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It was a comfortable Sunday afternoon in Germany and PokerStars player SanchoHH decided to play a 1000 Frequent Player Point buy-in VIP Club satellite. The top 200 players in the event were slated to receive a World Series Step 4 ticket worth $215.

The 29 year-old from Hanover, Germany is no pro poker player. He works as a software consultant and it's only in his spare time that he gets free to dabble in his hobbies, poker and bridge. When he does get a chance to play cards, he plays $1/$2 NL online and the occasional $27 SNG. He poked around in the World Series Steps events but never had much success.

"I have tried some but can't recall ever making it past Step 3," he said.

The decision to play the VIP Club satellite put SanchoHH in a position he'd never been before. He picked up the Step 4 ticket and recouped 187 Frequent Player Points. So, he moved on to the Step 5 event, something that would cost $700 for a direct buy-in.

You see where this is going, right?

Within 24 hours, SanchoHH had won a Step 6 ticket plus 250 more Frequent Player Points...and then in the Step 6 he won a $12,500 package to the World Series Main Event and another 1,250 Frequent Player Points.

So, let's do the math, eh?

SanchoHH buys into an event for only 1000 Frequent Player Points. Within 24 hours, he's sitting with a $12,500 World Series package and 1,687 Frequent Player Points.

Said one PokerStars official, "We paid him 687 FPPs for the WSOP package."

Nothing like getting paid to go to the World Series.

Some people are born for the road. A guy known as "scossett" on PokerStars is one of those people.

Just one year ago, he gave up a career in real estate and set out on a journey. He packed his car, drove from Ontario to Colorado. He went skiiing for a while then drove to Vegas. Then he drove to Florida. He eventually ended up at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Along the way, he played on PokerStars and racked up Frequent Player Points and VIP Player Points by the hundreds of thousands.

"By the end of of the trip," he said, "I had earned the three million points."

Three million points--good for a PokerStars VIP Club Porsche Cayenne.

It took him nine months of playing $114, $225, $335 9-player turbo SNGs, 12 tables at a time. Now, at 25 years old, he is a PokerStars Supernova elite. Already, he is more than halfway toward earning enough points to buy another car. It's a lifestyle that well-suits his wanderlust (it helps that his parents are 100% behind his decision and in his words are "great and supportive"). This summer, he's moving out to Vegas to live with a bunch of folks he met at the PCA.

As for his car, he says, "It has almost no mileage on it. I try and do lots of travelling, and when I'm at home, it's not like I need a car to go to the office."

In the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona sits a man who holds a unique distinction. George Lind III, also known as jorj95, can claim something no one else can: he is officially the first PokerStars VIP Club Supernova Elite of 2008.

Supernova Elite is the highest rung of the ladder in the VIP Club. Players have to earn one million VIP Player Points to earn the distinction. Last year, only 39 players managed the achievement (Team PokerStars Pro, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier was the first of that year).

In April of last year, a friend told Jorj95 about the Supernova Elite program. " I thought it would be a fairly easy thing for me to accomplish while making some money along the way," he said. "Then I earned over 500,000 VPP in just the month of May and pretty much coasted the rest of the year to make it to Elite."

He makes it sound pretty easy, no? Well, that was last year. Consider this. He has been married for less than a year and he's already made it to the Elite level...twice.

Taking a look back at jorj95's poker history, it's hard to imagine him failing at anything. In 1998, he started playing low limit games recreationally in casinos. In early 2000, he took a shot at 20/40 hold'em.

"Within about six months I was playing as high as 400/800 mix games," he said.

He played big bet seven card stud games and made enough money that, by April 2001, he had quit his computer programming job and started playing cards fulltime. It seemed he had found his calling. Or maybe not.

"In early 2004, I pretty much quit playing poker because I got bored with it and I got into sports betting," he said. "I did this for a few years, but a lot of the opportunities with sports betting have dried up."

What's fairly amazing is that jorj95 didn't start playing cards again until he learned about the Supernova Elite program this time last year. So, he got married, made Supernova Elite, and set his sites on 2008.

