Making a living with STT SNGs

Important update regarding Poker Stars

Some more rake increase happening at Poker Stars + no more BOP! Check it HERE

With introduction of Spin and Goes, games are getting even more reg infested; VIP system will be changing next year, decreasing apparently; Amaya took out Poker Stars in 30+ countries and they will do it in more countries;They introduced 2.5% exchange fee on transfers/cash outs; Now you get this rake increase announced and no more BOP...
Regulars are taking out their rolls from Stars and seeking other options.

What is bad news in this?

Amaya/Poker Stars seems to care now more about making money then keeping players happy on their site.
With these changes they will drive away lot of regs from the site or simply force them to switch to more gambling and high variance formats.
Formats that regulars play will be even more reg infested now and fish and recreational players will drown in Spin and Goes. Amaya/Poker Stars will make more money thanks to rake increase but long term they will drive away traffic to other sites/networks. When they loose regs and people who actually leave site tons of money in RB , they will have very hard time getting them back to the site in the future (disappointing customer is unhappy customer and takes lot more to turn then undecided one!)
Amaya/Poker Stars are emptying all the lobbies and making the site seem like some Casino and gambling platform where players are expect to grind ridiculous high variance games and wait for some bink with jackpots to go up in profits.
Regs who don't study, work on their game will be even more affected with these changes as their pre RB ROI will be affected by rake increase therefore having even more swings and variance.

What is good news in this?

Well 6 max turbo and regular SNG games are yet unaffected with rake change. That means that I can keep grinding and hope for the best. This does not mean that rake change won't happen for my format in near future also (would be surprised if I don't see change there also to be honest!)
In future fish and recreational players might want to spend some of their money on other formats instead of just Spin and Goes therefore filling in the games and balancing them out with fish to reg ratio.
This also opens a huge door for all the regs willing to play very high variance games like Spin and Goes and MTTs as in the near future there will be more fish and recreational players there then ever , therefore increasing their ROI long term on huge samples.
This is also good news for regs who are willing to work hard on their game daily, seek new edges, improve constantly and try to maximize the fact that all fish and recreational players will be eventually majority of Poker Stars (if changes like this keep happening in the future for the worst for regs).
This also opens huge door for other networks to act in and get some of their customers back.
Regs now can also consider mixing various formats and sites to maximize their hourly which will require them to work on the new formats and game types.

What I plan to do about this change?

By the end of this year I will keep playing 6 max SNGs both turbo and reg speeds 15s and 30s. I will be following closely traffic during whole day and impact that these changes will have. I will especially pay attention to 30s as I plan to play them exclusively next year.
I will also study couple of new formats to expand my abilities and make table count easier as well as hourly improved.
I will look into traffic changes on other networks and sites.

Worst case, if traffic dies on low and mid stakes from January and there isn't enough of it on other networks, I will consider switching format where there is traffic and place to make profit pre RB with equal or higher hourly!

I hope you found this update useful and worth reading. I encourage you all who are playing on Poker Stars to seriously consider this new update, what has happened in near past with Amaya and what can/may happen in the near future.

I hope Barry Carter will write some detailed article dealing with all the changes addressing concern where PokerStars is heading with all the changes.

I invite you all guys to post here on my blog your opinion and what you plan to do with new changes now or in the near future.

PLO zoom SNE, who cares about pre rakeback??

I'm kidding obviously, they are doind terrible things, and I'm considering moving back to Euro sites again. Just making some calculations.

Originally posted by FFRRAANNKKIIEE
PLO zoom SNE, who cares about pre rakeback??

I'm kidding obviously, they are doind terrible things, and I'm considering moving back to Euro sites again. Just making some calculations.

Euro sites year and a half ago had traffic now they are absolutely dead. For low mid stake SNG player/grinder they are terrible.
Let me know if you find out more about traffic in upcoming days. I will also be checking it frequently.

Nah, I'll probably stay with stars for now too. I hate speed poker and blaze is dead. reg tables, meh. ♦

Yeah, well, if they kill the SNG games at stars.. you will have just two options: switch to cash or quit poker probably.

I'm still playing NLH zoom, but I started the process of learning PLO too. Just in case, SNE is pretty achievable there- being a RB pro is always an option.

Originally posted by FFRRAANNKKIIEE
Yeah, well, if they kill the SNG games at stars.. you will have just two options: switch to cash or quit poker probably.

