Interview: Stefan "RedRat" Hadzhistoikov Manager of Pokernews Bulgaria

Stefan is a person who i recently met and getting to know his poker success and career i was inspired even more for my project "How Poker Changed My Life" that aims to introduce poker and how it changes our lives  to peoples who are not familiar with it and probably need that change.
After all Stefan Hadzhistoikov is a really honest helpful and dedicated to his job person who won my respect in a minute.
And here is the interview read and learn my friends he is the first of the many successful players that ill interview to show you that everyone can have a better life if he put enough effords.


Hello , Stefan how did you find out about poker online and how did it started a flame in your heart ?


As most people I learned about the game from a friend, and it didn’t took long to get seriously in it. I play cards since I can remember myself, so getting in poker was kind of natural for me, and quickly after I started I was doing pretty well – actually I managed to raise my starting bankroll of $100 to almost $250 in one week playing $0.05/$0.10 limit games. Now it’s like, wow, how I managed to do that back in the days? It was more than 5 years ago.

What do you do for a living now and how did poker helped you in general?

I was playing for living for almost 3 years, and during that time started to get even more dedicated to everything related to the game, and the beginning of 2007 saw me becoming a local representative of one of the world’s biggest poker sites www.pokernews.com . It’s been now almost 5 years that I work for PokerNews, and that is something that changed my life in many different positive ways. I don’t have much time to play now, but I’m making a living with my hobby, and that is just wonderful. I’ve made new friends and I get work with amazing and very talented people from all over the world, every day. For one year I was even part of the management of the company after I got a promotion and was hired to do a job that required to look after all 30+ websites that the company has – that was really great experience and during that time I learned a lot of valuable things, which are now helping me in my everyday work and my communication and relation with other people.

How did poker changed your life and how did it changed it? For better or worse?

It changed my life in so much positive ways, and if I have to get in details here I can really write a whole book about it . The game has so many similarities with life itself, and it can teach you a lot of valuable lessons. To be patient, to be responsible, to be brave, to learn from your mistakes, so you can improve your game and yourself as well. As everything else the start is difficult and the test for your EGO and your emotions is quite a challenge, but if you manage to learn how to control both then you take it to the next level where every bad beat and every mistake is just something that you are supposed to experience and learn from, so you can move forward.Poker is a very challenging mental game, and the more you get into it, the more you learn not just to play better, but how to become a better person, and how to make better decisions – not just on the poker table, but in life in general. Most people hardly make it to the point where they realize how the game can actually help them improve as a person, because they are not committed and they are looking for short term money results, and if they fail to complete that, they give up and get frustrated. I believe that’s what separates the people who succeed from those who fail. It’s just like with everything else, if you fail over and over again in doing something, that just means you are doing something wrong, and the problem is in you. The sooner you understand that the better chance you have to get on the road to success.

Which one of your successes are making you proud the most? :)

I must say that I’m proud of everything I’ve accomplished for the past five years, and as weird as it might sound, the winning of money doesn’t make me feel as good as the feeling of playing the best game, and making the best possible decisions and taking the first place. Of course the money part is nice, but for me the other means more. But mostly proud I’m with the game I played back in October 2009, where I managed to make 10 final tables out of 30 tournaments for one month, and along with some cash game success and three 1st places I finished the month with around $18,000 profit, and this is still the best run I’ve ever had. I was always playing on the micro to middle stakes and up to day I have cashed out around $80,000 playing online poker.


Best of luck to everyone who decide to walk my way, and I’m always happy to give advice or suggestion or simply discuss a hand or anything with anyone.

We can always learn from peoples like Stefan and we shouldn't just pass away from the knowledge they have.Read learn and i truly wish you all to have at least half the accomplishments he have.

(Stefan "RedRat" Hadzhistoikov At IFP London)

PokerStars Launched HOT Turbos and Announced MicroMillions

Two brand new great ways to turn a little part of your bankroll into something that can launch you in open space like a rocket.