As 2008 began, jorg95 didn't log on to play. He relaxed for a few days, went to the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and didn't worry about the Supernova Elite program for nearly two weeks. He didn't play a single hand online until January 13.

Two months and five days later, on March 18, jorj95 became the first Supernova Elite of 2008.

As for what he's going to do now, that's still up in the air. Whatever he decides, there is certainly more poker to be played this year. By virtue of making Supernova Elite, he gets free entry into the World Championship of Online Poker main event, as well as two big buy-in live events...all for less than three months work.

Congratulations to jorj95 for the achievement.

Among many a parent, the idea of introducing their children to horses is among the best and worst ideas they will ever conceive. Introduction to the equine world provides a sense of responsibility, discipline, and enjoyment that is unparelleled in an age of video games and televised pablum. At the same time, horses aren't the cheapest forms of entertainment. It's one thing to buy your kid an expensive gift. It's another thing entirely to have to feed that gift every day.

These are all things that PokerStars player blego151 had to have thought when his teenage daughter came home from summer camp. There, she had been riding a horse all summer.

"She just loved him to death," he said.

Of course, it was easy at first. The horse belonged to somebody else. Blego151 simply couldn't buy it for his daughter. Then things changed.

"When he came up for sale," he said, "she just had to have him."

Money what it is today, blego151 was having a hard time justifying the expense of actually buying a giant animal for his daughter. And then he happened upon an idea: the PokerStars VIP Concierge Service.

A few e-mails later and belego's daughter had her beloved horse. "They go to jumping lessons once a week and are getting ready for the local shows in the summertime," he said.

In just the past several months, PokerStars players have used their Frequent Player Points for a safari, plane tickets, homes, and cars. This marks this first time in history someone has traded a collection of FPP credits for an animal.

Oh, and for what it's worth, the gift horse's honest to goodness registered name?

Midnight Gambler.

The stories of PokerStars players turning their Frequent Player Points into Porsches are becoming more and more frequent. As always, we're curious folk here at the PokerStars Blog and wondered what kind of trouble the new car owners were getting themselves into. The cars are, in a word, fast and can lend themselves to such incovenient things as speeding tickets.

Of all the new Porsche owners in the PokerStars stable, nobody knows about the speed better than DDBeast. And he's found a way to get around the whole speed trap thing.

You'll recall, DDBeast picked up his new Caymen late last year. Where some people might have parked the car in the driveway for all the neighbors to see, DDBeast did something else.

He headed to the track.

A novice racer, DDBeast recently spent a weekend turning his new Porsche into a race car and learning how to drive it in such a way. Under the tutelage of some national Autocross champions, DDBeast quickly realized the less-than-conventional things he could do wiith his car.

"I had plans to sell the Cayman before I got it," DDBeast admitted, "but now there's no way I can let go. I was simply amazed at how well the Cayman held the road. You couldn't lose control if you tried."

After a weekend of training, DDBeast ended up in a five-minute high-speed showdown in his class of novice racers. Out of more than 30 cars, including two Lotus Elises, DDBeast came in first place.

"It was so amazing," he said. "When I tell everyone how I got the car they are blown away."

Four and half years ago, there was a guy who played poker, but usually with the help of a few wild cards in the deck. Attending law school, apparently for the purpose of discovering he really didn't want to be a lawyer, this man decided to take a peek at some poker being played on TV. He called himself River Prayer and went to work. It wasn't his only job at the time. Despite discovering he really didn't like being an attorney, that was his job.

There was a pretty good chance River Prayer could've turned his law degree into a small fortune. With said money, he could've easily bought a Porsche and lived a life of comfort. Thing was, River Prayer soon discovered it wasn't so much fun dealing in the world of law.

"Working for yourself with no clients is a much better gig," he decided.

It soon became clear, he could do as well for himself playing poker. And so he did. He quit his job four years ago and started playing cards. Most of his friends were still real world working stiffs. River Prayer, however, had other things in mind.

