February Review - Back to Back

Due to the Canada/USA gold medal game tomorrow in addition to dinner with family, I plan to play no more hands in February. I'm happy with the way the month went as a whole. I definitely slipped a little in terms of focus, and also slacked off more than I should have. Despite being really content with my decision not to pursue SNE this year, I still like I feel like I should have put in another 10-20 hours or so of grinding this month. Perhaps an awesome alarm clock to help me finally conquer my greatest nemesis (too much sleep) will help me put in better March volume.

After a reasonably strong start the month (though not nearly as crazy good as my first few days in January), I knew having back to back $20k profit months was a possibility and it became a goal. Unfortunately, I started to run very poorly for a good chunk of the latter half of the month. However, thanks to a strong finish to my session on Saturday the 27th, I'm happy to say I reached my goal. I think it's kind of silly (and probably -EV!) how much it mattered to me whether my final profit number was 19,xxx or 20,xxx.

I should also mention that Pokerstars held a promotion leading up to the dealing of their 40 billionth hand. Every millionth hand from around 39 and a half billion through forty billion had bonus money awarded. They've run such a promo at least once before, though last time I failed to be dealt into a single milestone hand. This time, however, I was dealt into two! You can find the hand histories in previous blog entries from this month. The bonus money was a very nice unexpected surprise.



The Bottom Line:
$13855.80 table winnings
+$4839.44 FPP value (60,493 VPPs * 5 FPP/VPP * 1.6c/FPP)
+$200 stellar bonuses (80k and 90k VPP bonuses)
+$200 100k VPP milestone bonus ($1000 bonus - $800 FPP value to purchase)
+$696.80 bonus award from milestone hand #39,867,000,000
+$333.60 bonus award from milestone hand #39,613,000,000
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$20,125.64 USD profit.

Hopefully I can improve my focus level and commitment to the grind significantly in March. I should hit the first decently sized milestone bonus of the year at 200k VPPs next month, which will be a nice $2.6k extra cash (you may notice that the milestone money from 200 to 800k VPPs is rather front loaded this year compared to last). Now all I need is for Team Canada to get it done tomorrow. Iggy Iggy Iggy!