Tzen1 – PokerStars Team: Online

In my last blog I announced I would do a little personal poker challenge to check if I still had it in me to be a real grinder. I was still thinking about how many tables I wanted to play, for how long and which stakes but all of a sudden PokerStars decided to help me out!

I already blocked my agenda from the 25th till the 30th of November and I was ready to play roughly 50.000 hands of 6-max Limit Hold’em. On Monday PokerStars announced a Ring Game Leaderboard which is all about earning the most VPP’s in 24 hours, for 10 days long. The promotion started today (23rd of November) and will end on the 2nd of December so my challenge fits perfectly in that period. I’m not sure how much VPP’s other people can grind out in 24 hours but currently after 14 hours the most VPP’s earned in my category (Low Stakes) has a little over 7k VPPs. Now at $2/$4 LHE 6-max you earn 0.52 VPPs/100 so 7k VPPs in 14 hours is about 1000 hands/hr. Playing for 14 hours in one day shouldn’t be a problem either but it could be that somebody just woke up and is earning 1.000 VPPs/hr so probably tomorrow I really know what amount of VPPs I need to grind out to make it to the top. Now the top is exactly what I’m aiming for, actually I just really like to be #1 for at least 1 day.

If I would be grinding out for SNE I would just use these 10 days to show off and make the final push to SNE but unfortunately I’m not going for SNE and I have to work on Thursday/Friday. To make the most out of the promo it would be best if I would start Saturday as early as possible, not earlier then 05:00 (CEST) since that’s the time the “day” resets on PokerStars (00:00 ET/PokerStars Time). Let’s say I start at 08:00 then I can grind for 21 hours (minus small pauses) till 05:00. I can move up from $2/$4 to $3/$6 and could mix-up Full Ring with 6-Max if that gives more VPPs so there are many ways in which I can increase the amount of VPP’s gained. For sure I will not switch games to No-Limit or PLO and I think it will especially be hard to stay ahead of some of the PLO grinders. Depending on how many VPP’s are gained by the #1 today/tomorrow I’ll finish up my plans. The idea’s range from playing 4 days of 15 hour, 60.000 hands on $2/$4 but in case I think I have a shot to finish 1st on any specific day I might change this to do a 24 hour non-stop poker grind, probably on Sunday. To me basically only top3 would be really an achievement while I treat anything else just as a bonus. So I either just grind it out for 4 days (which was the original idea) or I’ll give a shot at the top3 for a specific day and just grind some more the other days. You can check out the promotion at http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/promotions/10th-anniversary/ring-tlb/ it includes a freeroll for those people who finished top 1.000 in any of the leaderboards on any given day with a prize pool of $500.000 so for me it’s the perfect PokerStars promotion. Being #1 for 4 days is the ultimate goal but I think there are more crazy people like me, so I doubt that’s really achievable. Nowadays playing 24 tables isn’t really doable anymore on Full-Ring, let alone on 6-max. The speed the cards are dealt is just way faster as it used to be but 24 tables is still the max. I’m trying not to play more then 12 tables at any given time but already know that if I need 13 or well 14 or maybe 15 to get the #1 spot I might try and kill myself for a day. I’ll update my progress on Twitter and you can follow me on the link posted above since every hour an update of the leaderboard is given.

 

I could stop here but I just have to much other stuff I want to write about. Actually the first thing isn’t probably news to most people who read my blog but I just can’t say nothing about the Elky vs Raszi fight. When I first heard about it I didn’t really think it was ever going to happen. It takes so much training and before you finally have a date something else probably has come up and for both it’s not something they were already in to. I was of course happy to hear the fight was going to happen as I really like these sort of bets, for both it means that they really have to push themselves and of course like everything in poker it comes with a lot of people who want to bet on it. I didn’t really have a clue who was going to win but after I had read Terrence Chan’s blog I almost wanted to bet against Raszi (thank you Remko for taking money from some other people). I valued (and still do) his opinion since he had actually trained with Elky and just did a MMA fight himself so he knows what it is to fight. Other then both of them saying they were going to win I didn’t had any real information about the fight. Well I think it’s best if you watch the fight yourself:

 