As far as I understood , they increased the rake in cash games also and players are not happy about it also?
2 options that could work are MTTs and Spins. MTTs are sick, playing something for 8 hours and then loosing with AK to AQ to min cash or make couple of buy ins??? I would need to visit doctor and psychiatrist 3 times a week minimum to manage those kind of bad beats and variance. Spins are even more ridiculous. You keep wining but if you don't win enough % on higher multipliers you will end up in minus.
It is not looking good that is for sure...

Originally posted by FFRRAANNKKIIEE
I'm still playing NLH zoom, but I started the process of learning PLO too. Just in case, SNE is pretty achievable there- being a RB pro is always an option.

They already announced a while back that they plan on killing SNE and decreasing RB. So SNE rb pro is not really looking as good as it used to.

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
As far as I understood , they increased the rake in cash games also and players are not happy about it also?

Apart from the change of the 5-6-player rake cap at $25/50 from $3 to $5 - a change that hardly affects us - the only other significant cash game rake change is the increase of the 2-player rake cap from $0.50 to $1 at stakes below $25/50 (and to $2 at $25/50). This is very bad for $0.25/0.50 HU and rather bad for $0.50/1 HU.

Coincidentally, I've been thinking (since mid-October) about switching to live poker, but not because of the advent of Spin & Gos (which might be a band-aid that will make online poker last longer) or the rake changes, but because there are naturally fewer and fewer recreational players and I don't want to go mad of asociality. The rake changes are just a reflection of the slow death of online poker.

The changes themselves aren't that big so far (except HU cash, which has become too predatory, I don't grieve it anyway), but the regs' reaction is stormy because the toughness of games has made the situation really explosive.

Basically they went after the hyper games in all formats (HUSNG, 6max hyper satellites, various KO formats) since those are quite appealing as a format to fishes, recreational players whatever you wanna call them, and are currently quite reg infested and there are a lot of regs who use them as a primary grind format. They want the gap and edges to decrease so fishes are still inclined to play them.

In general most of the changes that PS makes will not be in the interest of the regulars now and in the future. They want their net depositors (fishes, recreationals etc) to feel at home with many new changes. They do it through:

- Introducing new formats that have inherent low edges that give a higher chance to weaker players to win some $ (lottery type Spin and Go's, more hyper type games which last shorter and blinds skyrocket and therefore quickly diminish the edge of the regs).

- Making changes to existing formats to favor more entertainment/recreational style of play (increasing the bounties for KO tournaments, making prize pools more top heavy etc etc.).

- Making regs move away from singular format grinding by killing the VIP rewards for high volume play (this is especially true in low RoI-high volume dependent formats where changes to the VIP system will basically make it impossible to be a "rakeback pro" or it will be very hard with a huge variance).

The regs will be hit the hardest, but i don't think it will affect the fishes and recreational players in any way. The real questions is whether this will actually increase the player pool in the future and make poker economy healthier with more new players which will make all the games and formats softer again and in a way offset the changes that are made to them. I am quite skeptical about this, since I don't think another boom and huge influx of players to international player pools coming soon (except maybe US rejoining in the near future, if legislation finally catches up).

SNG format will probably suffer quite a lot, we might see many regs switching to cash games barring this changes.

Anyway there is not a lot that regs can do. Other networks currently don't have big enough players pools to compete or offer something which will be competitive with PS offer. Also most of them have even more harsh rakes and formats for the regs then new PS ones. Basically the only option is to work on your game even harder, improve even more in order to increase your edge and that way minimize the effect of higher rake, steep structure or whatever they throw your way.

BTW since the announcement of the new rake structures and changes to formats, Amaya has probably informed all of their shareholders about potential increase in the revenues and profit margins of PS subsidiary and we can already see this in the stock market.

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/AYA:CN

So 2.38% in a day, not to shabby. ♦

72 Days Study Challenge

Day 10

- Studied 1 hour and completed another scenario (3 more left!)
- Figured out some awesome things today that answered doubts I had prior to starting with this edge
- In future 3-4 hours will be done with this edge and move to new area!

Also coached 1 session today but spent time talking to one of my students and recording video with assignments for another student. Lets count that as another session as it took me more then 1 hour to do those 2 things.
Finished preparing/scripting new video and will hopefully record that one tomorrow. Students responses to the 1st video were very positive and I am very happy that they can work with that system in the future!
Grinded also 100 games and look forward continuing with steady grind tomorrow as well.

