850k VPPs so on target for a comfortable finish. Next week is the UK RCOOP, so hopefully will just kill it through that and be nearly be done... Its only about 600hrs total play, but having done most of it at the end will be looking forward to a break.

Passed the 800k mark at the weekend so into the home straight now. Am finding it fairly easy to get 5-6k vpps per day in a 3-4 hours so going to basically continue with that and hopefully not have to go into lockdown or sweat it at the last minute... Looking forward to time off and doing some different things with the early part of next year - 10 game, PLO and LHE, writing projects and the big weekend mixed game tournies which seem to be ridiculously soft and ive won 4-5 of this year despite rarely playing them.

Will certainly keep up the min requirements for keeping SNE status but not sure if i want to do it again so will have to see what happens... its kind of fun having an end of year sweat though rather than just counting off the days till spring so i wouldnt mind if they let people keep the status all year rather than it expiring in september - seems kind of unfair to be working to an extra deadline.

Also made a 10 game vids a week or so back, if you want to see more pls email the guys in the office or post in the relevant threads... there has been some crazy action on FTP so i need to get more money there and hopfully than can be a big part of my future play once the sne challenge is over. Ive definitely maxed out the grinding this year and am glad to have done it and proved i can but i think it might be time to go back to being a lazy high stakes pro who plays 10-20 hrs a week, which is where i was before i guess ;)

Currently around 722k, finally made a goal in getting to 700k by the end of October. From here i want 800k by the 20th and 850 by the end of the month, then hopefully just blitz it in early December. Its 5k a day so not that hard, only 2-3 hrs if i go for it. The clocks changed here last weekend and after a couple of fireworks displays/parites in the next few days theres basically nothing else to do apart from grind poker, excercise and stay up late.

Have been playing MTTs in the background to motivate myself towards longer sessions and after an exciting couple of weeks its gone a bit flat again, but there is still FTOPS and RCOOP coming up in the next month to have a go at. Have also been dabbling in some PLO again after being inspired by the Stinger 2000th vid and its going ok so far. Mid stakes is still redic soft (2/4-3/6) but higher stakes is pretty tough with so many NL players looking to branch out. Ill continue to play in good games and when im enjoying it, but i get the feeling PLO is the new arms race like NL has been in the last few years, and a lot of people will be running to stand still if theyre not careful. Also the variance scares me...

A much more exciting prospect is 10 game, which FTP have just launched and which hopefully Stars will adopt befire long. Its basically 8 game with Badugi and NL 2-7, which swings things considerably in my favour as ive played a fair bit of both in the last year unlike most other people, so when im not griding sitngos and MTTs i will likely be there. Its much more even than 8 game, consisting of 4 flop , 3 stud and 3 draw games, and is probably therefore the perfect all round format consisting of almost all of the games played regularly for high stakes. I played a lot of HORSE on FTP a couple of years ago but never really caught the 7/8 game table bug, prefering the individual games, so hopefully this will be a leap forward, since its so hard for people to be competent in all games.

Finally, i am also going to be spending the winter grinding the indoor rowing too after getting a new Concept 2 (Model E) machine last week, which is i think my third machine after buying and selling previous models. I though i was reasonably fit after quite a lot of running but a month off with flu bugs and getting on this has taught me otherwise. My best times in college with 7650m in 30 mins and 10k in 39.40 which are pretty decent and im way off them at this point, although its coming back reasonably fast. If you want a fitness test, try 30 mins on one of these next time you go to the gym and if you can do 7k in 30 mins you arent doing too bad, and if you can do 7500 you are pretty fit.

Currently on 690k, should be through 700 by end of month, leaving 5k/day for Nov and Dec, which shouldnt be too difficult to knock off. Want to get 150k in Nov and then 150k by 25th Dec, so should be quite a bit of grinding to keep me busy which isnt necessarily a bad thing... no doublt i will fall behind and have to push it at the end, but i think 10k a day is achievable for me so should be ok now.

+ $14k, + 10k VPPs.... half in sitngos half in 150 fo. Had chiplead four handed then three outered three times on the trot, oh well. 663k. If i can actually run ok it shouldnt be too hard to catch up.... have been struggling with motivation through the summer and due some run good imo. Now theres nothing else to do apart from get up late and go to bed even later so its poker all the way!

Have been meaning to say that i will have another new book out next year, focusing on high stakes online players, consisting of a long intro on the history and development of online poker and interviews with many familiar names. I want to call it 'Behind the Screen - how the online whizz kids revolutionized poker' but will have to see what the publishers say...

