PokerStars has another Supernova Elite in its ranks. We asked stevie444 to introduce himself to the PokerStars communtiy at large. Here's what he had to say, in his own words. Oh, and take special note here: He has won more than 60 World Series seats so far this yar and won't be able to play any of them.
by stevie444
I am 19 year old and live in southeast England. Growing up, I have always been obsessed with one hobby or another. I used to play golf a lot and would play multiple rounds almost every day on school holidays. It was hard playing poker when I started taking it seriously because all the best tournaments are at night time for me, being that I am five hours ahead of ET. It's a lot better now though, and although there are definitely downsides to sleeping at around 8am to 4pm, I love playing poker for a living and wouldnt change it. I feel incredibly privileged to be in a position where I can make the money I do at my age just by playing a game that I love and traveling all over the world.
I started playing full time when I finished school in July of 2007. I played primarily MTTs and within half a year I was ranked 11th on P5s. In December, I took a lot of time off to hang out with family and play my first live tournament, EPT Prague. I really enjoyed the experiance of playing live and meeting up with other poker players. So, when I got back I played a few PCA Step 6 tournaments. I ran pretty good, won a few seats, and had an awesome time in the Bahamas. It was so much fun. I also managed to win a 1k side event.
During this time I was playing a few SNGs and realised I was making quite a few VPPs. I was excited when the Steps came back, as the PokerStars package for PCA was great. I was looking forward to more live events. I also really enjoy the Steps because of the adrenaline rush you get from being deep in a tournament for a lot of money - that is one of the reasons I enjoy MTTs and with Steps its almost like you start at the final table, so you get that rush a lot more.
Another great thing about the Steps is how many VPPs you get. I realised pretty quickly that if I played a decent amount of them I could achieve SNE. A few months later and I have won more 100 tournament packages from Steps and have visited the Bahamas, Warsaw, San Remo and Monte Carlo and have had so much fun - the accommodation included in the packages is fantastic and the whole experiance is definitely one I would recommend.
I would say collecting VPPs was a big motivation for me to play - especially when running bad and a few days ago I crossed the 1 million mark after making 62k VPPs on the first two days of the month thanks to the double points promo for WSOP satellites. Unfortunately I wont be able to use any of my 63 packages until 2010 due to my age, but I look forward to attending a lot of EPTs this year and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that PokerStars will run Steps to most of them. I currently play the Step 5 and 6 events on a daily basis along with the biggest MTTs.
When I came back from Warsaw it was a Sunday on the day of my return so I decided to fire up some MTTs and Steps that night, as Sunday is the best day of the week for poker. I needed to get straight back on to my 'American' sleep schedule. I hadn;t had much sleep the night before though and I was kinda tired from traveling and as the night wore on I got more and more sleepy. Eventually at about 5am I had busted all my MTTs and was ready to collapse into bed as soon as I had finished the one last Step 6 that I was playing. I could barely keep my eyes open and 1 tabling wasn't helping. In Step 6 there is a 5 minute break after 1 hour and I had around 3000 chips when we hit this break which was around 10BBs for when we returned. Anyway I thought it would be a good idea to rest my eyes during this break and the next thing I remember is waking up to the message 'Congratulations, you have finished 6th' and several IM's from confused friends asking me why I was sitting out of a Step 6.
I guess dedication comes at a price.
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