Well to start this off, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm a 20 year old amateur poker player from Grand Island, Nebraska. I'm known as PunkFloyd510 on both Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker. I've been playing poker for about 10 months, seriously for about 2. I've decided to take my game to the next level now and try to seriously make a run at making real money at this game. After a lot of consideration I feel that making a run at Supernova Elite is the most realistic way of making considerable money at this game. At its core a run at SNE is a challenge of work ethic and mental toughness, 2 things which I excel at. The rest is up to my still underdeveloped poker game, which I feel I can turn into a winning poker game due to my intelligence, work ethic, and general "knack" for games and game theory. Below I will outline my plan for the remainder of the year, and my plan through next year.
First of all after mulling over all the different games I could play, I've decided that the game with the best combination of VPP, bankroll requirements, and ability to win at the game I've chosen 6-max limit hold 'em. I've withdrawn my bankroll from Full Tilt and am putting $600 on Pokerstars and hoping to run it up. I'd like this to remain my only deposit, but in order to reach my goal if an additional $500 or so is required I'd put it in. The point of the single small deposit is to prove I can grind up a bankroll and am not just burning money just hoping to become a breakeven player after rake and possibly losing my entire bank account on a lost cause. This allows me to realize if I'm a losing player or not and cut my losses if I end up a net loser in these games. I will begin at 1/2, a level I know 100% I can beat. My goal is to make Supernova by the end of the year, which requires me to earn an additional 99k VPP's. I plan to be playing 2/4 within a month(with a $2000 bankroll). After I reach Supernova I will buy my milestone bonus($1000) and my $4000 bonus and begin clearing that. Once cleared I will analyze whether or not I am a winner at 2/4 and if so I should have 7k+ at least in my bankroll, which gives me plenty of room for a shot at 3/6 next year which will put me in a position to play for SNE.
Now for a more detailed plan for this year. 15 weeks and change are left, to leave myself some extra time I will only count the 15 weeks in my calculations. I will start at 1/2, and 6-table(my current comfort zone) to get in 500ish hands an hour. If I can maintain a lowly 1BB/100 winrate, I will earn $10/hr and with 30 hrs/week I can reach my bankroll requirements for 2/4 in roughly 5 weeks. If necessary I will buy myself a $650 bonus, but i'd prefer not to. It would be much better to win 2+BB/100 or be able to add a table or a few hours but this is the bare calculation to just make it. At this point I will be ready for 2/4 and have 10 weeks left. If I'm still 6-tabling(hoping to add more but restricted by labtop size/speed) then it will take 33 hrs/week for the rest of the year. This is the tricky part because I'm still unsure if I'm at least breakeven at 2/4 or if I will be by this point. Somewhere before mid-december I will buy a 24"+ monitor and a new desktop just for grinding, and hopefully get in some practice 7,8, and eventually 9-tabling. The real goal is to learn to play 12 which would make it a lot simpler to make a run at SNE but I don't want to completely sacrifice winrate if I can maintain a decent one 9-tabling. 6-tabling probably isn't possible for an SNE run unless I can run up a roll to 5/10. Reaching Supernova will net me about $5100, and put me in a position to earn more $ next year on my way to SNE, as well as letting me know if I can handle playing poker for an income or if I'm in way over my head.
Now for next year, the plan is to start out the year with $7000+ and at 3/6 playing 9 tables. 6-tables is acceptable but will make for a tougher run and will probably have to add at least 1 table every few months. Now first for the benefits of SNE. Most grinders know them, but just for review you receive about $31k in Milestone Bonuses, your choice of 2 prizes including WSOP ME buy-in, PCA ME buy-in, EPT Monte Carlo buy-in,and 10k cash. Most likely I would choose 10k cash and PCA event but its still up in the air. You also receive around $50k worth of points that can be redeemed for cash bonuses( and other items). And finally you receive a WCOOP ME buy-in which is worth $5200 and can be broken down and used for smaller WCOOP or SCOOP events, which is likely what I'll do(and hopefully sell some action). As you can see almost $110k in value just in bonuses, meaning I'll be making a sick income(relative to my state's cost of living) just by breaking even. This is the real trick, I know I can grind the volume but how sick the volume is depends on my skill level. If I can beat 3/6 9-tabling, my road is challenging but very doable at 28/hrs a week. 6-tabling its about 44 hrs/week. If I'm 9-tabling 2/4 its a staggering 53 hrs/week, which I would still shoot for but might be out of reach. I feel comfortable in being able to beat 2/4 by next year so its nice to at least have that safety net. Now if things don't all fall into place, the next reasonable goal is dropping the SNE goal and going for 300k VPP's, which is like triple Supernova. This is worth about 23k in bonuses which if combined with even a miniscule winrate would give me my goal of 40k+ which would allow me to move to an apartment in Omaha and quit my job. If for some reason I completely fail and still am playing 1/2, I can reach this goal 35/hrs a week 6-tabling, and 22 hrs/week 9-tabling. At 2/4 I would only be required 26 hrs/6 tables, or 15 hrs over 9 tables. if I were to skip on SNE though while still beating 2/4 I'd probably shoot for 500k VPP's or 600k VPP's which would put me at over 50k in bonuses and allow me to play 30 hrs a week for less risk than 3/6.
For right now though those are consolation prizes and while it would still be nice to go pro even missing SNE I'd feel safer with it. Therefore I will reneg all talk of goals under SNE until I have a few months down in this challenge and can more safely say what I can and can't beat. Tomorrow officially begins Day 1/Week 1 of my run to SNE. I will update this blog with daily reports, weekly reports, goal analyzing, strategy posts, and possibly just general life problems generated by my run. Thank you for reading, and good luck at the tables(unless you're sitting with me!)
