One of PokerStars’ newest members of Team Pro Online has just become the very first person to reach the level of Supernova Elite for 2010. While that’s a remarkable achievement, it’s sort of become old hat for Lind.
Below, you’ll find Lind’s reasoning for working so fast, how he did it, and what it took to reach Supernova Elite in less than three months.
First
by George “Jorj95” Lind
On March 30 I became the first Supernova Elite on PokerStars this year. I get really motivated to be the first/best at things, even when it’s goofy stuff like this.
There’s no reward for being first (other than watching people say “omg that Jorj95 is sick, he must play 48 tables for 35 hours a day”) but still I feel the need to do it. I started playing seriously on PokerStars in April of 2007, and in May of that year I played pretty much every day and got over 500k VPPs in that month alone, just because I wanted to see how many I could get in a month. The next year I decided I wanted to be the first Supernova Elite of 2008, and I accomplished it on March 18 (becoming the quickest ever to do it), and ended the year with 3 million VPPs (the highest 1-year total ever).
I don’t really know the reason that I get so motivated by accomplishments like this, but whatever the reason is, I’m glad it exists. While playing poker online is normally pretty fun, doing it every day can become a bit of a grind if you don’t find ways to motivate yourself. I tend to set lots of little goals for myself just to get myself to put in more hours, such as trying to play a certain number of SNGs in a day, or trying to get a certain number of VPPs in a week or month.
I like to set goals that I know I can accomplish as long as I put in the effort. I guess it becomes a positive reinforcement for me. That’s why I never set goals that have to do with making a certain amount of money per hour/week/month, or any goals that have to do with ROI. It’s just too easy to run bad over a short period of time and not meet your goal. And besides, as long as you meet your other goals and are putting in a sufficient number of hours and are playing good poker, the money will come on its own in the long run.
So what are my goals for this year? I’m on pace for 4 million VPPs for the year, but I have no idea whether I’ll be able to maintain the pace I’ve set for the first 3 months of the year, or whether I’ll even want to keep playing as much as I have been. On the one hand, I always put in a ton of volume for tournament series like SCOOP and WCOOP, but on the other hand I will probably play very minimally online during the duration of the WSOP. So I’ll tentatively set my goal at 3 million VPPs, with the option to set it higher at a later date if I feel like it.
Some fun stats for this year so far:
Hours played: 648 (about 50 hours per week)
Tournaments played: 70,997 (I play hyperturbo SNGs which last about 8
minutes each so I can play as many as 200 or more in an hour)
Hands Played: 836,402
