Making a living with STT SNGs

Just couple of things to mention before heading to bed

- Bought plane ticket for Montenegro
Traveling next Monday which is in 6 days. Very excited about it obviously for more than 1 reason.

- Figured out how all my stuff will get there
Some taking with me to plane, some by bus, some friends bringing. Overall will have everything I need down there.

- 3 CrossFit trainings remaining this week
Will miss the work outs for sure but my trainer helped me tons the other day. Now I know exactly what work outs to use in Herceg Novi and consult him to adjust some if seems too crazy and super difficult to do.

- Will be very busy following days before I leave.

Have a good day on and off the tables.

Leaving for CrossFit in 15 minutes, here is today's training

A:
amrap 11
1 burpee
4 stand ups
8 pull ups
32 double unders
B:
find 1RM back squat,
then work back down in weight
same way you came up

Burpees are great, stand ups are easy, pull ups are hard, double unders mixed with anything are killer!

Look forward to it all very much!

By the way, yesterday I meet with my friend bass player. He taught I had 80kg or so when in fact I am at 86kg and body is just way tighter and stronger.
I have definitely lost in 2 months 4kg or so in weight but tightened up body and became stronger.
Look forward to Montenegro move and workouts there. Who knows what will happen in 6 months with me and CrossFit!

Challenge update for those interested go HERE

About 75 or so games away from renewing SN.
Last year I really cared about it, this year it just feels like hitting some random number - or another day in the office
New number to reach for me would be 200k by the end of the year but will see if I will actually go for it. If I put myself into grind mode doing 2.5-2.7k games per month for remaining 4 months, it will happen, if not I will settle for whatever fits with other life activities going on.

Tomorrow bunch of things lined up. I will list them by timeline here:

-Waking up and breakfast 8-8:30am
- Coaching 8:30-9:30 am
- Visiting government building for some papers for court 9:30-10:00 or so am
- Coffee with best friend 10:00 - 12:00 (with some HU hypers perhaps + snack)
- Court attendance with family 12:30-1pm
- Music store visit for guitar strings and to check new equipment play around 1pm - 3pm
- Lunch 3-3:30pm
- Another coaching session 3:30- 4:30pm
- And another coaching session 4:45:-5:45pm
- Doing 1 grind session 75 games (2 and a half hours or so)
- Rest of the evening do the laundry ,do some bucket and to do lists for further days and trip preparation + might play one more session (50 games or so)

Enjoy your day on and off the tables!

SN REACHED!

Another interesting thing
Played some game with Collin Moshman tonight. Believe it was on 15s turbos?

Collin we have to talk about that call with 33 vs my BTN shove ♦

IF you are wondering how grind went, you can check it HERE

4 days left before Montenegro move!

Today did so many things , I think I lost count from all the things
Tomorrow I will do my best to do following things:

Morning chat before workout with special girl
CrossFit workout
Taking my guitar for setup straight after workout
Shower, eat and meet with best friend for coffee (maybe play some hypers)
After that meet with my drummer! Got an offer for very good gig in Belgrade - considering to accept it... (will write more about it as it develops further)
After that watch Partizan - Neftci game
Pick up guitar after game or tomorrow after workout
In the evening either grind or start preparing some things like software for laptop, music related or back up all the coaching videos on online server (empty up my portable hard drive)

Enjoy your day on and off the tables!

Congratz for SN!

gg Predja

Congrats mate! You did it well ahead of me ♦

Thanks guys, you are great!

Another very busy day for me. Managed to do all the things planned and even extra.