I was also looking into playing some “smaller” live tourneys after mainly railing at the MCOP. The Belgian Poker Series Grand Final (BPS) is still an option but Namen/Namur doesn’t really seem like the ideal place to spent a week. Still the tourney structure is really good and there are some other tourneys in case I bust early. The other option was the Dom Classics in Utrecht which is always held in January but unfortunately the schedule (25th till the 29th) mixes up with my holiday. So I’m still thinking about Namen but if I don’t have a companion to go with I’ll probably skip this one as well. Online poker is pretty buzzing as well currently as there is plenty of promotions because of the 10th Anniversary of PokerStars. I already talked about the Ring Game Leaderboard but there are 10 promotions in total, I would suggest to check out http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/promotions/10th-anniversary/ in case you are not aware of this yet. To not make this one big PokerStars promotion blog I would like to highlight the $10.000 Class Freeroll. I think I’m a member of class 2006 but I’m probably not alone, I’m wondering how many people will show up to play the 2001 one! It’s a fun promotion and it’s just one of those things that makes sure PokerStars stays the #1.

I also just got news that Björn ‘Bjoerni89’ Schneider joined PokerStars Team: Online. Welcome to the team! I remember that about this time last year I already knew I was joining Team Online, unfortunately I didn’t achieve most of my goals I had planned for this year but I’ve already explained in many others blogs why things didn’t go that well this year. I hope I can do better next year but for now you can read more about Björn’s story at http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/.

Then something completely different which I am pretty happy about. A couple of weeks ago I’ve purchased veenman.com. Not something impressive but I think it’s really cool to own your own family name, domain name. There aren’t that many Veenman’s out there but plenty to make sure I wouldn’t get this one for free. When I first started to explore the internet in 1997 it was already claimed by a computer shop which was named “Veenman Computer Parts”. In August I found out that this shop hadn’t renewed the domain name so for the first time in 14 years this domain name would be up for grabs. You can register any free domain name pretty easily and it will only cost you about $8 a year, however when a domain names comes available after being claimed it goes thru an auction in case there are people interested. Up till the 2nd last day before the final expiration of course nobody was interested but in the last 2 days, 5 people signed up to participate in the auction. 4 people only did a minimum bid of $69 and I was left with only 1 other bidder. After putting in $325 as my maximum I was overbid again and waited till the last hour to up my bid to $375. This was probably the only chance ever to buy my own family name, domain name and I’m really happy I’ve made that final offer. From now on I’ll only pay $8/Year so I just see this as a one off. I also bought richardveenman.nl which was still free after finding out that somebody else claimed richardveenman.com. It was registered by Just add chips LLC less then 2 months after I joined Team Online, somebody hoped to make some money with my name 😉

Last but certainly not least something I used to blog a lot about, music! I’m so extremely happy that I got tickets for Justice in Paradiso on the 28th of February. They didn’t perform for almost 3 years and one of the last times they performed I actually had tickets to go. They performed on a Saturday evening in the Heineken Music Hall and I was playing some tournaments that evening. Since I was pretty deep in one of those tournaments I decided not to go and eventually won some bucks but I still regret the fact I skipped that show. Everybody who I talked to had an amazing evening, they rocked the house as if they were from a different planet and I can only hope this show will be as good. Paradiso is probably also the best venue there is for a show like this so I can’t be more happy then this. “We are your friends” is probably the most familiar song by Justice (vs Simian) but the album “A cross the universe” is just so amazing. It’s one flow of pumping music where one great song is followed by the next one. They also have a DVD out and you just have to watch it, it’s really crazy. Check out a piece of that DVD:

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On the 19th of October PokerStars will add a new type of tournament to the already wide variety available called Time Tourneys. The huge advantage of Time Tourneys are pretty straight forward, you know when they end! I think there is a large group of poker players who are always having the same doubts before registering for a tourney. It starts at 21:00 but at what time does it end? 8 hours later in the tournament you find yourself busting just before the final table and there is only 1 hour sleep left before your alarm goes off. Try again tomorrow? or maybe it’s better to get that good night sleep this time? With Time Tourneys you don’t have to make that choice.