Hot Turbos 0,55$-109$ with awesome Guarantee prize and double Guarantee prizes every sunday ;)

Check them out by writing HOT in your filter , http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/hot-turbos/

MicroMillions 100events !!!! Running from 15 march until 25
All of them with huge guarantee prizes and buy-ins from 0,11$-22$
You can simply turn 1 dollar in a whole new life with that WOW!

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/micro-millions/

WBCOOP 2012 Is Now Over !

We had our moments in this breath taking series where the whole worldwide poker blogging community took part.
Moments of joy , moments of honor and comraderie.When you see hundreds and hundreds of peoples supporting you really wishing with all of their hearts for you to be their winner, comments saying: "You are our champion, You are peoples champion" Thease moments i will never forget !

All my readers and fallowers all my friends who were supporting me the whole way throught this know ,
what im blogging about im not blogging my bank down and upswings or how i did that ,did this.
This blog is all about how you can make a diffrence how we cannnot surrender to any circumstences,
we will never back down.How poker can change our lifes and how we all deserve the chance of a better life,
and we can all have it, because huge part of this sport is the motivation of a player.
And whats a greater motivation then the motivation to survive ?

The Best Blogger Award Winner!
Will be announced after a day or two as PokerStars mentioned @twitter.
The judging panel is now taking care of it they will go through all the submisions and decide on the winner.
We will keep holding our breaths and hope they will appriciate our  purpose.Keep your breaths my friends ! WE ARE ALMOST THERE ! :)))

How Poker Stars Changed My Life Media Project !!!

Im starting a new media project that will inform everyone suffering the crysis how they can succeed without running off their country and how they can turn their potential into profit.Below ill write why Bulgaria

needs poker,freelancing and anything not realated to the country economics to survive.

The Project will include daily blogging,an  interview in a TV show with over 1,000,000 audiance ,Facebook page, and maybe a book in future

if i manage to gather money for publishing :)

First i would like to start with a little background of my country:

Bulgaria is a country with a great history , a long suffered beautiful country that continue to suffer from its 500 years of slavery on this day 3 march 1878 my country gained its freedome from Osman Empire.

After Bulgaria gained its freedome few wars tryed to bring it to the bottom and eventually disapear.

The bravery of my country mans saved it as it is.Then comuism fallowed after the WW II as part of the eastern block Bulgaria was in another slavery of communists.1989 the Berlin Wall was crushed down and the slavery was over.But what happens then ?

Democrate Politicians start skinning the country and this continues for another 23 years and here we are now.

An average salary of 200$ a month and about 34% unemployed young peoples in the age of 18-28 how do we make a living with that ? We cant.

Its a fact that food in here costs more then any european country the power costs same as other european countrys we pay the same bills but we recive more then 10 times less the money.

An enormous part of the peoples emigrate, another enormous part of the nation is living with the below minimum standart of living.And another tiny part is peoples who have control of 99% of the peoples money.

How can poker change our lifes?

The simple fact that with a little bit of reading, practice and motivation we can build our own strategy

and work it over to become a profitable players and turn the potential that we have into profit.

My first deposit was a small one it was about 10 Buy-ins into a micro stakes SnG tournaments.

I managed to turn this into 100$ in a single day !!! And this was awesome because i had to work 15 days as a construction worker and handle over 3 tons of materials a day to earn them.

Then my motivation overcame i felt that this is what i want to be doing.

Instead of feeling godlike i decided to improve myself and get to be even better player that i was.

Ive started reading books from some of the greatest poker minds in the world, started to analyze every single hand of mine and how did i go right or wrong in it.

After few months of playing with real money ive started to earn enough to cover my bills and have some spare money to actually live like a normal person wich is a great success in my country ;)

I was getting better everyday and still a miles away from the poker player that i want to be one day

Now without pushing myself too much i can easily make 200$ a week and thats an average month salary.

.I want to let everyone who has a potential of a poker player but never heard of it to know about it,

and how poker can make our days better, 34% of peoples of age 18-28 are unemployed this is about 2,000,000 peoples who are struggeling with life while they can put their spare time to become a great poker players one day.Not everyone will go for it but there will be a huge part of them who will be intrested :)

Im doing this without getting paid, i dont even have Ads in my blog im doing this because everyone deserves a better life.

