The Quest for Supernova Elite

The PokerStars VIP Club is arguably the most well-known online frequent-player program. There are six levels you can reach, the highest of which is Supernova Elite (SNE). You must earn 1 million VIP player points (VPPs) in a calendar year to achieve that rare status, which requires an insane amount of play, by anyone’s standards. However, the payback is quite significant. When you total all of the incentives upon reaching SNE status, as well as the rewards earned along the way, you most likely are looking at between $110,000 and $125,000.

According to PokerStars, in 2007, the year that SNE was introduced, only 39 players managed to achieve it. In 2008, that number increased to 140, and in 2009, it jumped to 209. So now we are almost at the halfway point of 2010, and there undoubtedly are hundreds (if not thousands) of players who are trying to reach that milestone. If you are one of them, or if you are considering going for it in the future, both this column and my next one are addressed to you.

You should look at what you’ve accomplished up to this point, as well as what it’s taken to get there. Consider not just how you feel now, but how you can expect to feel once the year is done. Let me offer some things for you to consider. There are both positives and negatives; in this column, I’ll begin with the negatives, and in my next column, I’ll discuss the positives.

Negatives

1. Obviously, you’re a multitabler [you play multiple tables simultaneously], because achieving SNE status is impossible otherwise. And if you are like almost every other player going for SNE, you figure that the easiest way to achieve it is to increase your number of tables, which means that you will play more than your optimal number of tables. That’s a given. The question is: How far will you extend yourself beyond your optimal number?

First of all, you should know your optimal number of tables. If you haven’t gone to the trouble of figuring that out, you probably are ill-prepared to achieve SNE in the first place. But let’s assume that you’ve run the numbers and discovered that you maximize your profits when you play four tables. By the way, that in itself is admirable, since most players’ results start to deteriorate by the time they’ve added a fourth table. Anyway, in your attempt to achieve SNE, let’s say that you start playing five or six tables. Even though your immediate profits might suffer, the long-term benefits could definitely make it worthwhile, as long as your results don’t drop off too sharply.

However, once you start playing seven, eight, or more tables, you’ll probably be pushing it too far. You can expect your play to deteriorate too much to make SNE worthwhile, especially since you need to maintain that volume of play for an entire year. You’ll be running two risks. The first is that you’ll reach SNE and still show an overall profit once you get there, but it won’t be as much as if you had stuck with your original volume of play, thus meaning that you wasted significant time and effort. The second and much more drastic risk is that you’ll lose consistently as you adjust to playing so many tables. You could burn through your bankroll, and possibly leave yourself unable to reach SNE due to lack of funds.

No one can continue to play double his optimal number of tables and hope to prosper. You might improve your skills as you go, but you probably are kidding yourself if you think that you’ll show results anywhere close to what you had with your optimal number. That’s just being realistic.

2. Instead of increasing your number of tables, maybe you decide to increase your hours of play. I think that’s the more prudent and sensible way to go, but it also means that you won’t have much of a life. Even if you play poker for the money, you also do it partly because you enjoy it. Trust me, it’s not as much fun when you’re forced to put in double your normal hours. It may not be too bad in the first few months, but as the year wears on, it will only get tougher. By the end of the year, you might find yourself needing a long vacation, which leads to No. 3.

3. If you can’t maintain your status the following year, you lose a lot of its value. VPPs translate to Frequent Player Points (FPPs), which have cash value equal to roughly $1 for every 62.5 FPPs. Once you achieve SNE status, you get five FPPs for every VPP, which can translate to 30 percent-45 percent rakeback. That’s huge. However, you need to maintain SNE status by earning 50,000 VPPs each month or you lose it, and you lose the fantastic conversion rate along with it. If you think that you might be burned out by year’s end, this is something to keep in mind.

For what it’s worth, two friends of mine achieved SNE status, and it was one of the toughest things either one of them ever did. Neither one attempted to go for it a second time, and both lost their SNE status in March of the following year. They still received tremendous value for what they earned along the way, but I think they had been considering the 5-1 conversion rate on FPPs as one of the reasons for doing it, and that went out the window.

4. You don’t have to go all the way to 1 million VPPs to obtain significant bonuses. If you are halfway through the year and have chalked up only 300,000 VPPs, it’s completely unrealistic to think that you’ll somehow earn 700,000 more in the remaining six months. If you try, the extra tables, extra hours, and added pressure will almost certainly wreak havoc on your results.

But let’s say that you maintain your current pace and make it to 600,000 VPPs. You will earn about $20,000 in cash bonuses and roughly an additional $29,000 in FPP value. That’s nothing to sneeze at. If you can show a steady profit from playing and essentially get paid almost $50,000 per year to play, you definitely have turned poker into a living.

I didn’t write all of this in order to seem negative. Believe me, I’ll give you all the credit in the world if you decide to go for SNE status. I just wanted to offer a realistic picture of what’s in store for you; and not all of it is negative. There are lots of benefits in going for SNE status, and some of them may not have occurred to you. We’ll take a look at them in my next column.

Matt Lessinger is the author of The Book of Bluffs: How to Bluff and Win at Poker, available everywhere. You can find other articles of his at www.CardPlayer.com.