Making a living with STT SNGs

Originally posted by TheLandlordUK
Great attitude. I will need to remember it as I mutter expletives when at regfests ♦

A thing that puzzles me is. Where is all the dead money coming from at $15 and $30 to support all you sharks? I'm thinking that some guys taking a shot from $7, will drop buy ins, but only a few before going back down. I wouldn't have thought there would be many total fish playing them? Only guys from a reasonably high national economy would be playing $30 as a hobby or even $15's. Or are there enough degens to support everyone?

Like Ghaleon said, there are fishes on every limit.
The thing is, fish today and fish 3-4 years ago is different category. Fishes are evolving due to all the training websites and communities such as Poker Strategy. This is great news for poker economy - new players come in improve move up and see that it all depends on the effort they put in. On the other hand, there are regs that are not happy with this cause they got into comfortable zone where they learned something and taught it would be enough to live of poker for the rest of their life with that info. Now that standards are getting higher, regs need to be better then they were 3-4 years ago.
Lots of regs that used to crush 3-4 years ago, today are be or slightly winner/loosing players. Its like this because they didn't work consistently enough on their game and now there is new better and more hard working regs who have edge on them. Also edges will keep getting smaller and smaller when you on average have many better players on your table. Then you either step it up and push yourself or give up in poker (perhaps play it in future as recreational thing not as way to make a living).

This is how poker works and I keep telling people every day that this job ain't walk in the park. You have to be ready to adapt, work hard, be ready to change formats even, look for an edge and money should come as a prize.

Good news is when PokerStars hits US market again, there will be more fish at the tables then now and we can expect 3 instead of 1-2 fishes per table on 15s 6 max turbos. Until then work hard, adjust readjust become best you can for yourself and the rest won't affect you hard.

Originally posted by tonypmm
Plus the distinction between fish and regs is not that black-and-white... I'm doing OK at €20s due to the abundance of weaker players, but €40s must be gathering around me (though, strangely, it doesn't seem so). Or, rather, it's better to say 'around us' because some regs are still thinking that my different SNs belong to different fishes, despite the obvious similarities in manners (alas all my SNs started minraising buttons instead of 2.5x-ing at about the same time, I should have rolled this out with delays).

I want to play in those games where they are 2.5x btn ♦

Also would like to sweat you in those jackpots, see what they are all about - how big of minus roi can people have in them etc

Originally posted by variancekiller

see you in the next round my friend

Wow nice job my friend!
Lets see what draw says but why not

Originally posted by tonypmm
+1 ♠_evil: (I mean, Ivica vs killer ftw; I'll be eliminated now or meet some bum in round 4.)

I like the determination of you both, that's the right mindset to succeed!

When are you doing your match ?
Go crush it soon and post some hands ! I checked those 2 you posted and Chenny responded to. I think there are couple of other things I would have added in there but I liked your thinking process and meta game you listed with the opponent - nice pick up on his expected tendencies, well done.

Originally posted by TheLandlordUK

Excellent thought provoking post, that I've been debating all night. I must admit, I expected a few "tricks" from my poker coach, that would hopefully pay for his fee, within a month or so. And I'm thinking of guitar lessons when I heard
" A good lesson is one that I took away something that I could use straight away"...............By Danny Gill ( I think), of lick library. I liked that concept.

I realize the disciplines don't compare well to each other in some way though.
I think you are right in a longer term coaching deal. But in a shorter deal, coaches should maybe just please the student?

We can compare Guitar/Music to Poker no problem.

Teaching tricks on guitar would be, here is A minor pentatonic lick, you can use it over those chord progressions etc.
Teaching tricks in poker would be, late game (20bb or less) open ATC BTN and BVB .

Now different approach to this would be following :
Here is this A minor pentatonic, it has 5 tones. You can create melodies from this scale using : repetition, sequence, motive development, Q&A phrasing, melodic shapes , rhythmic repetition etc
Then show example for each concept, explain how they work/sound and then ask student to create his "licks" using those concepts.