Poker & Life Two Alike Challanges

The world of poker is almost the same as our world. FACTS?
Pretty easy to figure in life we always struggle to be winners.
We are studying thing we dont always like because they are a good hand that you can bet on.
We bluff sometime because we need to win but not always we hold the best hand.
We are challanging each other competing in job interviews like we compete in tournaments.
We lose sometimes ,life is not all about winning as well as poker.
But what do we do about it ? We learn from our mistakes, we adapt to the circumstances and try not to repeat the same mistake.
We sometimes play like donks in real life and win as well as we play like professionals some times and loose.Life is all about making the right decision so is poker!

WBCOOP Series 1-2

Feb 23 - NLHE,BADUGI 
Event 01-NLHE
I have started the series with the NLHE pretty deepstacked(10,000chips 15min blind levels) for me as im mostly into turbo tourneys.
The tournament however went good in the begining with some crazy hands including few bad beats but nothing shocking, busted out after 130 minutes of play with pocket 88 and 8 on the turn vs QQQ :)


Event 03-Badugi
This awesome game is alot of fun to me its more of a chill game for me.
Also went good in the begining but after a served 5-42A and massive raises at all of the bet rounds,
my opponent busted me out with a 4-32A Badugi :)
Still alot of fun.


Im not from the peoples complaining about loses , we are all supose to never back down.
Cause this is how all the great ones became great alot of risks and alot of raising up from the ground :)

The strengths and weaknesses of our minds.And what they have to do with our success!?

Mind-set:
Do you keep asking yourself why would you call pre-flop a middle-strong starting hand
while you keep folding better hands?


Why if you drop your sandwitch on the floor you will just throw it away, but you wont go and buy a new one.The chance that you still want a sandwitch is enormous you have just dropped yours ?!
Everything hides in the human brain the fact you dropped the sandwitch drives you silently mad
you want to buy a new one but you wont cause the LAST DAMN ONE FELT ON THE FLOOR!


That happens in our dear poker world and we do the same crazy stuff that we will realise we did later on.


The human brain is programmed to memorize every good and bad feeling the cause of it.


Example: You are holding J5 and you are calling a hand that brings you J55 on the flop someone with A5 goes all in you call him and win a massive pot.


Without you realising your brain memorize the feeling of statisfaction you get from the J5.
On entirely diffrent hand you will be ready to call/bet/raise more then you should with this hand
and probly lose.

In order to be a successful poker player you need to take control over your mind and emotions.
Now dont lie to me and confess you did such things more then once.Oh yea you did.

Why when we are lossing our game is getting worse?
We are suppose to be more cautious , but oh no we arent we are mostly getting loose aggresive after a bad beat.

Take control over your mind !!!
Turn off the emotions !!!
Dont blame anything but, yourself !!!

Everyone feel like a great poker player always putting the blame over anything but himself.
The software , his luck , other players joker play outs , even the fly that keeps bumping in the window. Well my friend its all you!

Your job is to maintain a stable strategy , a purpose , an winning attitude!

Next time you are about to make a donk call just cause you feel almighty , just fold it.

This is a sport of the mind , not a bingo :)
And when you manage that ....

Survive

Watch the clip carefuly you may learn something about life ;)
Thats how a little push from peoples who have more then enough can change a life of someone
and give him the ultimate right that everyone should be born with and thats a normal life :)

1st Tourney

Ive started the series today with entering the deep stacked NLHE.
The tourney was actually going well but sadly with few major badbeats.
This is the hand that ended my participation in it :)
2 Team Pokerstar members fall out before me and im not sad with my results.
Cause this is the world of poker always ready to suprise you ;)

We are actually doing it !!!!

Hello everyone,
Thanks for the votes you truly amuzed me as we rank 1st on WBCOOP 2012 for now
you can fallow our progress here WBCOOP and vote if you like the post and you havent done so far :)
You keep them coming everyone got an e-beer from me for the support ;))

As an regular update ill add the tournaments of WBCOOP i decided to participate in ;)
Progress of each toruney and WBCOOP leader board will fallow here

Feb 23 - NLHE,BADUGI
Feb 24 - NLHE TS, 8-game
Feb 25 - NLHE(6max), NLHE
Feb 26 - Stud
Feb 27 - NLHE, NLHE Turbo
Feb 28 -
Feb 29 -
March 1 -
March 2 - NLHE deepstack
March 3 - Horse

Great news !!! WBCOOP 2012

First of all thanks everyone for the votes, im glad you liked my post. Keep them coming!

