So I finally cleared the bonus, which, granted that it was sort of the “consolation prize” for having to grind out so many hands in November and December to achieve SuperNova was a nice albeit anticlimactic event. I finished it at 3am this morning, but there were no fireworks and no celebratory parade taking place; just a brief email from Stars congratulating me on finishing my “deposit” bonus. Ah, well.

It was especially anticlimactic because it was preceeded by a rough string of beats that got me stuck about 100 big bets, but I managed to work myself back up to a loss of only 30BBs before the bonus was cleared.

I still struggle with not playing to get unstuck, but it’s hard. I want to end sessions up, because… Because… I don’t know why. I just don’t like losing money. It’s a weakness I have to come to terms with one way or another, either through solving it entirely or just learning to live with it. It’s one of many things I’m going to work on this year.

Next up, though, is catching up on the NL games that have had to take a backseat in order for me to earn VPPs. It’s going to be fun to change games for awhile and learn new stuff. I’ve glared enviously at the graphs that Tenbob and others have posted on their blogs and cursed the wicked variance of LHE. It brings me back to what I really need to work out, though, which is what I actually want out of this game. Some extra income on the side? An intellectually challenging hobby? Bragging rights?

It’s all three of them, really. So what’s the problem? It’s that only one of them can leave me feeling satisfied. The extra income can always be more; I lost 30BBs last night in no small part thanks to brutal beats - but had I played better, I would have ended up at least near break-even. There were certainly spots where I didn’t make the best of the situation, such as calling down the world’s most passive player with only top pair when he raised the turn. Twice.

And bragging rights? It’s nice to beat $2/$4 steadily - or even crushing it - but in order to keep myself feeling superior to my surroundings, I have to keep moving up. And if my need to feel über is going to be satisfied, I need to either take this game to a place where it’s more than a “hobby” (and thus conflicting with my second objective) or I need to learn how to accept a more, let’s say, “mediocre” progression.

In closing, a graph since my “poker restart” with a very satisfying 1.2BB/100 average. If the year continues this way - and I have every intention of not only sustaining, but improving - I’ll be a happy camper.