In poker you can say: Here is nash min raise from each position. Here are nash 3 bets and here is raise call vs nash 3 bets. In order for you to learn when you can open ATC from BTN or BVB , you need to figure out what does passive fish, aggressive fish, wide reg, good reg, passive reg 3 bet vs BTN or BVB. By knowing this info, you can then input this in HRC and then you will get answers how wide or tight you need to min raise vs all those guys (and raise call vs their expected 3 bets). Basically you learn how to exploit ALL OF THEM vs having 1 fixed strategy that can be super easily countered and abused.

So now to compare these examples and approaches

You teach somebody guitar lick , they play it over and over , get bored with it and become a robot who is sounding like someone else and lick player.
You teach him how to create guitar licks/melodies, he will be much more happy working on them countless hours and discovering his original style in the process.
You teach somebody to min raise ATC , they will run into thinking reg who will crush them with 3 bets.
You teach somebody to learn how to adapt to all opponents and their tendencies, that person will be very tough to find edge versus and he will most likely be a reg you don't want in your games!

Finally one thing to add here. Teaching tricks could be OK from time to time to boost students will to do homework work on his/her game and grind. In general I am way against it and it can just backfire to that student cause when he gets some better opponent he will get super crushed vs him/her.

This is longer process but its much more worth it long term and you can apply it in any area in life.

hey congratulation on you HU matches.I saw that you really worked on your postflop and HU game.any videos you would recommend?

gl

Originally posted by alxpoker91
hey congratulation on you HU matches.I saw that you really worked on your postflop and HU game.any videos you would recommend?

gl

Thanks buddy

Any MBML or Pleno videos are great for both pre and post flop lines.
For HU I watched 3-4 videos here on Strategy. Just search for them in database.

I think what helped me the most for pre and post flop is
1) Equilab
Worked on equity analysis, looked at my defend ranges with certain equities, really balanced ranges well (what to 3 bet what to flat vs what type of opponent)
3 bet bluff ranges also learned to construct well there
2) HH review
Every day in December I was looking at minimum 100 hands that went either to showdown or saw turn/river.
Fixed my missed value betting on turn and river, learned to put opponents on range way better, learned how to get called by reg with 2nd or 3rd pair triple barrel etc ♦

For HU the best medicine is to play HU hypers. They helped me a lot even tough I have super small sample in them. Just the fact that you start with 25bb and get lower in blinds will have you construct your r/call r/fold limp/3bet limp/fold limp/shove ranges from btn , same with BB play (flatting, nai 3 betting, calling 4 bets , calling open shoves etc). So I suggest you give it a go it will unlock whole other area of improvement for you in 9 max. I guarantee you will own those passive regs like a boss and put them super easy on range post and pre flop.

All the best and hope 9 max are going great (following blog so far graph looks great while working with MilanBurdych gg)

i will play you in 4th round, i have a feeling, so 3 games turbo? lol

hope everything is good, keep crushing. ♠_biggrin:

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
I want to play in those games where they are 2.5x btn ♦

It's standard in PLO. Actually, I was even potting buttons in PLO for long because I was taught that the power of position is overwhelming and there's far less fold equity in PLO. With 2 cards, when blinds actually fold a lot, it prevails over the position power, it seems, but I need to get used to that. Also, I'm uncomfortable with barrelling OOP for the same reason - in PLO, giving up to float bets is more often correct on wet boards because draws getting there are more frequent.

Originally posted by FFRRAANNKKIIEE
i will play you in 4th round, i have a feeling, so 3 games turbo? lol

hope everything is good, keep crushing. ♠_biggrin:

Why not man, if we get to play turbo best out of 5 is standard for me - don't wont you to win 2 flips and kick me out

All is good, I am playing on the side some HU hypers on Stan James microgaming past 2 days. Made already 100$ in like 60 something games lol
Had some money left on there so decided to spend it wisely ♦

Originally posted by tonypmm

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
I want to play in those games where they are 2.5x btn ♦

It's standard in PLO. Actually, I was even potting buttons in PLO for long because I was taught that the power of position is overwhelming and there's far less fold equity in PLO. With 2 cards, when blinds actually fold a lot, it prevails over the position power, it seems, but I need to get used to that. Also, I'm uncomfortable with barrelling OOP for the same reason - in PLO, giving up to float bets is more often correct on wet boards because draws getting there are more frequent.

