Making a living with STT SNGs

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77

Originally posted by tonypmm

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
Will restrict myself with this girl

Wow, I didn't know you're into BDSM

Just kidding. It's sad to hear that you still haven't managed to stop drinking alcohol

The moderator of the psychology forum of the Russian community, Paulique, used to be a heavy drinker but now he's more or less recovered. Still, he has that valuable experience of defeating his own addiction. Now he's studying psychotherapy at a university in Kiev and has been approved by Pokerstrategy to give private consultations for $25 an hour. His main techniques are mindfulness meditation and gestalt therapy. I can't testify for or against his service as I haven't tried it myself yet.

Xexe nice one Tony

I am not trying to quit drinking it all together. I don't go out very often and when I do I don't nowhere near always drink. There are very special dates in my life that I like to celebrate with alcohol also so those dates end up being spew heavy with liquor. Other then that don't feel that I have problem with it. I don't drink at home nor feel the need for alcohol. But thanks for thinking of me and offering insightful and constructive advice - that is always appreciated in my book!

Every addict claims that he is not addict. The first step towards beating the illness is to admit that you are an addict.

What especially concerns me is that Pedja is a fan of rakija, which is a strong drink - it contains 40% of spirit by volume just like vodka which shortened my father's life significantly.

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
I decided to participate in Poker Strategy's Bankroll Challenge.

Wow, I didn't see that coming

Originally posted by GingerKid

Every addict claims that he is not addict. The first step towards beating the illness is to admit that you are an addict.

I love it when we troll each other. I will stop on facebook now that bankroll challenge is on

Originally posted by tonypmm
What especially concerns me is that Pedja is a fan of rakija, which is a strong drink - it contains 40% of spirit by volume just like vodka which shortened my father's life significantly.

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
I decided to participate in Poker Strategy's Bankroll Challenge.

Wow, I didn't see that coming

Thanks Tony!
No worries about rakija. I get drunk like 5 times per year if that, rest of the times I don't drink any booze at all.

Come on, Spurs!

Innercityboy aka. Phuketinho

Yaaay, GO PEDJA!!!!!! ♠_thumbsup:♠_thumbsup:♠_thumbsup:♠_thumbsup:

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
Bankroll Challenge

Dear readers and followers,

Today I have exciting news. I decided to participate in Poker Strategy's Bankroll Challenge. I was thinking hard about my financial goals for this year and their relation with my grinding. Since I exited make up, finished deal with my friend, have money to play on my own now and still have deal going with my friend crusher for coaching, I saw great opportunity to push and motivate myself and set bankroll goal by the end of this year.

Right now, I cashed out my euro account savings and just left $ BR.
Starting now, I have 2910$ as starting bankroll.
My goal during next 39 weeks which is exactly until end of this year is to have 25000$ on my Poker Stars Balance.
I have never had such large bankroll and think that would be very cool to have because at very least it would allow me to mix 60s and 100s in 2018 which would be phenomenal.

During the course of this year as you all have been reading lately, I will take shots at higher limits then 15$ Spins. I will also from April go to 4 tabling in order to reach this amount sooner and more realistically (to increase my hourly to 30-35$). I will aim to grind 150 hours remaining 9 months each of the months. It will be tons of interesting spots, amazing call downs and plays, spews, mental game struggles, bankroll swings, but I am very much looking forward to it.
By the end of it all, I expect to finish this year way stronger then I started it and equipped with both knowledge and BR to play higher stakes then 15s and 30s.

Starting BR: 2910$
Target BR: 25000$
39 weeks remaining until the end of the year.

Lets get it!

P.S. I will take shots which will greatly affect the EV of my BR and hourly + cash outs from winnings that I will use for life expenses. So to get to this amount I need to save about 22k$ in next 9 months which is roughly 2.5k$ per month savings each of the 9 remaining months!

#accountability
If there is one person in the forum who can really profit from being held accountable on MEDIUM & LONGTERM GOALS, this person can only be you. The step is long overdue and I am convinced that it will help not only our readers but so much more you to stay on track.
Well done joining, now keep crushing!

Originally posted by Innercityboy
Come on, Spurs!

Innercityboy aka. Phuketinho

Ah, betting will also happen ofc. Always seeking +EV line <3

Originally posted by Primrose6789
Yaaay, GO PEDJA!!!!!! ♠_thumbsup:♠_thumbsup:♠_thumbsup:♠_thumbsup:

Yaaaaay Thanks PRIM <3

Printing money mode on

Originally posted by SvenBe

#accountability
If there is one person in the forum who can really profit from being held accountable on MEDIUM & LONGTERM GOALS, this person can only be you. The step is long overdue and I am convinced that it will help not only our readers but so much more you to stay on track.
Well done joining, now keep crushing!