- 12/72 study hours completed
- 150/6000 games completed
- 13/100 coaching sessions completed
- 1 out of 30 CrossFit trainings completed
- 1 out of 10 videos for automated coaching/staking system completed

72 Days Study Challenge

Day 11

- Studied for 1 hour today
- Finished everything for this advanced edge
- In following days I will spend hours to actually study and memorize all the things I did in past 10+ hours
- After I am done with it, I will move to new edge!

Coached 1 session + sent another student video with assignments.
Students are liking automated coaching, the video I did was very useful. I also started recording their assignments individually now so that they can refer to it faster! So lets count all that as 2 coaching sessions today as it took me 2 hours to do it all.

Recorded 1 more automated coaching video! This one I feel they will enjoy a lot and it will definitely help future members that will join us.

Grinded 100 games! 1st session was bad, my bluff catches were running into top of the range and spots where regs kept triple barreling and hitting 3 outers on river or backdoors. 2nd session I had excellent card distribution and ended in profit of 15 buy ins total for the day. 30s are still butchering me. I can't wait for end of the year to play 2k more of them for variance to start to even out.

Tomorrow will be very busy day so I will list things planed time management wise

- CrossFit work out as soon as I wake up
- Family obligations
- Coaching sessions with best friend and my brother
- Work on the game 1 hour, studying/memorizing charts completed
- Grind 100 games, 2 sessions
- Watch Partizan Belgrade vs Vojvodina 7-9pm (meet with Curly)
- Do another coaching session but with Mark (3rd for the day total)
- Prepare next topic for automated coaching video and script it

So here is what's happening so far

- 13/72 study hours completed
- 250/6000 games completed
- 15/100 coaching sessions completed
- 1 out of 30 CrossFit trainings completed
- 2 out of 10 videos for automated coaching/staking system completed

Enjoy remaining of your week on and off the tables!

Half of the day passed by and a lot of things accomplished already

- CrossFit work out (finished it by 9:30am, awesome feeling)
- Family time
- Coached my brother and best friend (2 and a half hours of coaching)
- Worked on my game 1 hour (started writing shortcuts and cliff notes from 10+ hours of studying + memorized tons of things already)

Remaining of the day plan is to grind 100 games, coach 1 more session and remaining of the time dedicate to either another automated coaching video recording or to study for 1 more hour.

Partizan Belgrade vs Vojvodina is tomorrow 7 to 9pm so my day got whole lot easier. Regardless of it, I intend to use those 2 hours creatively, most likely into another automated video.

Enjoy your weekend on and off the tables!

72 Days Study Challenge

Day 12

- Studied 1 hour today
- Everything that I finished for 1st advanced edge was taking short cuts and memorizing things from it
- It may take me 2-3 more hours to memorize all of the things and then I will move onto new area

Coached 3 sessions today with total close to 4 hours but will count it as 3 hours.

Grinded 100 games, 52 and 48 games sessions. 2nd session added 2 more tables, 17 total. Considering doing 17 tables and working on increasing the count related to some new years goals to follow in some future updates.

Prepared presentation and recorded 1 more automated coaching video.

Worked out in the morning and spent time with family also.

Perhaps one of my most productive days in poker so far!

What is making me very happy is that my studying habit is back soon and is very strong. I usually get to studying straight after coaching sessions in the morning. So things will definitely look even better in the future, I can already feel it

The way things are looking since this challenge started:

- 14/72 study hours completed
- 350/6000 games completed
- 18/100 coaching sessions completed
- 2 out of 30 CrossFit trainings completed
- 3 out of 10 videos for automated coaching/staking system completed

Tomorrow plan to coach 1 session minimum, study 1 hour, grind 100 games, watch Partizan vs Vojvodina 7-9pm and prepare/record another automated video! Might have to squeeze in some midnight grocery shopping also.

Enjoy your weekend all!

72 Days Study Challenge

Day 13

- Did 1 hour of study today
- Took out all the shortcuts and cliff notes for 10+ hours invested in this edge
- Already memorized very specific things to apply it
- Next 2 hours will dedicate just to review of those shortcuts and to quiz myself

1 coaching session done also!

100 games grinded today also (2x50)! Also played 1 MTT Sunday Storm where I lost after 3-4 hours with KK vs 1010 pre flop all in , opponent got both set and flush (Standard variance spot that drives people to doctors and psychiatrists!!!). Increased from 15 to 18 tables. Will be working on doing 20 tabling by the end of the year if not more. Considering upping that table count to maximize time and hourly both at and away from tables.

