"A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."

Lao Zi said that 2,500 years ago in his classic text, Tao Te Ching. Clever chap, in my opinion. Really knew his stuff. I wonder if he could have done all 100,000 steps to Supernova though?

Grinding really is a grind. Today is what I expect will become typical of chase – nothing exciting, nothing alarming either. Games were played, and profit was achieved at about my average rate. Two sessions, the second had double the games for double the profit. All pretty dull stuff really, but the whole point of the challenge is to grind through all that, and hopefully find the pot of gold.

I've just had a browse through the players currently atop the SS profit leaderboard for $5 DoNs. Five of them play on small networks, and probably pwn the tables there, but the other 15 are all on Pokerstars. Of all the Stars players on there, only three of them are actually ahead of me on how much they profit per game, and two of those three play the non-turbos. The rest are all ahead of me only because of volume played. It just gives me an idea of the sort of numbers I need to be putting in to get ahead of this game.

So far this month I've only managed about 46 hours of play. That's about one week's work, but it's taken me four weeks to do it. Even worse, nearly half of those hours were spent on short sets where I played 15 or fewer games. All that time wasted not only on a small number of tables, but also on the loading up and running down time at the beginning and end of each set.

I really should be able to maintain around 25 games per hour without unduly straining my decision making, so the number of games I have played should only have taken me about 30 hours, which means about a third of that time was in effect wasted time. If I had put in a "full" month, and assuming I won at my current rate, I'd be top of that leaderboard by a decent margin. I'd also be a Gold star VIP already and be earning a decent sideline in FPPs in February. I really have to start getting proper amounts of hours in, with a full stack of tables.

In addition to my current outstanding goal of making the SS leaderboard, which should follow naturally if I put in the volume, I have decided to set the following goals.

1) To play at least one set every day in February.
2) To post updates of at least the numbers at the end of each day.
3) Play the 100 FPP $30k VIP tournaments each Saturday
4) To make Gold Star in time to play the freeroll $100k VIP tournament at 2000 hrs on the last Saturday of the month (Feb 27th).

The last one is the one which will start to stretch me. I will need to play 2,728 DoNs to do this, in 26 days, at an average of 105 games per day. This is far in excess of what I have managed in January, although there have been other distractions which hopefully will not be there next month. This will begin to approach the sort of volumes I need to hit on a regular basis if I want to achieve my long term goals.

If I can put in that volume then I should be able to clear a pretty decent profit just from the games. I would also release $150 from reload bonuses, and earn around another $50 worth of FPP. If I can do it in February then I should be in a habit by then , and I can repeat it in March, by which time I should be able to set aside enough of a bankroll to make a start on the 10s. I'd also be earning double FPP all of March as a Gold Star.

If I make it up to the 10s then a little more effort per day on average will see me make Platinum on a monthly basis, again increasing my FPP earnings because I will be getting 2.5x instead of the 2x at Gold. That should see me picking up over 15,000 FPP a month, plus the increase in profits from playing a higher stakes game.

If I can get up to the 20s by the end of May I should still be able to maintain a comfortable pace to make Supernova by the end of the year even if I don't move up to 50s at all. Supernova will be worth $1k of Stellar Rewards, another $1k for the 100k VPP milestone bonus, and I would still have enough FPP to buy the $1,500 bonus for 150k FPP, plus maybe a little bit more. So at least $3.5k in cashback, plus any more reload bonuses, plus anything I get from the weekly and monthly VIP donkaments, plus profit from games, obviously. Don't quite know for certain how much it will all add up to yet, but a lot better than sitting around doing nothing all day.

Making Supernova would mean next year would be massive for me, because that would give me the 3.5x FPP multiplier from day one. Then I could start to look at purchasing a $4k bonus sometime during 2011, thus getting the full 1.6c value for each of my FPPs. Maybe even shoot for 200k VPP and get the $3,400 milestone bonus. Would still be less than 1,000 games / week at the 20s, which is very doable. Plus it would unlock access to the $1M VIP donkaments which are held quarterly. Average equity is about $200 per player in each of the tournaments, which adds up to $800 free equity for the year. Pretty good stuff imo. Binking one of those would be absolutely awesome.

But all of that is still a long way off; let's not get so carried away with the long term goals that I forget to focus on what needs to be done in the short term, which is to get the volumes going up pretty quickly.

I thought I'd put all these numbers out here now to emphasise how much work there will be in this grind, to motivate myself to build up the momentum because of the rewards which are there for those who put in the work. I realise that this will not be easy, and it needs to be done at a good constant speed. I can't leave this to a rush at the end all the time, it needs to be approached as a year long project. Getting there will mean I've played between 30,000 and 35,000 of these things, and it will mean around 40 hours per week, just like a "normal" job.

I know I have the ability to do this, I just need to make sure I have the dedication, determination, drive, desire and all those other things that are important in this.