Its been a busy month or two with the poker circus in town and plenty of tournaments and parties. I only managed to squeeze in a couple of live events and a handful of WCOOPs before losing motivation due to bombing out of everything pretty early, thus leaving more time to play cash, sitngos and party. There were some fun poker parties and other events in town between the various sites, highlghts being the EPO party at Movida and the PokerStars party, though Betfair also deserve an honourable mention even though they werent even sponsoring anything this year! It was great to see so many poker players in town and be able to hang out and sample the atmosphere yet sleep in my own bed. Im tempted to travel more in the upcoming months now its winter, and visit a few stops i havent done before like the NAPT Los Angeles in November and maybe return to some of my more favoured haunts like EPT Barcelona and the PCA, but well have to see how much poker i can get in before then.

Tournaments have been going much better since the hoo-ha died down, which is very poor timing, but its still nice to actually feel like you are hitting form even if its only in the 100r or some 30 play mix game touney. I hope i can spin it up into something significant and its certainly nice to play them from the perspective of forcing myself to play longer sessions to get to Supernova Elite. At the moment im favouring one long evening session around playing the 100r, the 55r, the 150 fo and the 100 1r1a, which all can be entered within about 2 hours and have reasonable prizepools for a weekday. Its interesting to see how the standard and gameplay has developed since i last played weekday tournies regularly about 3-4 years, and whilst these are probably ranked as some of the toughest online tournies with the 100r being right up there, there still seems to be a lot of randoms or people ive never heard of, even though many of them are apprently quite proficient at threebetting to 2.25x every other hand. Im feeling very in stroke with the current flow of them, so hoping for good things.

The Supernova Elite chase is now officially on too! Ive had literally the worst run in sitngos of my entire life in the last few months and been close to giving them up a couple of times, but having recently conducted actual analysis of my overall results including steps, satellites, rakeback, rewards, etc results show that despite this im somehow still up a decent amount on the year even if its far less than i had hoped for (though ive probably run hot elsewhere - sorry LHE players for further sapping your already dying game). I think thats a pretty decent brag actually - Its honestly mind boggling some of the things that can happen over and over again and its sort of hard to figure when you consistenly seem to start every session with five bad beats, or losing 10 coinflips, or consistenly losing three/four/five all-ins on the bubble to go out after building a big stack but its all-in the game i guess. Last month i managed a 23 game losing streak (11250-1) then toped it this month with a 30 streak one (nearly 200000-1)! I have to keep asking if the edge has gone, or if there arent enough bad players, or if playing lots of games is affectiing some things adversely, and whilst all of these are possible in some small element, i still conclude that variance is by far the biggest factor. Luckily its only on average 200-300 a game and im not playing high stakes PLO or something! Additionally i am getting something ridiculous like 80% rakeback for the rest of the year assuming I hit SNE. Currently i have over 650k VPPs so with a bit of graft it shouldnt be too hard to churn out 4-5k per day in the next couple months since i can get 1-2k per hour depending on how hard i go for it. Im pretty lazy though so im guessing it will still be a close one.

Keep tuned for updates...

So I have been whiling away the winter months preparing another book, called Secrets of Non-Standard Sitngos, which is now about finished and will appear in the Summer. Its very different to the last one in that whereas it was very much aimed at giving a foundation course in basic sitngo play and concepts like ICM for the beginning player as well as some more advanced concepts all focused on the normal 9-10 handed format, the new book is more diverse and sophisticated. There is a lot of poker theory and conceptual discussion that will help all players advance in general as well as help play in deeper or more complex sitngo formats like heads-up and six max, and discussion of most of the formats available from the standard alternatives to full ring games to the more recent introductions like Steps, Double or Nothing and Matrix. There is also discussion of non-hold'em games and fixed limit formats like PLO, PLO8, HORSE and TD that will help hold'em players branch out with some discussion of basic strategy as well as how to apply it to the sitngo format in each case. Finally there are sections on other aspects of modern sitngo play, like advances in software and discussion of rakeback, rewards and leaderboards. Here's the current contents page:

Secrets of non-standard sitngos

Contents

Introduction

Introducing the author

About this book

Review of fundamental sitngo concepts

Raise sizes

ICM (the Independent chip model)

Short-stacked play

Fundamental poker concepts

Tournament strategy

Protection vs. value

Continuation betting vs. pot control

Showdown value

Hand ranges

Advanced poker concepts

Image, gameflow and making adjustments

Levelling

Thin value betting

Playing the turn card

Playing the river

Non-standard sitngo formats

Heads-up sitngos

Six-max sitngos

Two-table sitngos

Multi-table sitngos

Winner-take-all sitngos

Multi-prize sitngos

Double-or-nothing sitngos

Step sitngos

Hyper-turbo sitngos

Matrix sitngos

Pot limit Omaha sitngos

Pot limit Omaha hi-lo sitngos

Fixed-limit sitngos

Limit hold'em sitngos

Limit Omaha hi-lo sitngos

Razz sitngos

Stud sitngos

Stud hi-lo sitngos

Triple draw sitngos

Mixed-game sitngos

Miscellaneous topics

Advances in software

Poker Training Sites

Rakeback and reward programs

Rakeback

PokerStars VIP club

Should I go for Supernova Elite?