Hanged out with my best friend. Watched 2nd half of Rad vs Red Star and of course whole Partizan Belgrade vs Vojvodina game. Talked to a lot of friends on Skype, even helped some people along the way

To finish the day off, watched some new tv show with my brother couple of episodes and scripted new automated coaching video.

Overall would give myself 8.5 out of 10 for productivity today.

The way things are looking since this challenge started:

- 15/72 study hours completed
- 450/6000 games completed
- 19/100 coaching sessions completed
- 2 out of 30 CrossFit trainings completed
- 3 out of 10 videos for automated coaching/staking system completed

Tomorrow plan is to accomplish following things:
- Work out as soon as I wake up (squats, burpees and push ups)
- Coach 1 session
- Work on the game (quiz, memorize and review whole edge) 1 hour
- 100 games grind (try to keep 18 tabling- depending on the focus and energy levels)
- Record (minimum) 1 automated coaching video
- Use additional time to respond to 2 hands on our private forum
- Script another automated coaching video
- If any extra time is left use it for either more studying, video recording or grinding.

P.S. Study habit is back and very strong so is for grind. I am feeling very much in the zone, highly motivated and organized. Really curious how long I can keep this high productivity tempo in my life - look forward finding out!

72 Days Study Challenge

Day 14

- Studied 1 hour today
- Started memorizing and quizzing myself from shortcuts and cliff notes for the advanced edge
- It will take more then 2-3 hours to do this that is for sure but once it is complete I can use it for mid stakes + easily

Worked out in the morning when I woke up, very happy I followed up with it.
This pace is good for maintaining weight but I will definitely need to resume CrossFit from January or once automated coaching is in place to maximize my improvement in fitness area as well (if I set that goal that is).

Coached 2 sessions, both of them were sweat sessions.
Must say that I am very happy with progress my brother is (finally) making. He should be ready to move full time to 7s in near future and have 5%+ positive ROI there. This makes me very happy and very much look forward to it.

Had huge problems with my PT4!
Started my grind and HUD wouldn't load up. Stopped loading tables cause of it (played only 5 games!!!) and it turns out I had to reinstall the PT4 with new version + post sql database was bugging with over 100 gigs space it took!!!
My brother helped me tons (thanks a lot bro!) and about 5 minutes ago all the hands are back in the PT4 along with tourney summaries.
This took from 8pm until 1:45am so my grind could not happen today unfortunately.

Did not do any video recording but am rather preparing for some day off where I will record multiple videos (3-4-5 in the same series/topic). Should make the recording much easier and flowing.

Overall would give myself 6.5 out of 10 for productivity today.

The way things are looking since this challenge started:

- 16/72 study hours completed
- 455/6000 games completed
- 21/100 coaching sessions completed
- 3 out of 30 CrossFit trainings completed
- 3 out of 10 videos for automated coaching/staking system completed

Tomorrow plan is to accomplish following things:

- Work on my game 1 hour (12-1pm)
- Coach 3 sessions (9-10,10-11,2-3pm)
- Grind 100 games in 2 sessions (afternoon after lunch 1st session, 2nd after dinner)
- Finish script for 2 videos (late night after 11 or 12)

72 Days Study Challenge

Day 15

- Studied 2 hours today!!!
- 1st hour was dedicated to quizzing and memorizing shortcuts for the advance edge
- 2nd hour was dedicated to another edge and what may follow in January
*Very happy with my study and work rate.

Grind was nothing spectacular since I had trouble with HUD again today and it took a bit to fix it. By the time it started working again, it was time to go to live SNG tourney.
Went with my brother and best friend and busted 6th place, 4 getting cash. Crucial hand was of course AA getting cracked on K9x one heart where opponent called my shove with 105s of hearts and hit runner runner straight. Just LOL for retarded level of live plays you will see everywhere but that is why poker is fun game and everybody loves to play it
I grinded total 53 games which doesn't make me happy but I did accomplish tons of other things today which made up for it.

Coached 2 out of 3 planed sessions. 3rd session was supposed to be with my brother but we went to live tourney instead. 2 sessions were very good, focused and useful from students. I expect them to work hard on the leaks we found and to keep up with the study + grind habits.

