2 UBOC final table bubbles the same day...

that's exactly what I just did. What an accomplishment, I'm very proud of myself, lol.
 Today I barely played anything outside the UB events; was looking forward to the PLO $215 1r1a. I consider myself a very competent PLO player, and by the end of the day I had my 5th PLO major final table bubble. FTOPS 109r, SCOOP 500 1r1a, SCOOP 500, and 2 UBOC ones, one of them in the last series. One day I'll ship one... I hope.
 In event #10, a $530 buy in, 250K guaranteed, I was top 3 from 100 left down to 12. Then I got assigned an awful table draw, between 2 very competent and though players, and to make things easier they were both the chip leaders. I went card dead for awhile, and every time I tried something I got 3/bet'd...with only 2 exceptions: twice I opened UTG with AKss, and those were the only times I got flatted being OOP. Both turned into 4 way pots, bricked the flops, and had to lay down.
At the end I lost a big flip with KJcc vs 88, went down to 2 BB's, managed to comeback to 14, and busted when I shoved 6-7hh into the tightest player at the table...who snapped K8cc and held.

Really looking forward to the 2K High Roller event this coming Sunday. I will not play a full schedule that day, so I can focus on that table.

Other than that, it was a very slow day in the SnG department, and my VPP count is at 42.5K. I have a quiz question for those of you that enjoy the math part of the game. It is possible to be 99.4% favorite in a hand after the flop with just 1 pair? Think about it. I asked AJKHoosier and Herschelw, and they both thought 98% would be tops. I leave it there 
Take care everybody, tomorrow more
 Andres

Can I say I'm tired?

I've been playing 12 hours a day in average, mixing up SnG's and MTT's. The schedule has been very similar every day: Wake up around 8am AK time, shower, café, some food, and computer until 10pm.
On Monday I stopped earlier, watched a movie and read a book (or should I say Nook? My wife gave me that thing for Xmas, and I'm trying to use it. Miss the touch of the paper tho, don't know if I'm gonna give it too much work). My VPP count is at 40.5K. I started last Wednesday with 7.5K, so my average is 4.7K VPP's a day. At that pace it would take me 7 months to get the job done, but I think 6K/day will be easy to achieve once my wife is back at work. I love having her around though, it makes the daily grind smoother, but being alone makes for a bigger focus.

Next week is double guarantee week on FullTilt, and that will slow me down as well, but I have zero concerns about whether the million VPP's will be reached or not.

On a side note I would like to say that it is absolutely shocking the way SnG's are played nowadays compared to just one year ago. The pushing and calling ranges have been stretched to the limits, and some reg's are literally pushing any 2 cards in BvB situations. I always thought I was a bit loose to shove, but what I've seen this week is extreme gamble.

The trend is also reaching MTT's, or maybe I've noticed this more the last week. Just to give an example, 2 days ago I was playing one of the PS 109 turbos, and with blinds at 75-150 I shoved 2,600 with JQss from the button. Player in the BB SNAPPED me with K3os...and it wasn't a miss-click. Call me tight, nit, or whatever you want, but that is an atrocious call in my book.

Last weekend I had my first front page article published on Pocketfives.com. I tried my best to make it decent, and will be happy if it doesn't go down as the worst article ever published on the site. Here is the link in case some of you feel like having a boring read:

http://www.pocketfives.com/articles/shifting-new-gears-586146/

I am also working on a few hands for Card Player, as well as a featured article. It's flattering that they reached out on me to send them something, but at the same time I feel like the poker community will make fun of my extremely simple thought process during hands once they get to read what I have to say.

I know that I don't fit the image, but I am an extremely shy person when it comes to poker. I think there are hundreds, thousands, of players with a more organized and well put together thought process, and to explain myself in some situations is embarrassing.

That's also the reason why my very good friend and Pokerpwnage.com owner Jerry "Herschelw" Watterson doesn't have a dozen of videos of mine. He keeps insisting that I should make them, but the idea of publishing those things scares me to death.

Can you imagine Gboro, AJKHoosier or Moorman watching one of my videos? They would die of laughter.

I think that's all for now. Just say hello to Luke Graves, a fine guy from the UK who had to suffer one of my table rants no long ago. I am almost cured of that disease, but it comes back from time to time.