"I try and take advantage of the freedom playing poker gives you and travel whenever I have an excuse or reason to do so," he said. "As of three years ago, I'd never been outside of North America. I'm now up to seven times and counting."

River Prayer is not a flashy guy. He doesn't going around looking for attention or validation. Once he started playing poker, he found himself driving a Honda Accord Hybrid--a sensible car for a sensible guy. Still, a man sometimes has a hard time letting go of nostalgic fantasties. To wit: When River Prayer was growing up, he had a poster of a Porsche on his wall.

"When given the opportunity to make that reality, it was hard to pass up," he said.

How did he do it? Well, much like the few people before him who had racked up a few million Frequent Player Points. He told PokerStars he wanted a Porsche and PokerStars gave him one for his Points. You think he impressed his buddies?

"For my long-time friends, it wasn't 'impressed' so much as mutual tripping off the hilarity of the fact that you can play a 'video game' online and earn a Porsche," he said. "Kind of surreal. It's been cool to share
the experience with them."

Now a Supernova Elite, River Prayer recently cashed at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. He also still owns his dinged-up Hybrid. He uses it for long road trips and such. When he tools around the hills of his home city, however, it's in the Porsche.

Surreal, indeed.

When you think about the PokerStars VIP Club and what it takes to make it to the Supernova Elite level, you might conjure up the picture of a glazed-eyed half-human half-robot sitting in a dark bunker. The dedication and determination are more than most folks can fathom. There hardly seems time for anything other than poker, right?

Even if that were the case, the rewards alone might make it worth it. The PokerStars players who make it to to Supernova Elite get five Frequent Player Points for every one VIP Player Point they earn. They get weekly freerolls into events with tens of thousands of dollars. They get a free entry into a $100,000 freeroll every month. Finally, they get free entry into the World Championship of Online Poker Main Event, and entry into their choice of two big events like the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, the World Series Main Event, or the Grand Finals of the EPT or APPT.

Indeed, the rewards alone might be worth locking yourself in a room with a cooler full of energy drinks and a case of Visine. Then think about what you can do with all the FPP credits--millions of them, overflowing your PokerStars account that can be used for just about anything you want. Worth it? I'd say so.

Bigjoe2003 was the second person to achieve Supernova Elite Level at PokerStars (Team PokerStars Pro's ElkY was the first). That was a mere nine months ago. After seeing the guy with his massive poker playing set-up, I couldn't help but be impressed at how normal he looked. He was not robot. He didn't look like he hadn't seen the sun in days. He only looked like he was about to cash in and in a very big way.

So, what then? A car? A trip around the world? What was bigjoe2003 going to do with the fruits of his labor?

How about a house?

After making it to Supernova Elite, bigjoe2003 went to Las Vegas for the World Series, Prague for the EPT, and to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. He spent a lot of time with his business partners on a SNG coaching web site. He also started delving into the traditional business world and started working to start up an oil and gas recovery company. That kind of smart thinking is enough to humble just about anybody.

But, what did he do next? He cashed in his Frequent Player Points...and bought a house. In fairness, it would take a lot of FPP to buy the whole house. So, bigjoe2003 simply used enough to pay for $100,000 worth of the downpayment. Yeah.

A hundred grand.

It's not just any house. The 5400 square feet boast of a heated pool and hot tub, three waterfalls, six bedrooms, a game room with a pool table and dartboard, a bar room, eight plasma screen TVs ranging from 40-50 inches, a small orchard in the back yard consisting of 2 fig trees, 2 apple trees, a pear tree, a persimmon tree, and a plum tree.

"I grew up in a trailer park, so being able to live in a million dollar house was always a dream of mine," bigjoe2003 said. "I greatly appreciate PokerStars' help in allowing me to reach that goal."

Any illusions about pasty-faced robots should now be put aside. Bigjoe2003 seems to be setting the standard for what one can do with Supernova Elite status. Oh, and if you're looking for a place to live, bigjoe2003 bought another house in his hometown to rent out to the people he coaches.

Get in line.