very poor future $EV.

 

More photos:

Bar street

 

 

Chillin' on a pedalo!

 

 

Just off the main square in old town!

 

 

My buddy playing guitar in the streets!

 

 

Getting up to no good at the waterpark!

Lil bit tipsy anyone?!

 

 

 

Smoking a fag. I don't even smoke!

 

Close up of TV in living room. Shame it was limited to Portuguese channels.

Apartment living room looking into the bedrooms

Kitchen

 

 

ICMIZER

I'm excited to report I'll be writing articles exclusively for the ICMIZER official website. For anyone who doesn't know, ICMIZER is hands down the best ICM calculator in the market at the moment and an essential tool for any pro in my opinion.

I'll be writing various types of articles: strategy posts that will feature ICMIZER calculations, and posts explaining it's features and how to get the most out of them, whilst I'll go on to evaluate the program itself with other similar tools to show ultimately why it's the best piece of software out there.

The official ICMIZER website can be found at:
http://www.pokericmcalculator.com

First article is due to be published early September, so stay tuned!

Live long and prosper

MikeyMcD45

Thinking outside the box part 2

So I just discovered a cool new feature in ICMizer that allows you to analyze any pre-flop situation i.e. those spots where there are at least 2 actions before you pre-flop that SNG wizard couldn't deal with, so I thought I would revisit my last post and try to explain the situation in greater depths and convey just how bad calling off with some hands would be and to demonstrate how raise-folding/effective shoving is much superior to shoving all-in in those spots when you're short stacked on the bubble. See previous post for the hand history.

So I've replicated the situation in ICMizer to give the hero a limp and the other stacks all-ins. Since it seems all pre-flop situations are now analyzable in ICMizer, there's no need for any boring longhand written ICM calculations; to perform the calculation and get some answers all we'll have to do is estimate both opponent's hand ranges – plug that in, then we'll be able to see just how bad calling off with certain hands in this situation will be.

Estimating Sbs range

Estimating an opponent's hand range is a difficult thing to do in poker, it requires a lot of studying of various spots and experience and repeating situations over and over. In this situation, the SB is a decent reg and I have 1.5bbs so almost any two cards are just about good enough to take me all-in. However, he is still shoving by the Bb so he is effectively shoving for 15bbs so he likely won't be any two, although he'll rarely expect to be called by the mid-stack here. With this in mind, I've assigned him a range of 63% of cards estimating that he'll limp everything from about 63% to 90% then maybe fold the most absolute of junk – the bottom 10% of cards.

Estimating Bbs range

Estimating the Bbs range is a bit more tricky; I now have the benefit of knowing he called off with 8s in this spot which is really bad, so clearly he has little understanding of ICM. In the small sample of hands I have on his HUD, his VPIP/PR are 18/6 with a BBFTS of 43, so he's definitely passive but not super loose. Given this, I've assigned him a subjective range of 9.65% of cards which is 5s+/A-10o+/A-9s+; I'm guessing if he's bad enough to call off with 8s here he'll likely call off with a bunch of other hands he shouldn't with as well such as A-9s and A-10o and a few more pairs.

Since he is a fish and won't be considering the ICM of this situation, it probably hasn't even occurred to him that I can fold in this spot when the action is back on me once the two other stacks are all-in; his thought process is more likely to be: “well, this guy on the BTN has 225 chips committed and only 76 chips behind now, he isn't folding with those amazing pot odds”. This might mean his range for calling off is much wider than the range I initially estimated i.e. he may easily just call off with the top 20% of hands here if he feels the big stack is pushing wide given he won't be expecting the hero to fold. If this was true, it just means calling off would be even worse for the hero given the big stack will have more equity against the mid-stack (thus in theory the hero coasting into the money more often upon folding when the action returns).

So let's take a look at the situation in ICMizer: 

So in this example, I've input the ranges I initially estimated for each player (63%/9.65%).

And as you can see, calling off with A-5o would cost us 8.46% in equity of the prize pool. In this $60 buy-in, that equates to $28.26 in money (almost half of our buy-in)....MASSIVE!!! As I've already elaborated on in previous posts, mistakes that cost you 1% in equity are pretty big so you can understand just how bad it would be to call off here. And infact, you can actually see that the suggested range for calling off (displayed in green) here is pocket Aces. Calling off with Ks is marginally -EV and calling off with Qs costs 1.6% in equity which is pretty damn bad. That may shock some of you but it's pretty simple: since we're so short on chips our equity remains really low so there's not a whole load of value in tripling up and we've got a much better shot at making money by allowing the other stacks to collide. This would be a different story if we had a 1k/1.2k stack, and you would definitely be calling off with Qs since you stand to gain a lot more tournament equity since you'll have at least a third of the chips in play if you win and there's some merit to your stack, so in that case it is worth the risk of having to overcome both opponent's hands relative to the gain.

As I said earlier, since this fishy opponent clearly has no grasp on ICM, my estimations of his hand range may be off; it may be possible he calls off with around 20% of hands, so let's see how that affects things:

And as you can see, the range of AA remains the same but you can see that calling off with different hands costs more money. Calling off with A-5o costs almost an extra percent in equity, and pocket As declined from winning 1.75% of the pool to 1.37%. This is simply down to the fact the big stack has more equity vs the mid-stacks range as it has more hands in it, and so the chances of us cashing increases.