Let's finish off with my year to date numbers. I have now nudged over $300 profit for the year so far, which is decent considering how much (or rather how little) I've played. I finished the day up another $33, but once again not enough volume, only 55 games over the course of two sessions in three hours.

Games 765
Wins 429
ITM 56.1%
Profit $312
ROI 7.8%

Running unbelievably bad

Losing pretty much every hand really sucks, but that's basically what happened in the second half of the day. First (mini) session went fine. Won 11/18, didn't get lucky to do so either, in fact I probably was unlucky not to get more wins. $16 profit, but should have been more.

Second session was two hours of torture, particularly at the end. Couldn't win a ****ing thing. Of the last seven games, where I was a favourite to cash in all of them, somehow only managed to win 1/7. Makes a massive difference, $20 down instead of $40 up. Maybe should expect to lose one of them, but even so, should have been $30 up.

Down by $4 overall on the day.

Here's the numbers so far

Games 710
Wins 397
ITM 55.9%
Profit $278
ROI 7.5%

Silver star achieved, and a little profit too

So, I just now ground out the last few VPPs required for Silver Star this month in a nice little session, 39 games in 1¾ hours, for about $46 profit. Pretty bad that it's taken me this long.

Good thing is that my VPPs will now be earning 1½ FPPs, and I can start making something approaching proper rakeback now too. Also it's clearing my various bonuses, which is also more money to look forward to. Definitely got to aim for Gold status next month, 100 games per day average should be a cinch. It should also translate to over $1k real profit if I can get my head on straight, and that doesn't include all those lovely FPPs

Really starting to feel good about grinding this stuff now, just need to make sure I put in enough hours on a regular basis to make it worth while. Out of my last 20 sessions, I've only been down after two of them, one by only the rake in a tiny 10 game block where I cashed 5 times, the other that awful session two days ago where I was $55 down. I take it as a good sign that I'm mostly winning.

Here's how we're looking right now for the year so far

Games 665
Wins 374
ITM 56.2%
Profit $282
ROI 8.2%

As for the Sharkscope leaderboard, it looks like I simply need to be putting in more volume. As my profit goes up, so 20th spot gets a little further away. I recognise a few names on there though, none of them seem all that much, so just keep on going I guess.

Short session update

Was gonna be going for Silver Star this evening, but couldn't find many games which weren't regged to the hilt. Didn't want to play bad games just for the sake of getting the last 50 games tonight, so I settled for a short set of twelve, where I had seven cashes for a min profit.

Only managed a total of 30 games today, which is a little disappointing, but I guess that being up 10 BIs is pretty decent.

Silver star will be tomorrow I guess.

Games 626
Wins 349
ITM 55.8%
Profit $234
ROI 7.2%

Back on track

Well after yesterday's performance I felt a bit down, and today I nearly went on a very tilty "play-something-else-instead-of-stupid-DoNs" kind of thing. I did actually reg for a couple of the scheduled MTTs but of course I got sucked out on horribly in them by some megadonks.

In one it was A♣Q♣ losing to J♠8♦ all in on the turn with the board
A♦ Q♥ 4♣ 9♣, so I had top two plus nut flush draw against a gutshot straight only. Bam, he hits his 3-outer. In the other JJ < QTs aipf, villain called my 3bet shove, which was plenty big enough for him to fold such a poor hand. So sick, especially after yesterday. I then nearly went and multitabled the 45mans at 3.25 and 6.50 too, but managed to avoid giving in to temptation.

Cooled off a bit instead, then reviewed some of yesterday's games. I did play like a bit of an idiot in the first half of the session, so probably deserved to spew off at least some of the 18 BIs that I dropped. Still a bit of runbad in there though, but changed a couple of little things to tighten it all up. Just had a mini session of 18 games, very happy with my play, and managed 14 cashes for a $46.40 profit, so nearly cancelled out yesterday's losses already. Still want to moan about KK<77 aipf though. If that held I would have been 15 out of 18 and completely covered yesterday's losses.

So, here's how it looks

Games 614
Wins 342
ITM 55.7%
Profit $227
ROI 7.1%

I'll get to Silver Star with another 50 games, which should be done later today. Sharkscope leaderboard looks a little further off right now though, because I've gone nowhere over my last two days and 100 games, while the pack has moved further ahead; 20th is currently sitting on $423. Can catch this up though, it will just take a bit of grinding.

No target date yet for moving up to the 10s, that will have to be judged on the finances.

Not a great start, and encountering an old villain from the 1.10s

So, my new found motivation for poker has taken an early pounding. I just put in about four and a half hours, and although I played pretty solid as usual, I ran like pretty much the worst I've ever run for basically the first half of the session. It was a total nightmare. I could barely win an 80/20. And as for a race? Forget it! Add in some of the most retarded calls in ages, plus shoving into the top of everyone's range and the result was that after 38 completed games I had only managed a measly 11 cashes, so I was down just under $90.