These tourneys are not only for the “amateur” poker player. It also brings a whole new aspect in playing tournaments, there is no bubble and you get paid for the amount of chips you gathered after a set amount of time. That means the constant gathering of chips should be your main focus but meanwhile you should also make sure not to lose to much chips near the end of the tourney since there might not be any time left to recover. Lot’s of Tournaments players have switched to cash-games, mainly because it gives you the ability to start and stop whenever you like. Time Tourneys are that perfect blend, you are still playing a tournament but this time when you tell your girlfriend you are almost done, at least you are not lying 😉

I’ve always played on PokerStars and it’s no secret I’m a big fan of their software. PokerStars keeps working on adding new features and I’m really looking forward to try this one out myself. On Saturday the 22nd of October a new tournament will be added to the weekly schedule, called the “Saturday Countdown”. The tournament has a $22 Buy-in with a weekly guarantee of $10.000 and a Double guarantee on the 29th of October! Time Tourneys will have a huge range of buy-ins, starting from $1 and have a set amount of time anywhere between 15 and 180 minutes.

Check the PokerStars Lobby and website for more information!

Today I’ve finally put a lot of effort in my blog again. To proper maintain your blog you need to spent a couple of hours a week and I’ve just had to much fun lately 😉

I’ve changed my frontpage from showing full posts to excerpts, I’m not sure if I like it but it seems to be the standard for most blogs. I’ve also updated the (blog)link section, removing dead links or blogs that didn’t get updated lately. Also I’ve made a selection of featured blogs and moved all others to the “More Blogs” page. I like these changes but I could change the look & feel as much as I want, I do have to provide content as well!

The blog title already gives it away, I’ve had a lot of fun lately. I can’t remember the last “bad” day, besides the day my grandpa died. I’m always pretty happy and positive and feel blessed with my life. In August I visited Stockholm with my girlfriend, it was my first time there and I really liked the city. The sun was out all weekend and everybody was enjoying the good life outside in the parks and shopping area’s. It’s a bit expensive even compared to places like Amsterdam but I always feel I have a lot in common with the Scandinavian lifestyle and people. I didn’t get the pictures my girlfriend made yet, so just to give you an impression of Stockholm I ripped a picture from Google.

A typical thing about Stockholm was the fact that despite the high prices for alcohol (due to taxes), really everybody was drinking either beer or wine. It was probably due to the good weather so everybody just tried to enjoy the good life, but I really expected people drinking less alcohol due to the high prices. Our hotel was almost in the center and everything was in walking distance. We didn’t take a cab, metro or bus once and just enjoyed walking around. The thing you notice immediately when you are walking around in Stockholm is that all men have the same kinda hairstyle. I tried to blend in but failed pretty hard:

At least I tried!

I had some great festivals again this year, not the festivals I normally visit which are Loveland and Mysteryland but this year I went to ROCKIT, Welcome to the Future and Lief. Especially ROCKIT was great, mainly due to the always rocking Ben Sims! For next year I’ll just go wherever he goes since I just love his sets which is packed with a lot of classics. The last weekend of August I had another trip booked to Valkenburg to cycle in the hilly area around there. The weather didn’t look very promising but it was almost dry the whole day. Unfortunately the roads were pretty wet and wet roads mean flat tires. It was a 125km ride which I did together with a buddy of mine. He just got back from a 2 week holiday and we both hardly trained, not the best mix but we did really look forward to it. I only had 1 flat tire but after 4 flat tires of my buddy after 105km we gave up. We did 7 hours on the bike (or changing tires) and we didn’t had any spare tires left so we got some people to pick us up. Still 105km was a pretty heavy ride and I felt pretty good about my overall fitness. We rode some new hills with pretty steep parts and barely made it to the top but for next year we want to push ourselves even a little further. We already signed up for the 150km Amstel Gold Race next year which basically either goes up or down:

