Month 3 as a Pro

so this post is a little late - my last day of work was jan. 6, so i've been trying to do these on the 6th/7th - but it's on the web, so that's kinda fancy. poker's still been going very well. i've still really been enjoying it; one reason i haven't posted earlier is that i really wanted to play. and i'm still making plenty of money, so that's good. i put together a graph showing how i've done since 2/20, which is when i moved to poker stars from party poker.

i made the graph at some point when i was in the middle of the unfortunate flat part from around sng #1000 to 1800. i hadn't really appreciated how rare it was for the first part of the graph to be so smoothly upward when it was happening. i put together 11 consecutive winning sessions at one point early on. the rest of the graph, unfortunately, i think is much more representative of what i can expect in the future. flat sections, drops, and erratic gains.

the graph also shows the result of my foray into the $225 buy-in sngs (i added them to my mix of $114s and $60s). shortly after the great big spike around the sng #1800, i added 225s. the first day was great, with my best day ever at sngs (the spike around #2000). the next day was my worst ever day at poker. bleh. i eventually decided to stop playing them after a string of pretty unimpressive results. here's a private message to 2+2er bigballzpokr, who, despite what you'd guess from the name, is a very strong player who has had success at the 225s:

yeah, i've given up on the 225s, at least for the time being. the obvious reason is that i wasn't doing well. i've played 271, with an roi of -3.0%. i think that i am a long-term winner in the game, and a lot of the bad results are coming from me losing 80% of my flips and 50% of my 65-35 favorite hands (not to mention running into AK every time i open-push from LP).

but i was finding it kind of stressful, which probably isn't a suprise. in my last session playing 60/114/225, i was down 3.5k with 10 sng's open, and decided to stop opening new ones, hoping to get back to down 2k by the end of the session. i finished on a nice run, getting back to -$200, with final results of -2.2k at the 225s and +2k at the 60/114. it was at that point that i said, "oh screw this, i'm playing 60/114." i might go back at some point, but at the very least i need a break from it.

since then i've had 5 nice, chill, profitable sessions at the 60/114 so i'm just going to stay here for now. i might work on getting up to 12-tabling for my next project.

the other thing going on in my poker world is that i'm trying to get stars to let me donate my frequent player points to charity. fpps are what they sound like - likes frequent flier miles for poker players. you can use them for various things like an ipod, poker chips, etc. if you have 3 million, you can even get a porsche.

when you have generated a ton of fpps, you become a supernova (after having moved up from silver star, gold star, etc), and at that point they say they'll let you buy what you want: "If there is something special you're looking for, anything in the range of approximately $3000 and up, just let us know and we'll personally see what can be done to make it happen!"

i emailed stars and told them i wanted to donate the value of my points to the charity Doctors Without Borders. they told me they didn't convert points to cash and that only management could authorize it. i haven't heard back from management yet (the first guy forwarded my message). it's not real interesting, but i pasted the email thread at the end of this.

here are my results for the month and overall
stats since last update, 3/7 - 4/13
60s: 754 sngs played, 14.4% roi
114s: 975 played, 9.3%
225s: 249 played, -2.8%

total stars stats, 2/19 - 4/13 (see earlier posts for party poker stats before 2/19)

60s: 1210 played, 9.9%

114s: 1504 played, 13.3%

225s: 271 played, -3.0%

this is my email exchange with stars regarding donating my fpp's. like i said, not a fascinating read. you should start with the email at the bottom and work up.
From: tourneyhistories@gmail.com

Sent: 2006/04/11 14:00:02
To: support@pokerstars.com

- Hide quoted text -

Subject: Re: supernova concierge request

>I would like to speak to someone in management who has authority to
>authorize this. There are "large scale events" happening all over the
>world, and while they have not sustained the media's attention like
>Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami, people are suffering badly (e.g.,
Darfur:
>http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/sudan.cfm). These people need
>money to buy food and medical supplies, not ipods.
>
>I don't have any connection to Doctors Without Borders (other than being a
>contributor), if that's what you're concerned about. I would be willing
to
>give another charity instead if that would allay your concerns.
>
>I'm trying to do something socially responsible with my poker playing, and
>I'd appreciate it if you could help me do this.
>
>Dan Schwab
>
>
>
>On 4/10/06, PokerStars Support wrote:
>>
>> Hello Dan,
>>
>> I'm sorry but we do not covert player's FPPs into real money.
>>
>> Please know that we do donate funds to charities, however, this is a
>> management decision and usually happens for natural disasters and
similar
>> types of large scale events.
>>
>> A suggestion for you would be to use your FPPs to obtain items from the
>> FPP/VIP store and then you can donate these items on your behalf to the
>> charity of your choice.
>>
>> If we can be of any further assistance, please let us know.
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Charles
>> PokerStars Support Team
>>
>>
>> —– Original Message —–
>> From: tourneyhistories@gmail.com
>> Sent: 2006/04/10 13:45:14
>> To: support@pokerstars.com
>> Subject: supernova concierge request
>>
>> >hi,
>> >
>> >i just recently became a supernova and i have a request for what i'd
like
>> to
>> >do with my fpps. i'd like to donate cash to a charity, Doctors Without
>> >Borders. i'd really appreciate it if you wanted to do some kind of
>> donation
>> >matching, or maybe just give me a good deal on coverting fpp's to cash.
>> >it'd be good karma :)
>> >
>> >thanks,
>> >
>> >dan schwab
>> >>> >>>
>>
>