Tomorrow following things should happen

- CrossFit training 10-11am (waking up and breakfast from 8-9:30am)
- Coffee with best friend 12 - 1pm
- Meet with my musician friend for software for my laptop 1-3pm or so
- Meet with my drummer (meet already today+visited new studio and talked about some cooperation with the owner) and bass player as well; discuss the terms about gig in Belgrade, repertoire etc 3pm-5,6pm (will write about it all in detail as things develop)
- Start washing and drying clothes for the trip
- Arrange maid to come on Sunday for ironing
- Start making list for packing
- Do some last minute shopping before the trip
- Exchange money for some EURO (100-200 to take with me) which is official currency in Montenegro
- Remaining of the day spend with family and best friend
- Consider doing some farewell gathering with friends on Sunday for some drinks

Expect updates in future as a lot of things are going on in my life.

For one and very important thing, I may be getting back into music sooner then I taught (September/October vs January). Many things influenced this decision and development but I will write about it all in future updates.

Don't worry, poker is still something I will do full time + coach, but I will definitely allocate more time for music in the future!

Have a good day on and off the tables!

congrats on SN and good luck with your move!

Congrats on the SN! Actually, you may just screw the 200K mark, relax a bit for the rest of the year: coach (which will provide you with an OK profit), sort things out with music and the special girl, grow muscles, etc.

Thanks Evolv87 - very much look forward to move and settling in.

Tony - That sounds like a perfect plan. The only problem with it is that I need every month 2k$ just for expenses (credits, and family expenses) without anything extra plans. So right now, until the end of the year I have to grind games. It can be 10k games in 4 months, 2.5k per month, which can be realistic goal vs saying 15k games in 4 months which can be quite a stretch with all life related things and development going on.
Whatever happens, I will still opt in to do heavier grinding then past 3 months. Just this month I played 1.2k games? It can't get worse then that I mean even 2k then 2.5k 3k increasing will be great.
One thing is for sure - staying in Nis will keep my number of games lower.
I need this change very much, to lift me up and move me to grind more.

Everything will fall into right place , I am very positive about it

So not only are you crushing the games, you get SN like a breeze, make music and are a fit as a flee.

You make an old guy feel tired.

Congratulations by the way and I hope the move goes even better than you hope for.

Have a great weekend,

Mal.

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
Tony - That sounds like a perfect plan. The only problem with it is that I need every month 2k$ just for expenses (credits, and family expenses) without anything extra plans.

I'm really sorry, I didn't know/remember you have as much as $2K in monthly expenses

Originally posted by gadget51
So not only are you crushing the games, you get SN like a breeze, make music and are a fit as a flee.

You make an old guy feel tired.

Congratulations by the way and I hope the move goes even better than you hope for.

Have a great weekend,

Mal.

Mal you know your way around with words - thank you very much

I hope you are enjoying your weekend also!

Originally posted by tonypmm

Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
Tony - That sounds like a perfect plan. The only problem with it is that I need every month 2k$ just for expenses (credits, and family expenses) without anything extra plans.

I'm really sorry, I didn't know/remember you have as much as $2K in monthly expenses

Yeah , reality is like this since May.
Coaching and staking is going well, despite my lower grind, I made in May close to 5k so rest of the months 1k on average or so. Things moving in right direction definitely .

Some plans for the end of the year

Travel activities
1st of September - Montenegro (Moving to stay there until November minimum)
18th of September - Belgrade (Partizan - Tottenham)
2nd of October - Belgrade (Jazz gig in one of Embassy's)
23rd of October - Belgrade (Partizan - Besiktas)
27th of November - London (Tottenham - Partizan)

Reasons more to grind in following period, make extra money for all these activities!

Some known things about my Montenegro move

- I will get my grinding machine with monitors there on Wednesday
- Tomorrow I travel and arrive around 3pm to Herceg Novi
- Will take with me guitar, sport bag and laptop to plane
- Will check in with my family friends students via laptop with some wi fi
- Tuesday guitar amp, grind chair and rest of my clothes will arrive there
- I am feeling nervous 2 days without Crossfit training so I will look for way to train on Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning (after breakfast)
- By the end of the following week I hope to settle with move and get into some habit of more grinding - will set some challenge then

In the meanwhile enjoy the rest of your weekend on and off the tables!