The bottom line is, always non-all-in shove as the short stack on the bubble on the chance both the other opponent's end up all-in and you can give yourself the chance to fold and a better shot overall at making money.

Summing up, the mid-stack's play is devastatingly bad and his range for calling off should be Ks+ but I won't go into too much depths about that, I wanted to focus on the play of the hero's stack in this hand and hopefully the above is enough to convince you that you need to be calling super tight as the short stack on the bubble when the other stacks end up all-in and almost with a non-existent range when crippled.

MikeyMcD45

Thinking outside the box

ICM at its finest

Hand Played on Pokerstars

Seat 3: Big Stack (5767 in chips)
Seat 4: Mid Stack (2932 in chips)
Seat 6: Hero (301 in chips)
Big Stack: posts the ante 25
Mid stack: posts the ante 25
Hero: posts the ante 25
Big Stack: posts small blind 100
Mid stack: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Ad 5s]
Hero: calls 200
Big Stack: raises 5542 to 5742 and is all-in
Mid Stack: calls 2707 and is all-in
Hero: folds AND LEAVES 76 CHIPS BEHIND!
Uncalled bet (2835) returned to Big Stack
*** FLOP *** [3c 5h 2c]
*** TURN *** [3c 5h 2c] [6s]
*** RIVER *** [3c 5h 2c 6s] [Qc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Big Stack: shows [7c 5c] (a flush, Queen high)
Mid Stack: shows [8d 8s] (a pair of Eights)
Big Stack collected 6089 from pot
Mid Stack finished the tournament in 3rd place
Seat 6: Hero (button) folded before Flop
Hero coasts into the money J

This hand should act as a key reminder of the importance of ICM for new or upcoming SNG players.

I’ve just lost an all-in and find myself cripple stacked on the button, and glance down at A-5o, easy shove right? Well, it would be if you weren’t too clued up on the concept of ICM and I’m fairly certain at least 99% of players would shove here. On the other hand, I believe it to be the second best play. We are 1.5bbs deep so it’s pretty clear we have no fold equity against either opponent – that’s to say we won’t be able to get either player to fold if we shove all-in, especially the BB who will have a profitable call with 100% of cards regardless of our range pretty much.

What does this mean?

This means limping becomes the preferred option because if we limp and both the stacks end up all-in pre-flop, we can then fold in hope that the big stack eliminates the mid-stack and we coast into the money since a 6max SNG pays the top two finishes. This gives us a much better shot at making money overall since if we were to shove and end up in a 3 way all-in we would have to beat both opponent’s hands to stay in the tournament since we’re the short stack and that will be difficult with A-5o in a 3 way all-in. And even so, if we triple up, we will still only have 4bbs and will definitely be in need of more future double-ups to get back into the match before thinking about making money, so our best shot at making money in the long run will be to limp-fold and leave our stack super crippled.

There’s two counter arguments to this strategy that may make some of you sceptical:

1.    It’s even worse for our equity when the mid-stack wins the all-in since our stack becomes super crippled and we’ll almost definitely bust.

2.    Usually the mid-stacks range for getting it in will usually be much stronger.

The latter isn’t necessarily true if the mid-stack has no grasp of ICM, but for most part, assuming the mid-stack isn’t a complete idiot they should win more of the time meaning we’ll go on to bust more of the time and therefore not make money as often.

So let’s take a look at the numbers to see if we can make some sense of it all:

·        Equity of our stack pre-flop = 4.83%

·        Equity of our stack if we limp-fold and big stack wins = 35.25%

·        Equity of our stack if we limp-fold and mid stack wins = 1.30%

·        Equity of our stack if we limp-call and lose = 0%
 

So, as we’re very really low on chips the equity of our hand before the cards are dealt is 4.83%. If we limp-fold and the mid-stack wins, we’ll be left with 76 chips and our equity will drop to 1.30% - not so great! Needless to say, if we limp-call off and lose we’ll eliminate in 3^rd place and our equity will be equal to 0%. However, as you can see, if we limp-fold and the big stack wins, we’ll coast into the money and given that a 6max SNG rewards 2nd place 35% of the prize pool, our equity will take a staggering rise from 4.83% from when the cards were dealt pre-flop to 35.25% - that’s massive!

Indeed, if the mid-stack is solid and has a really skinny range for getting it in here then the majority of times they will win and we will be left with that stack resembling 1.30% in equity. However, we only lose 3.53% in equity when this happens (4.83% – 1.30%) and when comparing this to the times the big stack wins, our equity increases by 30.42% (35.25% – 4.83%) and that's guaranteed money. And remember, even if the mid-stacks range is much tighter than the big stack’s when the cash goes in, suck-outs can always happen too!

Conclusion

So the conclusion is even if the mid-stack will win the majority of the time, limp-folding is still the preferred option since the equity we gain is so huge the times the big stack wins, and on top of this, since we’re so short our equity is that negligible that we aren’t losing a lot by folding – we only drop 3.53% in equity, and the times we do commit to the hand and win the 3 way all-in (if we were to limp-call off), our equity is still considerably low since we’ll still only have 903 chips and we’ll almost certainly require future double-ups to make money.

As it was, both stacks got it in and luckily for me the big stack managed to beat the mid-stack and I coasted into the money with that 76 chip stack. Lucky for me indeed, but sometimes you just gotta make your own luck!

Live long and prosper

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