As of an regular update,

Ive got my entry accepted and im currenty ranked first on vote count at http://blogs.pokernews.com/WBCOOP_en/

which is success i havent really expected thanks to everyone (friends, poker mates and etc).

So, i already got the 10 tickets from the WBCOOP entry and ive already planned the tournaments to be played.you can check them out here http://www.pokerstars.com/blog_tournament/

Im mostly intrested in 8 games , badugi probly 5draw and rest will go on various types of NLHE.

Tournament schedule is staring on Feb 23.

I will update my results daily for every each of the tournaments of the WBCOOP schedule as my current WBCOOP Leaderboard points and rank.

WBCOOP 2012 The epic beginning of our poker blogging journey!

Yar,

My name is Radostin Minchev and this is the very beginning of my poker blogging journey.

A way for me to show you that the more you belive the bigger you can be.

I have started playing poker about 8 years ago when online poker was not that far from its  begining.

For years and years i have being practicing playing in freerolls in various poker rooms, i have faced many challanges and ive took many hard decisions , some times the right ones some times not that right to be choosen.

Thats what builds a poker mind-set in a player it also builds the courage the attitude and the skills desired to be a winning player in this world greatest mind challange.

And now to the main reason of me starting my poker blog.

             And thats WBCOOP 2012

My Poker Home since 2006 PokerStars is asking me what would i do with $5,000

Im living in a small country with economy close to a third world country,

since i have graduated school i have being trying to do something with my life.

I couldnt afford univeristy and i tryed to look around for a job with an IQ of 143

I couldnt find a job diffrent then construction worker and a barmaid for the summer season.

Then ive come to that "I need to do something not realated to my country economy its going down i wont go down with it." 

From the minor  salary i was getting as a construction worker i have put a part aside and after 6 years of online poker practicing i have made my first deposit and then my life turned 180 degrees.

Ive build my own strategy combining the expiriance that i had with some books about Hold`em including life action and interviews with major Poker Stars.

And that led me to building a bankroll and being and actual profitable poker player.

The only thing that kept me away from moving up the limits and take my poker career higher was that im unable to keep a big stable bankroll and participate in tourneys i belong too.

For the simple reason i need to withdraw my winnings to make a living , and this oppurtunity you are giving right now can help me be the person i know im supose to be , the player im supose to be.

Poker Stars gave me the hope and did what my home country couldnt , it turned my potential in profit.

Thank you , Poker Stars 

We Are Poker!

Great success ! 25 New Profitable Poker Players :)

Only for the last month i have introduced the poker as a way to change your life and
make a profit out of your potential to 25 new poker players :)

And now im happy to say that they are turning in profitable player who will soon be able to make a living
out of it. Congrats to all of you boys who didnt let me down and listened to every advice i gave you.
Keep improving dont think for a day that you are complete poker players there is always more.
More to read,adapt and more to lose and more to win.
Dont look back always look in the future as something better ;)

Passion

Cheers for our common passion and thats the most attractive mind challange of all Texas Hold`em

As i was abit busy lately i suffered every day away from it as i suffer when my girlfriend is gone for longer then a day ;)

However traveling around the country to solve my issues i had an intresting partner in my bag.

A partner who showed me that maybe i needed this time away so i can focus on him.

And that was the book my friend bought for me Poker Mind-Set by Ian Taylor.

The book it self can teach us not a few things that we cant just realise ourself or learn @ the poker tables.

I feel a whole bunch more confident at poker tables.I know how to discipline myself and learn that passion is a virtue.

Later on ill share some of my lately researches about poker and how this game should be called a sport instead of being considered as a gambling 

Cheers my friends ;)

Activity ;)

For my readers who are a little bit dispointed for my activity lately asking me why im not as active as i was in my old blog.
I would like to apologize for that and say that i didnt really had time since i had some really bad family drama.
I will start blogging daily as soon as everything gets to its happy end :)
Thank you all for understanding :)

Todays Graph

Today im all good with micro stakes SnG tournaments here is the graph ;)

Bankroll Management

What is bankroll management?