How good are you in PLO?
I suck in that game so bad, don't even know starting hands for it. I do understand everything you wrote and it makes a lot of sense. 2.5x btn there people do it to generate more fold equity cause people more with 4 then with 2 cards , they can simply make more hands post flop. Post flop it makes even more sense... Wonder how big of edge you can have versus unknown there and if there are some PLO SNE guys in past year or two winners pre rb.
It just seems to me that that PLO is brutal with swings?

Swings of PLO are a myth. Just PLO is roughly equivalent to NLHE of a limit higher, e.g. PLO50 ~ NL100.

I'm a regfish in PLO but the population doesn't normally minraise buttons, except for one mate of mine who minraises superwide from any position, but he can only get away with it at shallow tables, and he's not that good.

But anyway, preflop raising in cash PLO is almost exclusively for value. Some preflop fold equity exists vs iPoker nits, but not most of the population. That's esp true for 3-bets, it's incorrect to fold more than 30% to them.

I can't tell exactly who of the PLO crushers is SNE, but there are definitely pre-RB winners among SNEs. That said, a better way is to spread the volume across different sites (kinda bumhunt), and play at few tables and more focused, this way the hourly can be immense - there are a lot of 6-figure guys as low as 2/4-3/6.

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
You teach somebody guitar lick , they play it over and over , get bored with it and become a robot who is sounding like someone else and lick player.
You teach him how to create guitar licks/melodies, he will be much more happy working on them countless hours and discovering his original style in the process.

Agreed, but many famous, and particularly blues players are just lick players. The good guys will take these licks and reinterpret them.
I just see it as keeping a students interest.

I need your advice on an alternative chord pls mate. I don't even know the name of the chord I need replaced, but it's a stretch! If I was playing professionally, I'd just practice it, but my playing time could be better spent.
Not sure how to notate it , so.....
D string - 7th fret
G string - 5th fret
B + E strings - bar the 3rd fret
Any ideas on an easier way?

cool blog, I only got through a few pages, but seems like you definitely did well for yourself!

Originally posted by tonypmm
Swings of PLO are a myth. Just PLO is roughly equivalent to NLHE of a limit higher, e.g. PLO50 ~ NL100.

I'm a regfish in PLO but the population doesn't normally minraise buttons, except for one mate of mine who minraises superwide from any position, but he can only get away with it at shallow tables, and he's not that good.

But anyway, preflop raising in cash PLO is almost exclusively for value. Some preflop fold equity exists vs iPoker nits, but not most of the population. That's esp true for 3-bets, it's incorrect to fold more than 30% to them.

I can't tell exactly who of the PLO crushers is SNE, but there are definitely pre-RB winners among SNEs. That said, a better way is to spread the volume across different sites (kinda bumhunt), and play at few tables and more focused, this way the hourly can be immense - there are a lot of 6-figure guys as low as 2/4-3/6.

Good to know all this about PLO

Is there any good material you would recommend for total beginner - starting hands, sizing, post flop lines etc (videos , articles etc) ?

Originally posted by TheLandlordUK

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
You teach somebody guitar lick , they play it over and over , get bored with it and become a robot who is sounding like someone else and lick player.
You teach him how to create guitar licks/melodies, he will be much more happy working on them countless hours and discovering his original style in the process.

Agreed, but many famous, and particularly blues players are just lick players. The good guys will take these licks and reinterpret them.
I just see it as keeping a students interest.

I need your advice on an alternative chord pls mate. I don't even know the name of the chord I need replaced, but it's a stretch! If I was playing professionally, I'd just practice it, but my playing time could be better spent.
Not sure how to notate it , so.....
D string - 7th fret
G string - 5th fret
B + E strings - bar the 3rd fret
Any ideas on an easier way?

Hey buddy

The good guys learn to understand how licks are made and then go on and recreate their own. It is true that they all more or less start learning licks/tricks but then to progress they need to learn how to create their own. Just playing licks doesn't get them far.

