The power of Vinivici9586 (Poker only update)

July is finally over and I managed to grind in the last 1000VPPs of 50.000 in order to maintain SNE.
The month was pretty interesting. I managed to lose 3.000$ pretty quickly, coming back to zero, losing 3.000$ again and coming back to zero. That was my first 60k hands aka 60 hours of work this month. Always nice to work for a 0$ hourly rate (b4 rakeback) :P
I definitely wasn't playing too well even though I cannot remember really bad mistakes I made. Was basically a mixture of running like a one legged hooker, getting set-upped here and there, being under EV, playing tired, playing at the wrong time and doing a little bit too much party. However it's always mindblowing what variance can do even if you are proven winner over almost 5million US hands... (and I was breaking even probably another 50-70k hands b4 that as well...) Ok, first part of the month.

2nd part of the month was alot better. I found myself at around 70k hands at the 20th of July, way behind pace for my 50k VPP monthly goal (I still could've skipped one month and still maintain SNE but somehow I wanted to play and make some money because no money no fun...). I checked my results and decided that it is time to kick NL100 out of my selection. It's not like I don't beat it but if you basically played NL200+ all the time and then start playing NL100 (I did that after Black Friday because traffic went down) your VPPs/hand getting a massive hit and I'm convinced that I'm overplaying the one or the other hand every now and then and broking a little bit too lite in some spots. Long story short I thought about the whole situation and my best game is by far NL200. Unfortunately I don't find 24 Fullring tables which I view as decent most of the time so I thought to myself it's time to give shorthanded another try. I mean in the end of the day it is the same game - yes, little bit more aggro, only 6 people but it is still NL200 and most of the regs are still pretty bad because otherwise they would play higher. So far things worked out well and after my first 20k shorthanded hands I'm up around 2k$ with a 2.5PTBB WR which is decent and which should be somehow maintainable even though there's some upswing included atm.
Basically the whole upswing started after mixing in shorthanded... All of a sudden I was winning flips, setupping people left and right AND playing alot better poker compared to the weeks before. From the last sessions I had there were definitely some in which I think I probably played the best poker I had played in a long while if not ever... Conclusion of all that is that I made 11.6k$ after July 19th in 10 working days and 66 hours which comes down to a sweet 175$ an hour (and only one losing day if you can call minus 250 a losing day haha :P). But to be honest there was definitely a good portion of upswing included - nevertheless it's a good sign!

To illustrate the whole thing here my final July garph:

Like 5days ago I changed my Stars avatar to Hayden Panettiere in honor of one of the best small stakes players ever existed (kid is unemployed after Black Friday unfortunately) and of course it made BOOM directly afterwards. Should've done that a long time before but better late then never I assume.

For August my goal is to make 50k VPPs again to keep on pace for the 600k milestone this year. However I get alot of people visiting me this month so I might end up a little bit short this time but we'll see what happens and as being said I can skip one month and I will lose Supernova Elite beginning october anyways so that it doesn't really matter. Goal at the tables is like always making some money and if I keep running like I do atm this should be realistic...

Speaking of real-life there was a really massive pool party at the villa of some other pokerfriends here in Malta with well above 150 people during the peak and an open bar. Was probably the most massive private event I ever attended and I cannot remember another night were time was passing by that fast which is in general a good indicator how nice the party was. Thanks again to the guys organized this one and made it happen - I'm sure it was not the last one this year.

Furthermore my parents visiting me in Malta atm which is a good thing but definitely will decrease my volume because these days I'm more busy grinding restaurants with them instead of grinding pokerhands... Oh, and my dad's birthday today! Happy birthday, dad!

Good luck at the tables and enjoy the summer!

best wishes from Malta

Finally new career peak after long break even stretch...

Somehow I cannot really motivate myself to write much in summer because there are so many other things to do which explains why my last post was more than a month ago... However now I feel like writing at least a little bit what has happend over the last 6 weeks...

In general life is good, it is summer here in Malta, each day above 30°C, sunny, no clouds. I probably haven't done that much party since I started my studies back in the days :P

3 weeks ago we rented a sweet farmhouse with a pool over a weekend on the neighbour island Gozo (which tends to be alot quieter than Malta...). On this weekend I went to La Grotta for the first time which is definitely one of the nicest venues I ever went.

Basically every week here is at least one massive event mostly openair with well known international DJs like Deadmau5, Guetta, Underworld, Basement Jaxx or artists like Snoop Doog and LMFAO. I can only recommend everybody to give Malta a visit during summer because I believe there are few summer hotspots in Europe where you can have this amount of fun and entertaintment for pretty cheap money.

Last week some friends visited me to celebrate the 30th birthday of my boy Markus Schneider so we went out 5 days in a row (which I haven't done in ages but it is still possible with 27 haha). After the week every single one of them was happy that they choose Malta to celebrate instead of somewhere else.

Don't really know what I should write about all those parties so I better let some pictures do the talking...

The only bad thing in case of the partying happend last weekend when me and another german professional poker player were massively attacked by a guy while partying in one of Malta's best openair venues but shit happens day and night and nothing you can do about it. My facebook followers will be informed about that case anyways and since yesterday the maltese police is as well so I will see how it goes. I'm fine in the end which is all what counts and this action definitely taught me the lesson to be a bit more careful no matter where I go...


In case of poker the last 5 weeks basically were a nightmare. I was running pretty bad, not playing enough, to many parties, etc. which resulted in a pretty long break even stretch (yes, I know, it could be worse..) After rakeback I still made ok amount of money so no reason for complaining. However I'm without a loosing day during the last 6 days and prolly playing the best poker I played so far in my life so it definitely goes in the right direction. Furthermore I stopped playing NL100 and started playing NL200 shorthanded instead which goes pretty well so far and which should've been one of my best decisions this year when things work out as planned. I even played some hands at the 1k tables where nobody have seen me during the last 4 months :)
Yesterday I reached a new career peak on PTR and managed to come back after I was down 3000$ two weeks ago. Now I'm up 3700$ not including rakeback which still sucks but month is not over yet so I hope to increase this figure a little further.
Finally presenting the current AI-EV graph for the month where you can see that the boomer just started...:

see you guys around, keep on rockin!