Did not get the chance to script any video unfortunately. I did however decide on which area I will do about 10 or so videos in very near future, which should be easier for both scripting and recording the videos since they will be very related.
I will try to put aside Monday or Tuesday (reg infested day!!!) to do 4-5 videos and try to do that each week on that certain day. That way I have total of 6 hours time window minimum (say that I work out coach 2-3 sessions and socialize, from 6pm I can easily do until midnight 4-5 automated coaching videos). So I will look into doing that once a week as a project and pick a random day when the traffic is very reg infested on 30s. Today was perfect example for it but went to live SNG instead. In future I will opt to stay in and record necessary videos.

By the end of this week there are a lot of things planed and it seems like volume will suffer the most in this week. I may have to step on it next week go for 120-150 games some days to stay on track for the end of the year.

These obligations include:
11 coaching sessions by the end of the week
5 hours working on the game minimum
Going for 300 games minimum by the end of the week
Scripting 2 videos minimum and recording them
Working out 2 times by the end of the week
Watching Partizan Belgrade matches on Thursday and weekend
Family obligations day on Saturday

On the side note, I want to say that today I saw very reg infested 30s lobby just before 6pm. It was just ridiculous. Literally 1 recreational player on 30s , all the rest were different types of regs, most solid enough to be BE or slightly positive and in the long run decreasing the ROI.
I will post by the end of the year plan for next years grind that I have in mind but the way things look now, games are getting more and more reg infested and unless some fresh player pool comes grinding 30s 6 max turbos will become impossible unless you accept high variance and do it purely for RB.
I won't give up, I will still continue to play them but it may be close to impossible to table select 20k games on them next year - just my 2 cents on it.

Overall would give myself 6.5 out of 10 for productivity today.

The way things are looking since this challenge started:

- 18/72 study hours completed
- 508/6000 games completed
- 23/100 coaching sessions completed
- 3 out of 30 CrossFit trainings completed
- 3 out of 10 videos for automated coaching/staking system completed

Tomorrow plan is to accomplish following things:

- Work out as soon as I get up (between 9 and 9:30am)
-3 coaching sessions (10-11,11-12 and 12:30-1:30pm)
-Work on the game 1 hour minimum after lunch (2:30-3:30)
- Start 1st grind session earlier (4:30-6:30)
- Dinner followed by 2nd grind session (7pm - 9pm)
- Try to go for 3rd grind session (9:30-11:30) or use the time to script and record 1 video

Something that resonates and that I can relate to deeply

72 Days Study Challenge

Day 16

- Studied 1 hour today!
- Time invested so far is definitely paying off. Today I managed to pull out tons of things from my memory!
- Will continue quizzing myself in future hours and coming back to this edge but in future hours I will move to 2nd advanced edge

Worked out in the morning when I woke up.
Every other day I try to work out and increase number of repetitions by 5 in each exercise. Example, if I did 20 burpess today, two days from now would be 25 , 4 days from now 30 etc. This is very effective way to push your limits and put your body to fitness test. I suggest you try it out with any exercise you enjoy doing for starters!

Coached 3 sessions total.
I am particularly proud of this because my internet was out half day home so I went to my best friends and coached from there. Sessions were very useful and eye openers for students, look forward to the leak fixing they will get to.

Grind wise 70+ games grinded today (not sure how many spin and goes I played while waiting for HUD to reappear!!!). Again problems with HUD!
Started 19 tabling and in the middle of the session HUD just disappeared! Had to stop my Sharkystrator and finished session playing readless strategy using only color coding on tables I had. Have to say was very refreshing and cool way to play. Made about 20+ buy ins in that session.
Tomorrow I will most likely not grind since Partizan Belgrade is playing Besiktas in the evening while during the day I will coach 3 more sessions, work on my game 1 hour and figure out a way how to fix this PT4 problem with HUD!

No automated coaching video work done, instead went with my brother for grocery shopping and part of the day spent creating grind + profit projections for my students in 2015.
In the near future I will lay out my goal for 2015 and also some new things planned so stay alert for that update

Overall would give myself 7 out of 10 for productivity today.

The way things are looking since this challenge started:

- 19/72 study hours completed
- 580/6000 games completed
- 26/100 coaching sessions completed
- 4 out of 30 CrossFit trainings completed
- 3 out of 10 videos for automated coaching/staking system completed

Tomorrow plan is to accomplish following things:

- Coach 3 sessions (10-11, 11-12, 3-4pm)
- Work on my game 1 hour (between 1 and 3pm some slot after lunch)
- Fix the HUD problem so that I can continue with steady grind!!! (say 4pm to 9pm!!!)
- Watch Partizan Belgrade vs Besiktas game 9pm-11pm
- Update blog, analyze more for next year goals and challenges