Regarding voicing that is Amin7/11. There is no easy way to play it instead of playing A note in bass (5th string) and not play D string 7th fret (A). Then you can use easier fingering.
Btw thats really cool voicing I like using those clusters, voicings in 2nds and 4ths they are really hip and jazzy.

Originally posted by QooQoo
cool blog, I only got through a few pages, but seems like you definitely did well for yourself!

Thanks buddy
You will find some hate and trolling in the blog also but regardless those guys can't bring me down
I use blog as diary type of thing - update daily activities and such. I agree with you, have done well for myself so far, I do have more plans in next 3-4 years but my major goals are related to Music not poker - I play poker to make a living and not stress about life stuff.

Enjoy the blog

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
Good to know all this about PLO

Is there any good material you would recommend for total beginner - starting hands, sizing, post flop lines etc (videos , articles etc) ?

Start from 2+2 SSPLO forum stickies, they'll keep you busy for long

Some things to write about!

Yesterday I bought used Toshiba 32 inch TV (TOSHIBA LCD 32' FULL HD- REGZA )!!! It is full HD and has some other great features. My brother was using this auction site and we outbid all the other people (there were 141 bids in the end!). I have been thinking of buying 32 inch tv for a while and this was just too good of a deal to pass on! Final price was 152 euros. Super cheap and great deal!

Here are 2 pics from actual auction (there is way more but just 2 in the blog). TV should arrive Tuesday/Wednesday via special courier! Will post more pictures when it arrives and we set it all up!

Another good news, my brother purchased used PS3! Our PS3 that I brought from USA 5-6 years ago stopped working couple of months ago (graphic chip died and it costs too much to repair it). My brother bought a used PS3 that works great for 50 - 60 euros. Awesome price and deal. He already tested it earlier today and it works great! Now we can play PES (pro evolution soccer) NBA , Call of Duty, fighting games and such. Really look forward to relaxing and chilling with some video games ♦

The only dilemma I have is where to use my TV. Bring it to the office so that we can watch some EPL (English Premier League) or mount to the wall in my room (use it to watch tv shows/movies trough my laptop + grind some tourneys trough it from bed

Regarding other things, I have some exciting news to share also and write about all my students.

One of my students was in make up 450 euro besides starting roll since we started working from beginning February exclusively together.
I instructed him to drop down to 6 tables, send me assignments frequently, we had 2-3 sessions per week on average, worked on HU once a week, fixed his pre flop and post flop lines a lot (most of work he did on his own of course - I am just a teacher who guided him what to correct and fix).
Within 3 weeks he has covered his make up, sent me 450 euros and even has profit now (around 100 euros more) on top of initial roll ! This is all pre rb earnings on Microgaming where traffic is pretty much dead on 6 max 5.50 (limit he plays currently).
He has really worked hard, working on pre and post flop, sending me his hand history with thinking process, practicing and applying HU concepts I taught him. He has really done great job in February. I hope it won't get to his head to relax too much now but rather continue to focus work hard and crush even harder!
Well done Curly and keep up the hard work!!!

Here is what and how other guys are doing in February.
Perhaps biggest improvement was like I wrote earlier from my best friend. He has increased number of tables to 3 now, he is running below EV and his EV is positive this whole month. He fixed a lot of the leaks from January and continues to work hard and grind every day 6 hours minimum on average. I am considering to move him to Microgaming 2.75 in near future to get some good money from RB and he will be minimum BE there. Well done for his progress and within 6 months he will make 500 euros easy from SNGs from total beginner I am super positive about it.

My brother had a brutal DS on 2.75 when he moved from Stars (early February). He has been also sick again in February (6-10 days) and we haven't done a lot of sessions together in February (only one or two). Regardless I expected more working on the game then grinding from him and also warned him about switching to Microgaming how it will affect his life. I am sorry to say but it has just decreased his working on the game , I feel he has worked much harder in January when he was on the stars because he used to come to office early in the morning and start his day right with working on the game.Definitely expected more hard work less grinding from my brother but I can't do anything about it - I just want all the best for him that's all. Hope in March he will work minimum 20 hours on the game and grind minimum 125 hours (25 days 5 hours a day).
I probably have unrealistic expectations with my brother but that's normal I think because I expect most from him cause I care most about him obviously So I might be super tough and hard when it comes to judging his progress...