We have a saying that goes something like this "When your house is burning, you don't save the roof first". For me past several years have been super difficult when it comes to house burning aka life situation supporting my family vs poker at the time. I can finally dedicate in this year to building BR for my poker career and keep moving up stakes. In previous years that was just not possible when I take into account everything that went down family and financial wise. It was very hard to deal with and I feel great now that super hard period is passed and I can breathe literally better each day.

Challenge will be great for both me and readers. It will push me to grind steady for this 60-100s BR goal and readers will see that its possible with poker to make very strong income in 2017 while also learning things about saving money in the process and improving in poker.

Thanks for your support Sven

Just read this on FB and found it very inspiring. Keep this in mind people always!

Over the past few weeks, I've been getting 8.5 hours of sleep per night on average. Prior to this, I used to get 7.5-8.

What are things that you do to be authentic to the realities of your body, your life, and overall situation while setting authentic goals that inspire you to improve?

Originally posted by SvenBe
#accountability
If there is one person in the forum who can really profit from being held accountable on MEDIUM & LONGTERM GOALS, this person can only be you. The step is long overdue and I am convinced that it will help not only our readers but so much more you to stay on track.

Quite on the contrary, if there's someone at this site who could held themselves perfectly accountable without ever entering this challenge, that's Pedja.

To be perfectly honest, I think there are two main reasons to enter this challenge officially:

1. Get status upgrades (though the Gold status is enough to get access to the vast majority of the SNG videos);
2. To be more visible in the community and qualify to become a Pokerstrategy (SpinLegends in the Spin case) coach.

I think Pedja's goal is the latter, and has been for a few years already.

With regard to sleep - it also matters a lot whether one sleeps at night or in the afternoon, and in general, how comfortable the bedroom environment is for sleeping (how many noises there are and how dark the room is).

Originally posted by tonypmm

To be perfectly honest, I think there are two main reasons to enter this challenge officially:

1. Get status upgrades (though the Gold status is enough to get access to the vast majority of the SNG videos);
2. To be more visible in the community and qualify to become a Pokerstrategy (SpinLegends in the Spin case) coach.

I think Pedja's goal is the latter, and has been for a few years already.

Hi Tony,

I appreciate you defending my follow up and the way you see me. I agree with you with 1st part of your post. I don't need to be part of BR challenge to make this money. The reason why I choose to do so is to mainly motivate other members of community. One day, a news can arise that member from our own Poker Strategy IvicaIliev77 made from 2910$ BR to 25k$ in 9 months or less while taking shots on higher stakes, betting on football games, cashing out for life expenses. So that alone in future can be used as counter argument for all people that say poker is hard, dead and that bots/AI is taking over and that people should quit today. That is my main motivation here. To inspire others. Like you said, and I agree, my internal motivation is enough of driving factor for me to succeed. Knowing however that I am having positive impact on others is great because I always strive to be who I really am and whenever possible to positively affect lives of other people - whether directly or indirectly, it is just who I am and how I see myself through my whole life, I would say I am more giver than taker in life overall (I get satisfied and happy with very "small" things in life, I don't need 25k to be happy

About 2nd part of your post, I have no intention to climb any status or to fish for one. Same thing goes for Spin Legends coach status. My friend crusher with who I work with since mid February already approached me to work together with his current and future students. Just today I told him that this is awesome and while I do want to help other people always I want to prioritize my progress and my road in 2017. I am already helping my best friend every day in our coffee get together's while also having 2 official sessions per week. I do work on my own game (HH reviews, videos that I did with my friend crusher for range vs range and my own DB analysis to frequently check on my win rates for each position and leaks that arise). I also do a lot of sessions with my friend and even when we finish deal, I am expecting us to continue studying together to grow as players further without any splits or deals.
So in all this, there is no place for even a single thought of becoming Spin Legends coach. When I used to play 6 max SNGs, I used to dream of becoming PS coach, to help on weekly basis with HH reviews and videos. Now I am focused more on my progress and if someone will need me at any point, they can always come here to blog or find me on Skype and discuss their needs directly with me. I am not looking to get nor take students into long or short deals at this time. Person would have to be extremely trustworthy and reliable candidate to consider working with him. Outside of that, my goal is to bump up hourly coaching so that I attract only right people who are willing to put in the work and not expect magic wand with all the systematical approaches I would share with them.

So that's on that. Focus on studying, coaching best friend, working with my friend and grinding. Main theme will be grinding, printing, saving, investing money (betting on Serbian Super League or 1st league matches) and rolling up. Everything else is secondary, far 2nd place.