Arrived to Montenegro Herceg Novi

Had worst flight of my life. Tons of turbulence, some sick dropping by plane. Literally felt I would die today. Tons of adrenaline rush, fear and looking back on life things done and left behind.
Sick stuff but always good eye opener.

I am good now.

Bad internet here, tomorrow going to look for alternatives.

Hopefully withing 3-4 days I should sort everything out and get ready to grind.

Really full day today - tons of cool things happening.

Spent morning hanging with my sister then went to
- Pick up my grind chair, guitar amp and suitcase at bus stop
- Check about internet in 3 different places
- Shop for some food

After coming back home, took a shower and went to meet up with a special girl for drinks.
1 and half hour just flew away - amazing times! Then we went to do some CrossFit together - how awesome and hot is that? Sick stuff My sister also joined us in training. I conducted the training, showed them all the stretches and workout. They both completed it like bosses , really proud of them!
When I got back home , I did really brutal training
30 pull ups
30 push ups
30 squats
30 sit ups
20 burpees

All done for total of 9 minutes!!!
I was amazing with how fast I was killing the exercises with right form. I did pull ups without any assitance just from semi jump position hanging exploding up and above the bar). It took less then 2 minutes to complete pull ups. The rest I was cruising. On push ups I did 10 10 5 3 2 reps for total of 30 with very few brakes in between. Squats took forever; Sit ups were all in one go and burpess I did 10 5 5 and it was done for total of 9 minutes.

Was very motivated for the work out cause I hanged like 3 hours today with special girl and things went really great. Assume all the positive energy and expectations gave me extra hope and drive to crush the work out.

Some things about internet situation now
- In order for package to go up, my family has to sign 18 month new contract - which is out of the questions since I plan to stay here 2-4 months only!!!
- Download is good but upload is really bad for skype/teamviewer sessions and guitar lessons currently
- Can do audio talks easily but video lags 2-3 seconds which is not acceptable!!!
- I took additional internet on USB stick which is awesome for the grind but again lacks proper upload and will eat the bandwith up easily through sessions
- Grinding will happen easy with this net, just looking deeply into options for coaching and guitar lessons.

Some possible solutions for internet situation:
- I plan in next 3-4 days tops to visit tons of coffee places and check their internet speed (especially upload).
- If I find something suitable I will go for 7-14 hours per week in coffee places near seaside to do coaching sessions (not bad considering they all have fantastic view and it is very enjoyable to stay here)
- 2nd option is to go to special girls place and do sessions from there + guitar lessons. She already has room for us ready to rehearse so will look more into that as well in next days.
- Worse case scenario is for me to move to Tivat (our friends apartment) after 15th and do things from there since they have decent cable internet with stronger upload that can be upgraded etc. I don't like this option as it has been 2 days and I am really liking Herceg Novi and digging everything it has to offer.

I could write you more things and stories from which one would be cab driver hooking me up to go to local gym and coach some CrossFit lol but I will finish this update with something that left very big impression on me.

Today after talking to special girl for really long time, we of course talked about what do I do full time now. I explained to her how I got into poker, how much I evolved in past 2 years and where I am planning to head with it. At worst I expected her to say I am crazy or that that's gambling, medium reaction would be like "fine do whatever you do" and then I didn't even imagine the best possible situation would be what she said " Wow, that is really cool and interesting. I should tell you that my dad yesterday said that he wants to increase his side income and heard that there is a lot of money in online poker. I also would like to do that as job from USA when I finish Berklee in between gigs tours albums etc".
I mean how cool is that?
I am just amazed to say the least

And yeah she doesn't read or follow this blog so she is not aware that I mentioned her in some past posts ♦

Enjoy your day on and off the tables!

Great news!

Found awesome internet connection at coffee place I hanged yesterday

Check out the connection speed
LINK

All the coaching sessions will resume soon. Guitar lessons - waiting for the rehearsal room to do it from there 3 hours per week!