Take care everybody, and good luck at the tables.

Slow day...

My wife had a small surgery procedure this morning, which kept me away from the tables until late at night. There is really not much to tell about the small session I played, other then I am not making any money, sigh...

Wednesday I had a frustrating MTT session, during which I managed to cash in only one event, the PS WQM; everything else was a perfect example of what a bad day is, including an unfortunate incident with David "Sheets" Haber that really upset me at the time. I'm not going to make a big deal about it, but let's just say that he made some tasteless comments about me and the possibility that I could possible be attending a live chat just to peak at his cards in the WQM.

We talked about it and he said he was "possible joking about it", but the tone of his voice and a few more things he said made for an unpleasant conversation. I would appreciate an apology, but I'd be surprised it such thing happens.

The weekend is going to be a huge grind, and I'm very excited about the upcoming UBOC series. I am selling action at 75/25% cut, and it's selling quick. I will play all the events, including the 2K high roller, the 1K championship, every single Hold'em event, and the two PLO ones. I have been doing really good on UB, their structures are great, and fields are softer than they are on FTP and PS. If their software was just a little bit better UB would be my favorite site.

I'm gonna fire a last round of SnG's, hit the bed, take care of my wife in the morning, and play until 10PM ET, which is when I have the group session with my students (let's see if one of them ships the Million and makes me happy ).

Take care everybody

Andres

and I am exhausted. Played since 8AM AK time until 10:15PM. The results were not very good, but the expectations are really high. I had forgotten how bad the play is in SnG's, and I have witnessed things I thought I would never see. The players in the Double or Nothing tourneys are hard to describe without inventing creepy words; they have absolutely no idea, and that includes some regs.


I started the day by winning one of the $82 Hyper Turbo MTT's for about $4K, which gave me a very nice kick, but after that I lost close to 25 buy ins in SnG's, running extremely poor for the most part. At one point I was down $2.3K in them, but the last round was very good and closed the day "only" $750 down.


The MTT grind didn't go well at all, with the exception made of that early win. I didn't cash in anything important, and for the most part I couldn't build a stack anywhere. The only shot I had at the end was in the UB 30r, but I ran AJ into QQ BvB at the final table bubble. I flopped a J, turned an A, but he 4 flushed on the river.


All in all, an interesting day where I tested myself by playing 14 hours with just a small break in the middle. I am positive I will pull this off; there is no way my body gives up, and mentally I am as tough as they make it.

VPP count at beginning of the day was 7,200.

VPP at the end of the session : 13,298.

I expect to make over 10K VPP's the days with no MTT's on FTP. Playing 20-25 tables for hours is something I can handle with no problem, but if I mix up different sites I have to cut down the Sng's.

Tomorrow more, take care everybody

Andres

The quest for SuperNova Elite begins

Hello there.

It's been very long time since I updated this blog, but that will not be a problem from now on. I have decided to give a shot to become SNE on PokerStars, which will require an insane volume of poker this year, and to help me stay motivated I have decided to update this blog after every session.

I will also do my best to maintain Black Card status on FTP, and to do so I will most likely play PLO Rush the days with no tournament play on FullTilt.

My schedule will be something like this:

Monday: 3 1/2-4 hours of coaching session with my permanent group of students (12 right now). S&G's on PS after the session.

Tuesday: S&G grind starting around 1-2pm Eastern time. Switch to MTT's at 7PM, register until 10PM.

Wednesday : Very similar than Tuesday, although it is likely I won't start the session until 3PM.

Thursday : SnG's on PS all day + turbo MTT's.

Friday : Another group session with my guys, SnG grind on PS after and turbo MTT's.

Saturday : MTT's from 1PM to 5PM.

Sunday : Only MTT's + Hyper turbo satellites on PokerStars.

If things go as planned, I should be close to SNE by the end of June. By then I plan to be in Spain with my family and spend the entire summer over there with little to no poker except for Sundays.

There will be no WSOP or any other kind of live events on my schedule this year, which I don't regret at all.

If you want to follow all the incidents, anecdotes, happy and sad moments, ups and downs of this adventure, stay tuned. It will sure be an interesting journey.

Take care everybody.

Andres