Uruguayan grinder Francisco “paulwiter” Garcia (pictured) became the first person from his country to reach the much sought after status of Supernova Elite on PokerStarsearlier this year. But it seems he didn’t spend too much time celebrating the achievement away from the tables. Now, Garcia is close to accumulating two million VPPs total to make Supernova Elite for the second time in 2014.

At the beginning of the month, Garcia took stock of the challenge before him. “December has begun and I only need just… 450,000 VPPs,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “Without a doubt it will be a tough challenge, not only in regards to the poker, since this will force me to spend many hours in front of the computer, grinding all that I can, sleeping little and with a lot of pressure. But I know I can achieve it and make my second Supernova Elite of 2014, my last challenge of this year.”

Garcia has begun documenting his progress, posting daily updates to his followers on social media. As of Thursday, the Uruguayan had knocked out 1,638,136 VPPs, earning 89,000 so far this month.

To rack up the required number of points, Garcia will play multiple tables of his game of choice, hyper-turbo sit-and-gos. But sometimes there aren’t enough players available: “Yesterday, the traffic was bad and I had to play some HU,” he wrote with 23 days to go. “I hope today is a little better.”

Setbacks aside, Garcia actually believes that achieving Supernova Elite is becoming easier by the year. “I have to say that the process is becoming a little faster every year,” he told PokerNews. “By studying and by improving my game, I could climb to levels that allow me to generate more rake per hour and therefore more VPPs.”

The Uruguayan has come a long way since his first days playing poker in 2011, working as a waiter while attending university. “It was at that time that I began to familiarize myself with software like Holdem Manager and Table Ninja,” he said. “Undoubtedly, it was right then that the way I approached poker started to change and it became something different than a fun Friday night with friends.”

With almost two Supernova Elites under his belt this year, it’s hard to believe that Garcia has done little else than poker 24/7. Yet this year, the young grinder traveled to Sao Paulo Brazil for the Brazil Series of Poker Main Event and made an appearance at the Millionaire Grand Final in his country’s capital of Punta del Este.

He has also been cashing in some of his excess VPPs to travel to events like the European Poker Tour and the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. “I usually exchange the ones left for cash, even if the crazy idea to click on the Porsche Cayman is always there,” he said.

Away from the hyper-turbo sit-and-go tables, Garcia has a few large tournament cashes to his name. In 2013, he won Event #19 of the World Championship Of Online Poker for $143,397 and took down the Super Tuesday on PokerStars for $115,660 the same year.

Almost unbelievably, there are several players who have generated even more VPPs than Garcia. On the PokerStars leaderboard, “paulwiter” ranks just 24th on the site’s list of hardcore grinders. Anonymous Russian players fill the top two spots, the first making Supernova Elite a mind-boggling 5.5 times and the second close to achieving his third.

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