The goal is to stay on the bike for the full 150km and since this route includes the Keutenberg this could be a pretty tough mission. The Keutenberg is the hardest/steepest hill in the Netherlands, it got 200 meters of 16%+ gradient and in total 500 meters of 9%+ gradient. The steepest part is 22%, for sure that’s something I won’t be able to handle if I had to ride it today. To finish this ride is a goal on itself but to achieve this goal I have to drop some weight again. Because of all the fun fun, fun I had the last couple of months, I’m now at 103kg. The “I never get above 100kg ever again” quote I told everybody a couple of years ago didn’t hold. I’m still pretty happy with the fact it took 3 years but I’m now above the 100kg mark since May and expect to be below the 100kg mark again in November. Starting the 19th of September I will stop drinking any alcohol for a period of 6 months, which means I can have a beer again after I’ve finished the 150km Amstel Gold Race. There are 2 planned exceptions which are a weekend away in October with my buddies and New Year’s Eve. If somebody throws a big party (Marriage or winning a couple of million) I might make another exception but I doubt this will happen the coming 6 months. I’m happy when I’m back at 95kg or less, I’ve stayed at 92/93kg for a very long time so I hope to get back there. To get there I will also have to work out a lot more then I’m currently doing and have to cut down with eating. The coming 6 months will be less fun, fun, fun for sure but I’ve done it before and I will do it again. The goal is not only the cycle, it’s about feeling good and being healthy. I have a lot more cycling plans for next year as well, so to make these plans happen this is just something I have to do. I’m actually looking forward to the 6 month period, hopefully I get into the zone and it will be over before I know it.

No alcohol should mean a little less partying which means more time to do other things. Working out is one of those things but poker is certainly one of those things as well. Last months I did pretty good at the tables but the amount of hands I’ve played is just pathetic compared to last year’s volume. The is partly because of the fact there are less tables to play on, but mainly because of the amount of hours I’ve put in.

This is my graph since I’m back from Las Vegas (end of June). My winrate is pretty decent, but 35.000 hands is nothing. Last year I had many days in which I played 10.000 hands or even 15/16.000 in just one day. Yesterday I did put in a session of 6.700 hands so it looks like I can get back to grind some decent volume again. Recent changes on PokerStars increased the amount of hands/hr by reducing the time between hands and increasing the speed of all-in situations which is great. Yesterday I was playing 20 tables and it felt like playing 24 in the past. I do however think that I shouldn’t get any higher then 16 tables since I’ve changed my style of play. I’m now playing 3/4% more hands which is a big increase from 15/16%. To play more hands I need to be more creative which takes more focus as well. Playing 16 tables now probably comes pretty close to playing 24 tables last year so I should just stick with that. Since June I’m up against most regulars, there isn’t any regular who really beats me by a lot so I’m really happy with my current play. Even one of my buddies who sat at the same tables yesterday said that I didn’t play as standard as I used to do and he had a lot more trouble to put me on a range of hands. I probably couldn’t have made this step without Black Friday and also playing live at the WSOP really helped and it feels like I made another (big) step in poker, even after playing it already for so many years.

I’ll continue with playing my cashgames but I also played my first WCOOP tournament yesterday. I got loads of premiums dealt but I either got no action or lost with them and I finally busted with AK vs A6. A pretty disappointing start but for me the No-Limit tournaments are more of a gamble. I really look forward to the LHE tournaments and will also play the Main Event! $5.200 for one tournament is a little crazy if No Limit isn’t even your best game but I treat this tournament as a freeroll since I earned the ticket by getting Supernova Elite last year. My schedule will probably look like this:

– #3 Sunday 4th of September 20:00 $215 NL Hold’em
– #15 Thursday 8th of September 20:00 $215 Razz
– #19 Saturday 10th of September 16:00 $109 NL Hold’em
– #20 Saturday 10th of September 20:00 $215 FL Hold’em
– #21 Sunday 11th of September 16:00 $215 NL Hold’em
– #22 Sunday 11th of September 20:00 $530 NL Hold’em
– #26 Tuesday 13th of September 17:00 $320 Mixed Hold’em [6-Max]
– #37 Friday 16th of September 23:00 $109 8-Game
– #56 Friday 23th of September 20:00 $1,050 FL Hold’em [6-Max]
– #60 Sunday 25th of September 16:00 $215 NL Hold’em
– #62 Sunday 25th of September 20:00 $5,200 NL Hold’em Main Event

Still a pretty long lists but these tournaments are just to good to skip. The value is huge and to chance to get a big score is higher then normal. Also the cashgames during series like the SCOOP and WCOOP are better then normal so every poker player should try to get as much EV out of these series as possible.

Wish me luck & good luck to you all!