Time for update for today:

Several cool things happened today:
- Grind 4.95 hours
- Got laptop battery charger
- Spent time with family
- Had coffee with best friend also
- Had coaching session with my friend Rocky
- Had call with my friend crusher and troll about poker travel event
- Purchased PIO Solver
- Made decision to split my Euro roll for live betting in Serbian, online betting and life expenses

So lets start with grinding.
I started last night with 2910$. In the morning after short grind I got down to 2805$ so dropped 7 buy ins. Then I played 2 hours and went to 3375$. This is thanks to very strong playing and the fact that I got 25x and won it. So I did cash out for 375$ (profit) and continued with 3000$ BR, finished the day with 2850$. So since we are dealing with BR challenge, in 1 day from 2910$ I cashed out 375$ but also lost 60$ from last nights BR, so total profit for the day is 315$ or 21 buy ins. My evbb/100 was excellent 18.88 (running at 9.23) and my cEV 3 tabling was 114 on 109 games.
Tons of spots, thanks to range vs range study, watching videos, reviewing a lot of post flop things, I feel much more confident about. I am making plays now that I never made in 2016. So my betting and calling strategy has reached a very strong level and I feel very proud of it. Still, lots of work awaits me but this is the right path that I am on, just need to continue what I am doing.

Battery charger with Serbian electricity for my Lenovo laptop - got it. Cost me less than 9 euro. Love Serbia for such prices from unofficial dealers. No more hustle about contact with US adapter plugged into Serbian splitter. Now Laptop can just plug in and not worry about powering off at any point or contact!

Saw my dad and spent time with him, in the evening meet with my brother also. Always nice to spend time with family, to discuss ongoing life things as well as other life things like future plans etc.

Coffee with best friend Phuketinho, later then usual today but still managed to pull it off. Was thrilled that Phuketinho did his 1st cash out since we started our Spins deal. He got nice money and additional motivation boost that despite the fact he played 1$ limit past 5 weeks, and the fact that he is still learning a lot of new things and processing information while making mistakes, he is profitable player - despite all those things. His cEV is high enough to earn him promotion and now he plays 3x higher stake, 3$, where he will be able to make even more money with same strategy. Once he adds 2nd table and process faster things with HU Hud while improving post flop strategy (hand reading, combo counting, bluffing, bluff catching, thin value betting spots etc) he will be able to crush very hard 7s as well. Very much look forward to what he will pull off in April both study/improvement as well as grind/results wise.

Coaching with my friend Rocky crusher went great. 50/50 HH review and live play. I folded flush in live play on river and Rocky made jokes how no wonder how much I am making lately, flush is too wide for me to call river probe ♦ Very cool coaching! Tomorrow we have a special one because we will install and set up PIO on my desktop computer and crushing will officially become even harder <3

My friend crushers and troll, we talked and on 20th of April we will be in Sofia for some live poker (1-3 2-5 euro games) for 3 days or so. I am super thrilled to meet my friend there, hang out and have lots of laughs and good times. I am super excited to meet in person Rocky, who is my friend crusher and coach. Also, if Kurkabin is there (since Gavra is in Thailand) I will look forward seeing him and hanging out with him. So with that in mind, today I sent request for reservation of poker travel event for 20th of April 2017. My friend crusher (in case I don't BR myself for it) will stake me for those live CG 1-3 and 2-5 with very cool deal split. I look forward doing some different CG ranges vs Spins or SNGs and using my range vs range knowledge to materialize on it live. I will take probably 500 euro with me for 3 days to have roughly 100 euro per day there, 140 for accommodation in very nice hotel, pay for trip return 30-40 euro tops and the rest for fun. Very much look forward to this trip as Sofia is also very close to my home town Nis and traveling time will be very nice. Looking into options how to take Phuketinho with me there as well. Since he is not CG player nor equiped with knowledge yet to play BSS, figuring out ways for accommodation for him and things to do there while me and my friend grind 4-5 hours per day. Will update more on this as it gets close to travel time!

