Originally posted by yaxkukmian
Hello Ivica!
I've been following your blog for a while now. Until now I read your daily routine and said to myself "this guy has good discipline, learn from him" but unfortunately it stayed on that level. So today I took out a sheet of paper and a pen and began reading your blog from the start of this challenge and writting down relevant things. I got many information and although I won't implement all of the things in the way you do it, I will definitely use them.
First of all - RESPECT! I've started many blogs and as you mentioned it somewhere when you fail to finish one challenge motivation falls and if you don't update after a while there is big probability there won't be any updates. And you've been updating day after day, session after session no matter having win/losing session or some other real life "excuses".
I've been playing cash game for quite some time but after bad run + convincing from a friend who's playing hypers I also switched to this format. After one month I have a feeling I learned a lot but there are many information so I'm a bit overwhelmed and I expect too much from myself. In January I'm thinking about starting a challenge of my own so I have few questions for you:
1) You mentioned healthy food on many occasions but you haven't explicitly wrote what that is. Do you prepare yourself meal in advance or you prepare it before you eat? Do you consume many nuts? Concrete examples are welcome:f_smile:
2) Do you think a rookie in this format should play minimum amount per month (goal is 1000 per month) or should I concentrate mainly on how many hours I play (2h per day * 20 days = 40h/month)? I play 4 tabling in sets so the volume is not that great and I have trouble achieving good volume and I don't know how to set myself a goal.
3) At which limit BR becomes crucial? I mean at micro limits you can have 50BI and skill> variance. At which limit you have to have bigger BR even if you have edge vs opponents (from my perspective as an ex NL25 player).
Since everyone has been complimenting you I must share my dissapointment with you in one aspect. This blog has a nice structure, you can feel enthusiasm, motivation and confidence while reading but since nothing can be perfect so is the case with your blog... Why o why are you supporting the wrong club 
Happy for you coaching deal for 2nd format and I hope you also crush that in 2015.
Keep up the good work!:f_thumbsup:
Hello yaxkukmian!
Thank you for following blog and current challenge. I am happy that you found useful things here and decided to apply some things in your future routines.
I will give my best to answer all your questions now.
Healthy meals/eating
I realized that cooking and preparing meals is out of the question for me. Why? I work out, coach around 2 sessions per day, work on my game 1 hour minimum, there is also about 4-6 hours daily grind minimum and add to that family, hanging with best friend frequently + finding time for some other life things, it becomes super difficult to find time to cook healthy meals. Eating junk food is out of the question also for me. I invested 4+ months (from 30th of June) in CrossFit training, lost 10kgs in the process and don't plan to ever let go of my body. Have realized that a lot of energy and endurance comes from working out, feeling good and getting your body in the shape you want. Add to this healthy eating and you increase your productivity and make your days longer instantly. People who would tell you that this is not the case are lying to you because they either haven't followed through with this lifestyle or simply want to find excuse in eating junk and not taking care of their body.
Start working out ASAP and eating healthy and great things will follow man. Find time in your time management for both as it is vital importance for your health, life in general and productivity which is needed at poker tables.
Solution for healthy food now!
In my area there is home cooked meal type of place. They do catering for companies and events and their food really tastes great + is not expensive (we are talking about prices in Serbia!!!). So I made arrangement with them to get 14 meals per week (lunch + dinner every day of the week) which include soup every day + salad with each meal !!! All I need to do is hand them in the list before the week finishes for following week with exact meals plan for following week and pay in advance. This way say month has 4 weeks (28 days) I get 56 meals total for price of approximately 12k dinars which is 100 euros (less than 2 euro per meal!). This works awesome for me because they are right in my area, they can bring it to my apartment or I can call them and set up at what time to pick up meals for the day! I usually pick up my meals after coffee with best friend around 2-3pm!
I can not stress how important this is so I suggest you look in your area restaurants or places with healthy meals and talk to owner and workers to set up some sort of meal plan for yourself. I guarantee your productivity, focus, health will boost within month time tops.
Give it a shot and let me know how it goes!
New format and grinding targets
We can approach this from 2 angles. Long term it will be of vital importance to table select therefore number of games that you play per hour will decrease (unless you make it up by increasing table count!!!). So long term it makes sense to set number of hours for grind instead of number of games! However, in the early phase, say you are playing micro limits, I assume that opponents will be very easy to beat and exploitable so you can go ahead and just load tables and try to go for number of games vs hours set.
In my opinion you should approach poker as a job, set up hours for studying, grinding and relaxing from your work (regenerating) and this will be long term most +EV.
You will avoid burn out this way long term, accept poker as job and profession not as a hobby, downswings and upswings will go much smoother with steady schedule vs free floating time management etc
Final suggestion in this area, set times to study, grind and regenerate + create super specific time managements for each day!
This is something that you see in my blog in the challenge. Every day I lay out how things went, rate my productivity and things I accomplished + set new goals for following days. This way you will make an obligation towards yourself to complete it more then if you didn't set anything and did whatever next day. So take that from the blog, keep track where your time is going, take away all (if possible) time theaves, spend time with people in the same area who give you energy support get you, and poker as a job becomes dream job vs typical grind and torture.
Poker players are in general very lazy , but I will talk about that some other time. Don't let the good part of poker ($ part) take over your productivity, goals, mission and vision in poker for yourself!!! Fight it daily and keep pushing yourself, sky is the limit with this approach vs getting to some limit/hourly and pulling the brakes. If you choose to do poker as a profession, go all in and give it all you got man!
About BR management
It is super important and crucial. You will go through tons of swings daily/weekly/monthly/yearly. Especially format like hypers where edges are thinner and variance + card distribution plays key factor. I would say never play limit with less than 100 buy ins ready for it! For hypers I would multiply that by 3 minimum so 300 buy ins to feel secure and grind with far less pressure.
BR management as a concept is what separates you from being recreational player, becoming a pro and understanding how variance works in poker. If you avoid to accept and implement it, you will bust sooner or later 
Glad you had the complaint towards the end
I am aware that we as human beings are not perfect so in that sense Partizan Belgrade might not be the perfect thing but it is the thing that is big part of my life implemented in me through my grandfather who told me stories that he used to play for them. I am actually now only member in our family that supports Partizan. My grandfather and mother also supported it. By the time I was 11 or 12 years old I was cheering for Red Star because of my brother, father and whole family (they brainwashed me - typical stuff when you are young! but when my grandfather told me stories about Partizan Belgrade I got hooked so bad and 20 years later I am still supporter of the team.
Everybody who knows me personally knows that I follow news from my club daily, watch every game via TV and when I get the chance travel to Belgrade to watch matches live. I even know crew who organizes trips to Belgrade who are very tough MFs and do all sort of crazy shit! ♦
Finally people keep calling me Ivica thanks to this blog and my poker accomplishments so far ♦
If nothing else, I am very proud that I managed through my hard work and effort to promote Partizan Belgrade and my favorite player Ivica Iliev to the rest of the world via blog and poker tables ! ♦
Hope you found something useful in this response!
I wish you all the best in the new year with your mission, vision, goals and challenges. (everything but tittles in sports !!!
See you around,
IvicaIliev77 aka Pedja