Battle of the Planets Leaderboards

Leaderboard strategy

Hand Q and As

Looks like i forgot to update here for 3 months...oops. I have however had my head down for the winter months and have been very productive in poker terms and also written another book called Secrets of Non-Standard Sitngos for release in the summer (will post the contents page when its finalized). I have continued to grind sitngos and play mixed games on the side with decent success - recently ive mostly been playing higher stakes LHE, TD and Badugi and have done well in each of them. Ive also got to about 170k vpps, which is roughly pace for SNE without thinking about it too much. If i can hang in there and give myself a sweat for the winter months ill be happy since i dont really want to be a rakeback grinder and there is still a lot of money in cash games in you are versatile.

The weather is really turning in London and its now officially spring i think so im trying to get a lot of running in and get out and about as much as possible to do stuff around town. Once the Superbowl and Oscars are down you typically know you are in the home straight here... was very happy to see the Saints take it down, though if Hurt Locker wins everything tommorow it might be the last time i ever watch them! I even almost played a live poker tournament yesterday, but within 15 mins of arrival at the venue i found myself being told a story that was supposed to demonstrate that online poker is rigged, which i took to be a sign that i should instead go out and get drunk instead of wasting five hours grinding 20 hand per hour ;-)

Havent played many tournies online recently either since my luck does not seem to be in and theres little point playing when they seem hopless from the outset. However, Stars have finally introduced $200 TD and Badugi tournament, which whilst small in field and buyin, are fast structured and pretty soft. Think i came 4th or 5th in each last week, but crapped out at the end after getting chips early. SCOOP is also around the corner and i want to make an effort to play more events that in previous series as there are some good mix tournies running in the early slots and my sleep schedule should fit them well this year. Of course the NL ©vents will depend more on structure and length, so will be seeing what happens there.

Its winter in London, so there isnt much to do apart from sleep in the day and party and play poker all night... but fortunately that suits me fine! I have had a good year grinding away at sitngos and mixed games and am in the final stretch for the year now and starting to ease off. Reaching Supernova Elite proved unobtainable as i have been more interested in playing in good cash games where i can rather than simply grinding out rakeback, but i will still end over 600k VPPs which is the second best option bonus wise and gives me something like 45k back on 104k raked (i got 80k VPPs for being from the UK, thanks PokerStars!). If there were more higher stakes games available it would be easy, but even the $200 games seem to struggle to start now and lots of people seem to have gone on massive downswings in them. The battle of the planets leaderboard have been valuable too - last week was double prizes and i ended up with $6700 for winning both high stakes leaderboards and placing in another, plus $20k or so from the actual games.

Mixed games have gone very well too, although ive continued to pick out indivual games rather play 8 game mix, mainly because the games are too slow, break easily and most weaker players have one game that they are comfortable with and believe they are good at. Having said that im hoping to play more 8 game in 2010 so hopefully there will be fast tables and rules to stop people angle shooting between the various games. This year ive mainly played Triple Draw, Badugi, Stud8 and some Limit Holdem so combined with past experience with NLE and some experience of PLO i should be pretty well placed, and it seems like this is the sort of place the games will go in the future at high stakes since many people are so specialised in one form no-one else will play them.

The weather has officially turned, and whilst just a month ago i could cycle through the city in sunlight and a t-shire its now time to lockdown for the winter, get up late and head abroard in search of sun. Ive had some good nights out recently visiting clubs like 5 Cavendish Sq, 24, Movida, Merah (formerly Crystal) and China White and plan to keep it up as much as possible through the next couple of months. I havent done much travelling recently as i did so much in 2004-7 but perhaps its time to start up again, and the PCA looks appealing with so many events and a nice setting. I mainly would like to go to places I havent been before though, so will have to start consulting the tourney databases again and see whats what for 2010. Im even starting to feel like playing tournaments again after a good run at the start of the year that fizzled out, so who knows what the new year holds...