PIO Solver is purchased!!! I got download links with license earlier tonight and tomorrow morning 10:30am in the session will install it and go over basic (setting up tree) features with my friend Rocky. From this point on, we will both run Flop textures on our machines, save them, post them online only for 2 of us and study together and independently. I also plan to record videos analyzing textures range vs range and share them with best friend Phuketinho. I will likely take 1 texture per week but do multiple turn and river run outs, write out optimal strategy and practice vs realistic tendencies to get final game plan strategy. Will tackle most difficult textures for me at 1st and then move on to ones I am felling more confident to confirm my knowledge about range vs range there. Also, will focus on doing each texture for both ISO, 3bnai, SRP, LIMP pots and cover multiple effective blinds. All these things will affect a lot how range vs range is played and I look forward finding many things that I was and am doing wrong and to improve my strategy for the better. So PIO, here I come full time, 2017 is ours baby <3

Last night I mentioned that I cashed out my Euro BR from Stars. Today after talking to my friend troll about our betting strategy, I decided to return some money back on Stars (500 euro) and to take out at least 200 euro to have for live betting. Our goal is to start with 200 euro and progressively bet our winnings until we reach 2k euro. Then we will bet 25-50% of our BR on the games. Less then 3 weeks ago, I made about 10 betting predictions from which only 1 or 2 games had less then 2 betting odd (1.7 Zvezda vs Cukaricki) and all 10 predictions went through. If I was betting progressively even with 100 euro starting BR, I would have now well over 30k EURO BR. Pretty sick if you think about it. Also, I have a person that helps me with Serbian league picks and he is also very good with guessing. I talk to him to double check my predictions and then he occasionally gives me insider info. There is about 10 more games left in Serbian football league. So each leg there is some rigged game and some clear value bet game. I follow Serbian football a lot and I spot this instantly. Hence we will bet live in Serbian bookie places because they always offer odds on such games vs Bet Stars that may offer but limits amount for betting or removes the games all together. Look forward to this project, starting with 200 euro each now even though in past 3 weeks I won over 900 euro betting, excited to see how it will develop by the end of this season. We already plan to tackle next season full on with separate betting BR and to hunt for those rigged games and bet big to maximize EV of our BR's. Besides my friend crusher and troll, I give info to Phuketinho my best friend, my friend crusher and coach Rocky and I let know my brother here and there as well as friend in Belgrade. So selected group of people close to me get the info I select and info I get forwarded from insider man. I can't share all the picks here but I will occasionally write which game I bet on that I won or lost and how game went. For example, watch Cukaricki vs Zvezda game (3-4), check out Zvezda's 3rd goal and you will see rigged game all over it. So enough about betting but just want to let you all know that I plan to automate my income with betting in future and make money work for me thanks to me knowledge of Serbian football as well as connecting with person who knows EVEN MORE then I do since his hands are everywhere on the right places for such things.

So, things are looking like this now. Made 315$ since start of BR management. Have on Poker Stars 500 euro waiting to either reload BR at some point or to use for bet stars betting. Have 200 euro ready for live betting in Serbian bookies. Have 300 euro pending withdrawal for my April life expenses (only food and coffee - rest is all payed up in advance).

Tomorrow I will take my laptop to service since my keyboard is acting up hard (letters in 1st line don't work! they come and go as they please). I will have coaching session with Rocky 10:30am and set up Pio, load 1 texture and prepare it for evening to leave it for working. Grind 5 hours minimum. Teach guitar and music lesson 2:30pm. Eat healthy. Stay hydrated. Focus to play my best 3 tabling while having According to Jim tv show on my laptop or similar show ♦

Enjoy your week on and off the tables!

Maybe no coach status, but a video on Spins HU maybe?
Hard to find any decent heads up coachings, or they cost a ton, and i aint no millionaire bro

Im following twitch now too btw

I wish you all the best with reaching your end year goals

Originally posted by Tichwich85
Maybe no coach status, but a video on Spins HU maybe?
Hard to find any decent heads up coachings, or they cost a ton, and i aint no millionaire bro

Im following twitch now too btw

I wish you all the best with reaching your end year goals

Thanks for following on Twitch and for best wishes regarding goals!

There is no easy way to say this, but knowledge and edges cost money. Information is most valuable thing for anything really.
Even if I did video for HU in Spins, it wouldn't be enough. You have to think about each hand in 100% range pre flop 1st and decide how you play it IP and OOP vs different opponents for different blind depths and different pot types (limped, srp, 3bet nai). Just this alone would take a lot of hours to teach and explain or to spoon feed anyone.
So the best thing you can do is study shallow stack poker, understand where the edges are, find your leaks and fix them along the way.

I was fortunate to have great HU hyper coach with who I had coaching deal with profit split thanks to which I improved a ton my HU game and post flop. After that I also spent a year or so doing 6 max CG up to nl100zoom on Stars. These things helped a ton to play the way I play now.

You need to find out where you are at, set goals for improving and grinding and go from there.
If you feel lost about HU, post hands in evaluation boards and ask strategy questions - I assume there are still coaches around who will respond to them and give you advice.