One moment was particularly hilarious, in a perverse kind of way. There's been some debate over the last couple of days about an account with the screen name 'rs03rs03'. For about the last six months this account has been grinding away every day in 16hour nonstop sessions at the 1.10 turbo DoNs, racking up 1200+ games per day, while playing 60 tables at the same time. The debate has been about whether the account is actually a bot, because lets face it, 16 hours a day while 60 tabling would surely be enough to drive anyone mad, while at the same giving them a serious case of RSI. Last year it made Supernova status just from the 1 dollar DoNs.The account has a 1% ROI, but over something like a bazillion games it actually adds up to a fairly decent total profit when you add in the Supernova rewards.

The argument was that if it isn't a bot then why hasn't it moved up the buyin levels? Then suddenly I see that it's sitting at one of my tables! In a 5.20. Really odd that we'd only just been confirming, amongst ourselves at least, that it was a bot which was only capable of beating the 1.10s because the players are so retarded down there. Anyway, it was always an ATC shove on their BB because it's probably only gonna call with aces.

So, the moment comes round. At an appropriate time in the middle of the game I shove, yet to my horror and disbelief it calls. Has it finally loosened its calling range as it's now playing at the nosebleed heights of $5? No, of course it hasn't, it just flips over AA. Boom, another tourney gone down the drain! I thought there were only four aces in the deck, but it seemed every shove there was someone waiting with a pair of them waiting to take me down.

The second half of the set ran truer to form and I picked up a much more respectable 24 cashes from the remaining 40 which left me a shade over $55 in the hole for the session. A decent recovery, but still over 10 buyins behind where I started the day.

I still feel pretty positive about the session, I think I mainly made about the same good decisions as usual, and that's what counts. Maybe I was just doomswitched for not grinding up enough FPP earlier this month to buy the $50 bonus from the VIP store at the sale price of 3000FPP.

At least I'm nearly at Silver Star, which was one of my goals, but the other goal of a Sharkscope leaderboard spot has slipped a little further into the distance for now.


2010 so far:

Games 596
Wins 328
ITM 55.0%
Profit $180
ROI 5.8%

Not tilted though, despite this setback. I know that it's just part of the game. I was actually having a play with the ROI simulator to get a feel for how strange the results of variance can look, I guess I'm getting an early taster for real. Tomorrow is another day.

The year so far

This blog is the second step I've taken to motivating myself to get my grind on - the first one was joining a DoN discussion group set up ten days ago with some of the DoN oriented members of the twoplustwo STT forum by fellow DoN player Dirdirdirty. Big thanks to Kevin for inviting me in. Just knowing that there are others grinding away at the tables out there in cyberspace will keep me on the right path when the going gets tough. I had a tough (i.e. losing) start to the month, but in those ten days since joining I've found a little bit of momentum, turning $260 in profit at almost a dollar a game, which at $5 DoNs is heading towards a 20% ROI over that small sample! Obviously the boomswitch won't stay on forever, but I'm happy while it lasts.

So let's just have a quick look at what I've done so far this year.

Games 518
Wins 293
ITM 56.6%
Profit $236
ROI 8.8%

GOALS
- Another 150 games to make Silver Star this month, should be able to do this by end of Tuesday and push on past 1000 before the end of the month.
- Get onto sharkscope leaderboard for $5 DoNs. 20th spot is currently at $374, by the time I catch up I will probably need another $200 profit. Again, before month end should be enough time to do this.


Gogogogogogo

Gotta start somewhere.....

.... so here's my first entry. Hi everyone, I'm Dave and this is my blog. I'm doing this to document my progress as I attempt to do a convincing impression of a poker player. My reasoning is that if I write about it I will be more motivated to put in the hours I need to, because right now I'm struggling to spend even a couple of hours a day actually at the tables.

I play the Double or Nothing games (DoN) on Pokerstars under the name TeamTrousers, and it seems made for me. It's a single table tournament. Ten people sit down and put money in the prize fund. We play poker until five players have lost all their chips - the five guys remaining get double their buy in back as their prize for surviving. Low reward, yes, but also low risk. Not even real poker, some say. After all, I only have to outlast five idiots, right? How hard can it be? Well, we'll see as time goes by, but it's not always as simple as it sounds

I started from the lowest level and want to work my way right up. I played the $1 games for quite a while, getting used to the mechanics of the game, practising assessing my equity very quickly, and generally getting a handle on how to massively multitable these bad boys. Plus it was easy as hell to win at them and slowly build a bankroll. The amounts were small though. My hourly was probably less than minimum wage. But like the low-paid bar jobs and restaurant jobs many students take to get through university, hopefully the effort down there will pay off in the long run.

From the $1 games I built a bankroll to move up to the $5 games, which is where I currently find myself playing.......