2009 Review - Mission Accomplished

After starting to take online poker seriously in February of 2008 and grinding an initial $500 deposit into just under $80k during the remainder of the year, I made the decision to play professionally and chase Supernova Elite status in 2009.

I succeeded in my major 2009 goal of becoming a Supernova Elite, obtaining the status on December 3rd. The effort required was quite close to what I expected, though thanks to a Pokerstars WSOP promotion in July I managed to "invest" $9000 into 90% of a WSOP ME buy in (I sold the remaining 10% action of the $10k buy in) in order to be credited with an instant 100,000 VPPs, 10% of the necessary amount to achieve Supernova Elite. Thus, from the middle of July onward I began to play less volume monthly, though still a very high amount compared to most. Unfortunately, I busted fairly early on in the WSOP ME due to a very standard cooler hand (KK < AA).

While only having to truly grind out 900k VPPs on the year was nice and very likely prevented a great deal of burn out, it also meant less profit as both the winnings and FPP value I would have generated over what would have been an additional ~285k hands did not happen. In addition, the 100k VPPs cost me the $9k WSOP ME buy in. I certainly don't regret the choice to play the WSOP ME (and I'm confident that I was +EV in the event). From a purely results oriented perspective however, when you combine the opportunity cost (lowball estimate: ~$16k) with the direct $9k buy in cost I ended up sacrificing around $25k cash for 190 hours less grind (basically, a little over a month off). Of course you should never be results oriented when analyzing anything to do with poker, so provided I was at the very least neutral EV in the ME it is only fair to compare the opportunity cost alone with the time off benefits. Regardless, I'd do it all the same again in a heartbeat.

Enough rambling, where are the results? I'll start with a pure table winnings graph:


Here's a monthly profit breakdown:
January: $13,029.30
Febuary: $7,812.12
March: $17,465.79
April: $17,501.58
May: $18,943.89
June: $21,942.20
July: $14,371.73
August: $12,910.21
September: $15,697.45
October: $16,343.63
November: $11,696.77
December: $996.02

Finally, the bottom line:
$93,464.65 winnings
+$50,400 FPP value from 900k VPPs @ Supernova (3.5 FPPs/VPP, 1.6c/FPP)
+$203.60 FPP value from 2,545 VPPs @ SNE (5 FPPs/VPP, 1.6c/FPP)
+$23,200 milestone value
+$1,462.44 staking, deposit bonuses, etc.
-$9,000 WSOP ME action
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$159,730.69 USD cash profit + 2 SNE tournament packages (PCA and EPT Monte Carlo) + 2010 WCOOP ME entry + 5x FPP modifier next year as long as I keep SNE status (which will be through the end of September at minimum).

Overall I'm happy with how the year went. I successfully pulled off the major challenge I set for myself. Obtaining SNE did come at the cost of neglecting to spend significant amounts of time working on my game and taking shots at midstakes. That said, I made good money and soon get the reap one of the rewards of my commitment by spending 8 days at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas (in an upgraded Cove suite, too) for the PCA and then returning to grind with a 5x FPP multiplier. It sure would be nice to start off 2010 with a major live donkament score!


... and no, I still haven't decided if I'm going to chase SNE again in 2010 or have a slack 600k VPP year.