"Bankroll management" (sometimes abbreviated to BRM) is where you play at certain limits to avoid losing all of your bankroll due to bad runs of cards, which any poker player must expect from time to time.

This is called "playing within your bankroll". Subsequently, if you play at higher limits where there is too great a chance of losing all of your poker money, you are "playing out of your bankroll".

Why is bankroll management important?

The reason why you should choose your limits carefully in poker is due to the variance. Variance is a term used to describe the "ups and downs" of poker where you fluctuate from having bad runs of cards to good runs of cards, resulting in varying profits and losses.

If you play poker for long enough there are going to be periods of time where you will consistently lose money, not because you are playing badly, but because the cards are not falling your way. This means that if you do not have enough money in your bankroll to absorb these big downswings, it is likely that you will lose it all.

Downswing ;d

Every regular poker player knows that you can't come out of every poker session with more money than you started with. There are always going to be sessions where you end up losing more than you win, and often there is very little that you could have done to prevent it.

Even though poker involves a certain amount of skill, luck is something that is always going to be a big influence on the outcome of each individual session, and it always will be. Any poker player that plays regularly enough will find that luck gets the better of us sometimes for longer periods than we would like, and for some, this stretch can seem never ending.

Facing a big downswing in poker.

As a frequent player at the cash or tournament tables, we are prepared to lose 2 or 3 buy ins or not place in a number of tournaments from time to time, its just the way it goes. But occasionally, although it doesn't happen very often, a 2 or 3 buy in loss will just be the tip of the iceberg. We will come face to face with a seemingly never-ending stretch of bad cards and busted draws.

Discipline in poker

Discipline and Patience

For example, take a look at a day in my skin. I have to have discipline and patience when I hunt for my breakfast, take the right opportunity to find a potential meal, and execute a coordinated plan. I'm aggressive in my hunt, but not reckless. I also know when I'm beaten by a fish that can outrun me, so I give up on that situation. I'm sure you can find many parallels to your own everyday routines. Not only are discipline and patience essential virtues in life, they're also essential poker virtues.

If you don't consistently have discipline and patience at the poker table, you're not going to be a winning poker player in the long run. Even if you somehow manage to squeak out some profits, you're not winning as much as you could. My goal in my poker game is to crush my competition and make the most clamshells… sorry, scratch that… money that I can. I've learned to do that by trying my best to master the psychological aspect of poker. I'm not talking about getting inside your opponents' heads in this instance, but rather your own head. You can memorize every poker strategy trick in the book, but it won't help you if you don't take control of your own mental habits.

For example, a major leak for most poker players is their starting hand requirements. They get antsy to play, so they take chances and play hands that they know they shouldn't. This shows a lack of self-control and patience. I'm not going to pretend that any of us can completely eliminate the urge to play trash hands from the wrong position. Sometimes, we all do it. But you should try to minimize how often it happens. Why? In the long-run, it's costing you money. Most players have hand guidelines for a reason: certain types of hands are profitable from certain positions, and other types of hands are unprofitable from any position. Of course, you're occasionally going to hit that two pair on the flop with your 7-4 offsuit, but don't forget all those times that you missed completely or the times when you sort of hit the flop and made a questionable call to stay in, costing yourself even more money. This is where discipline enters the equation.

If you're in that pot with your 7-4 and you're not on the big blind, you probably threw patience to the wind. However, since you can't take that back, you're going to have to show discipline throughout the rest of the hand. A huge reason why you don't play trash hands is that you're often going to be stuck in a tough situation on the flop. It's easy when you don't pair up or make any sort of draw on the flop, and you throw your hand away. However, what do you do when the flop comes out 7-J-2? If you have good poker discipline, you throw this hand away if your opponent bets unless you have a perfect read on him and know that he's bluffing. Most of the time, it's just not worth the risk. You made a mistake by being in this hand at all, so try to atone for it and resist throwing more good money into this pot. If you call that bet on the flop with middle pair, you usually won't improve on the turn. You can't call another bet, so you've just chased part of your stack away. Sure, it might seem insignificant at the time, but these lacks of discipline and patience will add up over your poker career.

