My first few months as a Pokerstars Team Online member have been so busy between live events and the completion of Supernova Elite that I finally get to wind down and reflect on it. I have to say that it's been an honor and I'm very thankful I got offered to join such an inspiring group of people.
November Nine
Early November, the whole French-Canadian poker community headed to Vegas to support Marc-Etienne McCaughlin (Captain Irish) for the November Nine and his quest to become the second Quebecois in four years to become a WSOP Champ.
More than 125 supporters made the trip down to Sin City sporting their Retardo No Foldo`green t-shirts with Marc's face on it. Also in attendance were a few horses, Jesus, a cow, a green man and a Goblin.
It was an exciting and rowdy rail chanting catchy tunes including the now famous "LAARRYY WAALLKEERR" war anthem. We were ready to keep it going til the early hours of the morning but Lady Luck (the real one, not Marc-Etienne's better half Laurence Grondin who is, ironically, nicknamed Lady Luck) decided otherwise and he finished 6th. I'm very proud of how our boy played and handled himself out there. No regrets.
American Thanksgiving Québécois-style
A few weeks later, fellow grinders were coming back to my hometown for WPT Montreal at the end of November. It was a very exciting time of the year for us since we got to showcase our amazing city to friends from all around the world.
Every week in Montreal is fun but that one was filled with what our city has best to offer. Hopping bars, world-class restaurants and a Habs game (Our beloved Hockey Team).
It also coincided with American Thanksgiving. So on that Thursday night, I had planned a small dinner at my place with a few friends (8-10). On that day, finding out some players didn't have dinner plans, it quickly escalated and our lovely cooks then had to deal with a hungry bunch of 30 people, most of which travel the circuit or closely gravitate around our industry.
On the menu: turkey, stuffing, mac and cheese, green beans casserole and all the fixins. The real deal. Add to it a Tofurky since both of our cooks were vegetarians. All in all, the best way to start off the WPT Montreal festivities.
Prague in the way of Supernova Elite
December arrived and with that came EPT Prague and 293K VPPs left to achieve Supernova Elite (SNE). Most people question my decision to head to Europe despite my online workload, but Prague is one of my favorite stop on the circuit. It was a must for me to wrap myself in that Christmas spirit that surrounds the city.
I only played the Main Event but played three long days to finally bust with a little more than a disappointing min-cash (11,100 Euros). I took the rest of the trip to grind online some, tour the city, eat local food, and make a few visits to Darling. It was a fun trip even though I knew what was waiting for me at home.
December 19th, I'm back in Montréal with 210K vpps to do in 13 days. I did some very intensive stretches in the past to finish off the year but never had this much volume to put in at high stakes.
To do so, I had to play every day roughly 6000 hands at 5-10 and up, mixed with 250 Hyper SnG 6 max at $500. It ended up being an average of 14 hrs/day. It was going very well and I had high hopes of booking a nice profit throughout that period but a very bad session at 50-100 on December 30th kind of ruined it for me. When you account for rakeback, I still had a decent month but it was at the expense of being miserable for the last 2 weeks. The grind even got in the way of my annual "Ugly Sweater Christmas Bash," and I was a little sad I had to put the tradition on hold until 2014.
It made me realize that I have no choice but to plan my online grind a lot better this year. Procrastination will get you every time, even if you're playing for a living. And if I haven't learned that wise lesson this time, I'm definitely dumber than I thought I was...
Marc-Andre Ladouceur is a member of Team Online