To sum it all up, I invested in my poker education minimum 25k-30k$ and more since mid 2012 when I started learning it. So to win money, you need to invest money. Investing in poker education is single most important thing you should prioritize because it brings your EV and hourly up every single time. Despite the money I paid so far on my poker education I keep investing and will keep investing further. Just yesterday I bought PIO Solver which costs 249$ and I also plan to invest in some external video packs as well as Doug Polks HU course. These things will be at least 2k+ combined in 2017 of investment alone. When I add money that I payed for staking and coaching, this year I will give at least 5k+ on my poker education. But guess what? Its all worth it, because I am improving as a player, fixing my leaks, increasing my current and future EV and hourly. What is 5k investment in 2017 if I get from it 5$ hourly increase??? With 1000 hours grind per year that investment pays itself in 1 single year and then every future year I end up with 5k additional money from it (assuming that opponents don't catch up drastically which doesn't happen as often as people think).

So no brainier , if you want to be all in with poker, invest in your education, whether through finding study partners, stable to join, posting hands on forums, playing and learning from experience and setting goals that are in line with your poker goals.

Update about today:

- Played volume set (5 hours)
- Meet with my great friend Noisy for coffee and to discuss some future EV things
- Taught 1 guitar and music lesson
- Did standard 8 pull ups in the morning
- Set up appointment for tomorrow to fix my laptops keyboard
- Worked with Rocky in the morning setting up PIO
- Did work in the PIO on my own after grinding, checking out options that I need to optimize my daily studying
- Did DB analysis for 15s in 2017 (my sample) and found out that my win rates are rocking everywhere except HU SB (it dropped from over 12 to ev8bb/100!!!)

Despite running not so good today, I am feeling good about how I played. Marked hands again where I am feeling unsure or miss played or interesting for discussion with Rocky or to take through PIO!
DB analysis tonight showed me that my BTN 3 way is solid, SB vs BTN is good, SB vs BB 3 way is excellent, BB vs BTN 3way is much better and improved and rocking now, BB vs SB solid and very strong , BB vs SB in HU is very good despite it sucking in December and in January (studying and hh reviews payed off) but SB in HU dropped by 4bb/100. Not cool!
So while I improved my overall cEV on 15s in 2017 2 and 3 tabling with new HUDs, I lost my fundamental EV which is HU SB. The great news is that i know where those trouble spots are for me in SB and where I am dropping such high EV.
Talked to Rocky tonight, in future sessions we will cover marked hands SB in HU, do PIO work and do live sweet. In future days i will review all my SB HU notes and focus on daily study on textures IP range construction and bet sizing especially on later streets. Once this win rate returns to 12 instead of 8bb/100 (so 50% improvement) my cEV will sky rocket and kick ass. Add to this fact that I will 4 table again starting April despite having 2550$ now in BR + 500 euro ready for reload if needed, I expect some very cool things to happen in days/weeks/months to come from it!

Tomorrow plan is to:
- Teach 2 guitar and music lessons (11:30-12:30 and 8-9pm)
- Take laptop to service for keyboard
- Have coffee with Phuketinho
- Eat healthy
- Meet with friend around 3-4pm for lunch in my favorite restaurant
- Grind 5 hours
- Study in PIO 1 single texture but with adjusted ranges as well as different run outs and blind depths
- Set up filter for SB lost hands in HU and start analyzing largest looses 1st post flop
- In the evening do session with Rocky to compare HU SB game plans and discuss marked hands

Quick update:

PIO is running super smooth. I took 1 hand in limp pot and it took me less then 7 minutes to get optimal strategy based on ranges and bet sizes I was using. Turns and rivers are instant of course. Saw some very interesting things already for just that 1 hand and spot that is always troubling me. On the other side, there is a lot of sub features that are useful. Like changing opponents strategy post flop to get max exploit strategy as well as pre flop setting specific parameters such as opponent never donk bets or how much with what sizing you expect donk bets and probe bets as well as xr. Super useful, just what I needed.

Today took laptop to service, waiting for call to pick it up. 0 minutes grind so far, will grind now before lunch time go for 2 hours and then remaining of the day fit 3 more hours somewhere!

Yesterday btw, dropped from 2850$ or so to 2620$ despite cashing in 25$ RB. Since start of BR challenge, my cEV 3 tabling in 2 days (10 hours of grind) is 68 with post RB hourly 26.43$. Not bad but small sample and yesterday was setup kind of day for a lot of pre flop spots.

Lets see how today goes!

Thanks for sharing your view onto study investments.
To be clear, i have already invested into my study material too but if you come from micro-small stakes...well then...a video pack of 200€ is already a lot. (I only purchase from what i win at the tables, never using private roll)
But getting the advice from a steady profitable player is always very welcome.
So thanks again for sharing and caring!