Whenever I find myself in a poker rut, I remember that I can control every aspect of my own poker game. The only thing that you can do at a poker table is make good decisions. Many of your opponents, especially online opponents, won't have the patience and discipline that you have. They're going to draw out on you with hands they shouldn't be in the game with. You can't control that, and that's just part of the game. You can control every move that you make with your game, however. If you play how you know you can and should play, you're going to minimize the draws that your opponents will make by making them pay to do it. Part of having discipline in poker is not getting greedy and slowplaying hands where there is an obvious draw out there.

More often than not, I like to stay in my home lagoon and just catch my choice of games online. I don't know how the swordfish and tuna got high-speed internet wired to their homes too, but they're online and spreading to every possible limit. You aren't safe from suckouts at even the highest stakes these days. Inevitably with all of this reckless play, you're going to run into a lot of bad beats. Having discipline means that you don't go on tilt when you run into one, or you at least cut down the time it takes to bounce back. Going on tilt is a tragic way to lose the winnings that I'm sure you've worked hard far.

Suffering from tilt is natural. You're steamed that the guy across the table from you hit a 3-outer to take $2,000 from you. Who wouldn't be? But you also have to expect this to happen once in a while and prepare for it. Avoiding tilt is another aspect of poker discipline. While it's easier said than done, just keep repeating the mantra, "All I can do it make good decisions," before every move you make. It isn't a good decision to personally go after the guy who put a bad beat on you, and it isn't a good decision to play recklessly with every hand dealt to you just because you're upset about losing that big pot. Just remember that another hand is coming up in 2 minutes and that you're going to make the most of it. If you're playing no-limit, you're only ever one hand away from doubling up your stack. If you can realize that you're too upset to play, just sit out and take a little walk for a few minutes. If you still don't feel better, it's probably a good idea to call it a night and come back when you're in a better frame of mind. You play better when you're in the right mood and you know it.

Poker Face

Time to get some of those iridescent Chris Moneymaker glasses. According to a new study published in the journal Current Biology your eyes could give away not just whether you have a good hand or not, but the actual numbers of the cards in your hand. Researchers asked study participants to name a string of random numbers, and by measuring horizontal and vertical eyes position the researchers were able to reliably predict the next number before it was spoken. Your bluff just might be toast.

The researchers noticed a distinct trend when participants were conjuring their random number strings: A leftward shift accompanied by a downward shift consistently indicated that the next number would be of lesser value than the one before. Likewise, an upward-right positioning suggested a larger number than the previous one. The degree of the movement corresponded to the size of shift in value.

Why does this happen? According to the University of Melbourne researcher who authored the study, our brains tend to code numbers spatially along a horizontal plane; smaller numbers fall to the left, larger ones to the right – similar to the way numbers would look if you started writing them in sequence on a piece of paper (1,2,3,4,5,6, etc.).


From Science daily all rights reserved.

PokerStars

Definetly i can say that in my 6 years of real money poker player,ive checked out alot of different sites and softwares but the only one that kept me intrested with it design functionality and promotions was PokerStars.com
The Poker site itself is the biggest one that provides the most attractive MTTs SNGs and good challange at the cash tables.
Anyone can feel free to join me there ;)

www.Pokerstars.com

Introduction

Hello everyone,
My name is Radostin Minchev and im an real money poker player since 2006.
Im mostly playing micro stakes SnG and on regular basis some MTTs @ Pokerstars
I felt in love with poker 2004.I used to be a water pollo player but during an accident i broke my knee at the pool, i loved the game and the sport passion.
When i first player poker online i felt this passion again, and i love the game ever since.

In this blog i will write about various intresting and challanging stuff about poker and my poker life itself.
I had an previous blog that i wiped out and im creating this one as the old one was in bulgarian launguage.
Since there was alot of peoples intrested in my posts ive decided to go on with an EN blog that can let everyone
who likes to read my blog ;)