One of the guys that plays Microgaming 5.5 started grinding last due to new account being verified etc. Regardless of that I am not happy with his progress cause he is not working on crucial things in his game - pre flop post flop + hu. What I mean here is that he doesn't put enough effort to send me each day HH with thinking process written out, adjustments and readjustments. Most of the work gets done in sessions (when I check hh and find the leaks). So he is not doing good improvement wise especially considering that I also told him to 6 table maximum, but his results are BE pre rb, post rb in profit. Not happy cause he wants to go for SN stars and he is not yet ready (very unrealistic goals at this moment with this many leaks) - I don't want him to spew and loose money be brake even on Stars (no need to go trough what I went in 2013 when I switched to Stars). I am seeing some improvement from him past couple of days, hopefully he will continue to work on his HH and HU otherwise we will have a problem!

2.75 Microgaming player is one very creative player. He understands in certain spots naturally what to do vs what player but his fundamentals are still weak. His HU is also weak and until he fixes those leaks we will not move to 5.5. Again, I want him to have high ROI which will help him a lot when variance strikes to do correct plays always. He is not ready to move up and currently he also 6 tables and needs to increase his grinding + studying overall!

Finally very specific student comes from Germany ! I have coached him under special deal and circumstances and he has shown amazing improvement. What I mean when I say this is that all the game plan, adjusting , readjusting, assignments he has done super fast and understands the concepts really well. He has super huge potential to become SNG crusher. The only problem is his internet had some problems and he didn't grind enough in past 2 weeks. His goal is to catch SN on Stars this year and from 1st of March (if in future HH sessions things look strong) he will start grinding 7s 100 a day! In the future if he shows that his mental game is strong enough to grind those games, that his game doesn't change, that he maintains very good win rate (say minimum of 5%), he will then start grinding 15s (games where I am at now) to reach SN easier by the end of the year (also with positive ROI pre rb!)
Really look forward to how things will work out with this student, he has tons of potential , now comes the part where he has to show it in tons of games and putting required volume!

That is basically all the things that have been going on with students and my coaching with them so far in February. There have been tons of hours invested in February (between 40-50) and things are going in the right direction. I am overall satisfied with progress they are making, with some of them more then with others. Some will have to step it up in next 40 days or we will have different talks but I am confident they will all do great in near future and it won't come to cutting of any sort (never say never right?).

As far as my game goes and volume I haven't played nearly as much as I wanted in February but month ain't over yet. I will try to hit 2k games and then in March set a challenge for 4k games or something similar. By then I hope students that don't work hard enough will either build strong habits to study and improve or I will finish my work with them and dedicate all my time to students that do want to work hard and more grinding on my own!
My general goal for February was to do tons of coaching and help all my students improve and be winners pre RB on limits they are. Along the way help them to get out of the make up they had which I accomplished by 50% already with Curly. Only 1 more student is in make up and he has potential to clear it but must increase his work rate and grind as well.

Regarding other life things, I have to take a new professional picture and do updated guitar/music/performance resume by this Tuesday! My best friend from Boston got connected with some powerful booking agent and he will send him band press kit + individual things from each musician. Apparently he will hook us up with some really well payed and important jazz gigs this summer. Look forward to how that will all play out!

My guitar students are doing really good, very happy that I resumed that from January and look forward to extending it to 2-3 more students in months to come. Again, will just take students that are willing to study and work hard, no need to get invested with anybody just for the money sake cause I make more then enough for the living on my own in poker now...

No graphs and updates, you gotta wait for end of the month for those!

Really looking forward to top 32 in HU championship! I have no specific wish who to draw as a lot of favorites exited by now so playing my friends from PS should be really fun. I feel vs Dogma it would be brutal match cause we have a lot of HU dynamics from 15s Stars but other guys would be cool also. I assume they didn't get super lucky to beat all those opponents to get there

Enjoy your weekend on and off the tables and stay sexy and cool all!

Tl;dr, but TV and PS3 are kinda Stone Age, the new generation tends to live in computers (that's bad, but staring into a TV set all day long isn't good either).