Monday 1 March 2010

New Website Blog

Hey guys,

Just want to let you guys know I'm now blogging on my own site.

My new site is www.chipstar1.co.uk

Sunday 21 February 2010

My Decision

Hey guys,

As you may have noticed from my comment my last post I've decided against going for SNE this year, I've only just moved upto $100NL and I feel playing an extra 100k hands per month will be a mistake. I'm going to use the extra time to improve my game and have more of a social life instead.

In general I'm pretty pleased how $100NL has gone so far, I've been studying poker more than playing so haven't put in alot of volume but I've managed a 5.5BB/100 winrate over my first 9k hands and I'm comfortable multi tabling. It's been a slow start and I'm not going to be getting in the 80k hands I set as my goal at the start of the month but I'm happy that I'm winning at these stakes and will be putting in alot more hours in March.

Friday 12 February 2010

Should I go for Supernova Elite ?

So lately I've been trying to decide on whether or not to go for SNE this year.

A little about what SNE is for those who may not know....

PokerStars have a rakeback system which is based on points instead of direct rakeback, the more you play the higher your status becomes and the more points you earn.

There are six VIP levels you can attain, the higher being SNE, they are...

BronzeStar
, SilverStar, GoldStar, PlatinumStar, Supernova and Supernova Elite.

Getting to SNE would be worth in excess of $110k which would be a pretty awesome achievement for me, the downside is of course is that really tough to attain one million VPPS in a year and seeing as I'd be starting the chase 2 months behind it would be even tougher, after all there are only a couple of hundred players out of the millions of players on pokerstars who managed to achieve this last year and at $100NL fullring maybe only a handful, it is after all around 3.5m hands at $100NL.

So thats the decision I've got to make, should I go for SNE?

More info on SNE can be found here

Sunday 31 January 2010

February goals

Due to some problems I've had with my computer I haven't been able to play as much as I'd have liked in January. Another reason for my low volume is because I've been putting in a lot of effort to improve my game, watching videos and reading strategy posts in order to be able to hold my own at $100NL, I'm also going to get some personal coaching in February.

My goals for February are going to be quite modest in terms of volume as I'll be putting more emphasis on improving my game. Starting with 4 tables I'll slowly increase the number of tables until I'm able to 20+ table effectively. Hopefully I'll get there by the end of the month and be ready to put in a lot of volume in March.

February goals

* 80,000 hands at $100NL full ring

* Have a positive winrate

* Improve my game

* Increase number of tables from 4 to 20 by the end of the month

Wednesday 13 January 2010

In the beginning

Hey guys, I figured my first post should be an introduction about myself.

I'm a micro/small-stakes player on PokerStars who is well known mostly for playing over One Million hands at $2NL when I was building my bankroll. I started out with a $20 deposit and built up my bankroll playing micro-stakes SNGs and cash games on a smaller site before switching to PokerStars around three years ago.

I'm currently playing poker full time, slowly moving up in stakes to where I am right now ($25NL 6max/Full-Ring) and play under the screen name chipstar1 on PokerStars .

A few months ago PokerStars announced they were looking for 30 people to represent them as part of their new online team, It's a group of players who are well known in the poker community but who are known mainly for playing online rather than live. I wasn't very confident being picked, in fact I was certain I didn't stand a chance because it seemed like it was only open to the 6000 or so Supernova players and having played micro-stakes all year I wasn't supernova. A few weeks later I was contacted on the 2+2 forums asking me to fill out an application so I went ahead and filled it out. I didn't really expect anything from it, after all there were only 30 places from a possible 6000 and the way I saw it I had a 1 in 200 chance. I didn't hear anything back for a few months and when I read that around 17 had already been emailed their contracts I was pretty certain one of the remaining 13 wasn't going to be me. In early December I was sent the contract, I couldn't believe it, after the few months I'd had (losing both my Granddads and contracting swine flu) I'd finally been given good news. It was tough having to keep it a secret, stars wanted to announce all the team at once and I had to keep it to myself for 3 weeks.

It's been nearly a month now since the announcement and I've been busy playing and doing interviews, if I'm honest I haven't been playing as much as I'd have hoped due to a few major computer problems, it's serious enough that I haven't been able to play very much Full Ring because I'm getting a lot of lag.

This week I'm hoping to move up to $100NL, it's going to be tough but if i can get through the rest of the month at least breaking even it'll be a good start.


That's it for now, I'll update with my progress at $100NLwhen I get in a few hands.

Good luck at the tables (: