Thinking Poker Tournament Seminars are pre-scheduled, small-group discussions focused on the most common mistakes and skills gaps that I see in my NLHE tournament students. Each two-hour seminar costs $150 per person and is capped at five participants, to enable individualized attention and opportunities for everyone to ask questions and participate in discussions. The content is prepared and the discussion facilitated by me- it’s like an interactive poker video!

Participants will learn how about alternatives to the continuation bet, how to deal with donk bets, when to slowplay, and how correct flop play varies with stack and pot size. My Flop Fundamentals video series will be required viewing in advance of the seminar, because everything we discuss will build on those concepts while getting more in-depth and sophisticated. Playing common flop spots well is essential to tournament success, so you don’t want to miss this seminar!

To register, please e-mail andrew(at) thinkingpoker (dot) net with subject line “Advanced Flop Fundamentals”. If you have questions, please post them here, as others may be wondering the same things. Also please leave a comment if there’s a topic you’re interested in or a time that would be better for you- there’s plenty of flexibility to accommodate everyone, I just need to know what you want to see!

A: You’re on the right track. The question I’m asking myself is “What kind of hand will I be looking to make on a future street?” and that’s a function of a few things: stack depth, position, opponent type, etc. With 30BB, KTo is generally a better hand than T7s. This is because in a raised pot, top pair with a good kicker is usually a good enough hand to get all in. With 200BB, I’ll take the T7s. When I play for stacks I’m mostly going to have straights, flushes, or draws to these hands. The T7s does a better job of making those kinds of hands than does KTo.

With 500BB, neither of these is a good choice for playing out of position. With such depth you must in general be much more careful about playing out of position but more liberal about playing in position. When I’m out of position with stacks that deep, I need to make NUT straights and flushes, or at least draws to those hands. So I’ll take A2s over AKo.

Of course there are other factors to consider as well but that’s a good example of how stack depth can influence whether a hand plays well.

Do you have a question for the Thinking Poker Mailbag? Please leave it as a comment below!

Second edit: The invite code is “foucault”, I’m told you need that join. Sorry for the confusion.

Third edit: Invite code is all lowercase.

I’m pleased to announce that I’m starting a Thinking Poker League on the new PokerStars Home Game feature. We’ll have a tournament every Sunday at 16:30 ET, coinciding with the start of the Sunday Million. Whomever is at the top of the leaderboard after 10 tournaments (unless it’s I, in which case we’ll go to the second place finisher) will receive a three-month subscription to Poker Savvy Plus and a free, hand-by-hand “leakfinder” analysis of a NLHE tournament or cash game session of his/her choosing recorded by me and posted on Poker Savvy Plus.

The first event will be this Sunday, February 28, at 16:30 ET. The format for this week is 6-handed NLHE with deep stacks and a slow structure. I’m very open to feedback on this, though, so if you join the league, you’ll have an opportunity to offer your thoughts and suggest alternative formats for future weeks. I’m also open to scheduling separate set of tournaments at another time if a number of people tell me they are interested in playing but can’t make the Sunday time. So please leave me a comment if you have any requests or suggestions about the Thinking Poker League, and hopefully I can accommodate everyone who’s interested in playing.

I’ll also be hosting a Thinking Poker cash game through this league on weeknights, with the first game taking place at 20:00 ET on Tuesday March 1. The format for that is also open to discussion but for the first game will be full-ring NLHE with $.10/$.25 blinds and a 100-250BB buyin. The cash games won’t have any affect on the league standings but should be a lot of fun!

To sign up for the League, please find the Thinking Poker League in the PokerStars Home Game tab and request to join. The Club ID is 312467. And again, if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment.

Goal 3: Make a Name For Myself

I feel like I am right on the threshhold of becoming a minor poker celebrity. That’s not something that’s intrinsically valuable to me, but it does seem to come with some nice perks: sponsorship deals, invites to juicy televised games, better book sales, etc. It’s something that I feel I ought to make a bit more of an effort at and see what happens.

Post Once a Day on the Blog

If I fall behind, I’ll settle for a one/day average, but I’m sure it’s a lot better for you all if they are evenly spaced. Plus I’m more likely to do quality work this way ;-).

Even without any advertising revenue, I get so much out of the blog. It’s a nice impetus to review my own play, I enjoy interacting with the intelligent and diverse community of readers we have here (That’s you! Post more comments. I respond to nearly all of them), and virtually every opportunity I’ve had away from the tables has been at least indirectly a product of the blog. I’m never going to be the hammiest guy on camera, but I do write purdy, so that’s going to have to be my entree to poker notoriety.

Make the Blog More Interesting

I know that hand discussions are what a lot of you are looking for, and there will always be plenty of those, but I want to keep it fresh. I enjoy doing things like Book Reviews and The Poker Ethicist, and I’d like to add some more new features. I have a few ideas, but I’d love to have some more. What would you like to see on the blog that you don’t see now?

Play 2 Live Poker Events Besides the WSOP

The Main Event is a given, and while I can only stand so much live poker, bagging a live win and getting on TV is an essential part of making a name. It also produces some of my best stories and is a nice change of pace from grinding online. Obviously this will still be a woefully small sample size and isn’t likely to produce a major win, but it’s probably all I’ll be able to tolerate this year. We’ll see, though.

Write 1 Article Per Month for 2+2 Magazine

This doesn’t pay anywhere near as well as the rest of what I do, but it’s a small time commitment and a big honor. The 2+2 Magazine is definitely one of the premier sources of free poker information on the internet, and I like being affiliated with it. It’s one of the few opportunities I have to get paid directly for writing, which is something I enjoy doing. Increasingly I find that I am able to tie together things I am doing on my blog with videos I produce, articles I write, and my private coaching to create an integrated set of materials on whatever poker topic is most interesting to me at the time.

Average 2 Hours Per Week Participating in Strategy Discussions on 2+2

Pretty much all the time I spend on 2+2 right now is on NVG and other low-content forums. Granted the quality of the strategy forums has declined, but that’s kind of a chicken and egg thing with quality posters departing. Most of my poker friends are people I met through 2+2, and of course I owe the beginnings of poker career to them as well. This should gel nicely with my other resolution to improve my skill at some non-NLHE games. If I’m off-track towards the end of the month, I’m not going to allow myself any time in the low-content forums until my strategy posting is done.

Join a New Poker Forum

I’ve dabbled elsewhere, but 2+2 has always been my home. Right now I don’t even know what’s out there, but I’d like to find a new forum for meeting poker players. So you tell me:  what else is out there? What forums do you read? Why? Where would you like to see me posting?

Average 1 Interesting Tweet Per Day

I’m @thinkingpoker. I don’t use Twitter too much outside of posting WSOP updates, but I’d like to start. I’ve found some interesting people to follow, and I’m trying to learn from how they use the medium. I’m going to take it slow at first, because I don’t want to tweet crap just for the sake of getting the old tweet count up, but hopefully I can average one worthwhile tweet per day by the end of the year. God I hate having to say “tweet” so much, there’s got to be a way around that.

I recently posted about Setting Effective New Year’s Resolutions for Poker Success. Today, I’m going to start sharing my poker-related resolutions.

Goal 1: Make Some Money

Dolla dolla bills, y’all.

Average At Least 20 Hours of Poker Each Week

This is a step up from last year, but I can do it. I’m going to cut myself some slack on a few other fronts (not that I hit those goals last year) to hopefully free up some more time for actually playing this silly game.

I’m also going to be more flexible about the types of games I can play. One thing I want to do is learn some new games, so as long as I’m playing, I’m not going to worry about which game or how big. There’s really no danger of me not playing enough NLHE to earn a solid living.

Average At Least 5 Hours of Coaching Each Week

I didn’t do it last year, but I want to try again. I make more money playing than I do coaching, but it’s something I enjoy. I’ve made some friends through coaching (hi guys), and it’s nice to occasionally be in a cooperative relationship with another poker player rather than always being out to take everyone’s money. I guess I could go the Stoxtrader route and do both, but that’s not my style.

I’ve started scheduling coaching sessions in two-hour blocks, which I’ve found to be a better use of both my and my students’ time. Five hours a week means two sessions each week plus the prep and follow-up that goes along with them. Actually that would be closer to six hours, so I’m giving myself a little wiggle room here. Two sessions per week shouldn’t be that hard, though.

Towards this end, I’ve begun offering discounts for students who purchase multi-session poker coaching packages. This was something I was opposed to doing for a while, but it’s something that a lot of people ask for, and it should keep my coaching load more predictable. If you’ve been thinking about coaching, check out the new poker coaching offerings and drop me a line.

Produce At Least 4 Videos Per Month for Poker Savvy Plus

Poker Savvy Plus is a great place to work. They give me a lot of freedom to make videos that I believe will be interesting and helpful, and they are very supportive. The community there is great, and I want to start participating more actively in the forums so that I can get to know people and what they are looking for in their videos. To keep things fresh, I also want to start innovating some new types of videos and soliciting suggestions for videos more actively.

Read more in Part 2: Publish!

Goal 1: Average 15 Hours/Week Playing My “Regular” Games

Goal 2: Earn $X in NLHE Cash Games

I’m nowhere near my cash games goal, and I’ve given up trying. Basically tournaments were going so well for me that I started putting more time into those and when I did grind cash games it was usually easier stuff that wasn’t quite as lucrative. Thankfully tournaments have gone so well that I don’t really need cash games to contribute to the year’s income.

Goal 3: Earn Supernova status on PokerStars

This is still within my grasp, but I need nearly 9000 points, which is more than I’ve earned in any one month this year. When I do play, it’s going to be with a focus on picking up FPP’s so that I can be sure of making Supernova.

Goal 4: Monetize This Blog

I’ve pretty much gotten over the idea of pulling in ad revenue, but the blog has been helpful in generating coaching business, and hopefully soon it will help me to sell a book as well!

Goal 5: Write a Book

It took most of the year, but I have a draft of an entire book that is currently in the hands of some trusted friends from whom I’m awaiting feedback. I still don’t know what the timeline will be for publication, but this project is well underway.

Goal 6: Average One Blog Post Per Day

I had 311 as of the first of this year. Hitting 365 would require nearly two a day this month. I don’t want to drown you with garbage, but I am going to try to pick up the pace, and we’ll see what happens.

Goal 7: Average Five Hours of Coaching Per Week

I’ll be lucky to get half of that. Even adding time spent on Poker Savvy Plus, which is a bit of cheat, doesn’t get me too close to the goal. I’ve really enjoyed the students I’ve worked this year, but I need to work harder to get my name out there. Just browsing the 2+2 Coaching forum I see so many unqualified people charging absurd rates that I have to figure I’d have more business if people knew that I offered coaching. Look for a revamped coaching page in 2011.

Goal 7: Average an Hour a Day of Dedicated Studying and Improvement

Defining this very generously gets me to about half an hour a day. I found it really difficult to make time for this, mostly because there aren’t that many poker videos that I really find helpful at this point. Since I’m pretty well set on hours for the year, I’m going to make a push to practice my PLO game this month. That will give me some impetus to study and also a reason to grind small stakes games for FPP’s.

Goal 8: Use Hold ‘Em Manager

I’m getting much better with this. There’s more I should be doing to review my own play and that of specific opponents whom I play regularly, but this is the first year that I feel I’ve really mastered the basics of playing with a HUD and using those stats at the table.

Goal 9: Finish the Year with a 4BB/100 Win-Rate at 5/10 NL and/or Higher

Heads up games really tanked my winrate, but if we just look at games with 3+ players, I’m at 3.98 BB/100 for games up to 25/50 Cap (though I’m down at 25/50 uncapped). That’s also counting 2/4 Rush, which is a bit of a cheat since it’s easier than 5/10, but honestly my hourly rate per table is pretty close because of all the extra hands, so I’m going to count it.

Goal 10: Play 50,000 Hands of Heads Up NLHE at 5/10 and Higher

I’ve played 27,000 hands, and I’ve got a -5BB/100 win rate. That’s a bit odd, as this was my best game last year. Part of it is variance, I’m sure, and bad game selection. I’ve been trying to play more lately, but it’s just so damn hard to get action.

What About You?

So my big change for December is going to be a focus on Heads Up and PLO games, playing mostly on Stars in order to rack up FPP’s and make Supernova.

How are you progressing towards your goals. Any last-minute adjustments you need to make to finish where you want to be for the year?

I came to the table with 6th place chips but got down to 3-handed with g0lfa and govshark, who incidentally is the player who put me out of the $200 heads up FTOPS. I got my money in for about 1/3 of the chips in play with TT vs. g0lfa’s A6, but it couldn’t hold. I guess that makes it the worst bad beat of my career, but I can’t complain, as I obviously had my share of luck to make it that far. Oh and I won at 13 BB/100 in the cash games I was playing on the side.

I suppose I’ll have to stop complaining about how long these things take. After sinking nearly 100 hours into this WCOOP, I finally have a respectable hourly rate ;-). Come to think of it, I guess this is the best single day of my poker career, as my other big wins have come in multi-day tournaments.

Oh and the other two made a deal as soon as I busted. Guess I was the fish

Thanks to those who were rooting for me in the 2+2 thread. I’ll post some hands tomorrow and possibly get a video together for Poker Savvy Plus as well.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 600/1200 Blinds 150 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t61814)
Hero (BB) (t113459)
UTG (t86336)
UTG+1 (t34997)
MP1 (t16550)
MP2 (t13948)
MP3 (t108224)
CO (t52089)
Button (t10069)

Hero’s M: 36.02

Preflop: Hero is BB with J, 4
UTG bets t2788, 3 folds, MP3 calls t2788, CO calls t2788, 2 folds, Hero raises to t11111, 2 folds, CO calls t8323

Flop: (t29748) 7, 2, A (2 players)
Hero bets t12345, 1 fold

Total pot: t29748

Results:
Hero didn’t show J, 4.
Outcome: Hero won t29748

MP3 in particular is a very smart guy and good tournament player (Siola from Poker Savvy Plus, in fact), and I believe he will have to give me credit for 3-betting an UTG raiser, not realizing that this guy’s range is wider than the average UTG range of an unknown in a WCOOP event. As for CO, he may not have been thinking quite so deeply, but that’s OK. He probably shoves any Ax he wants to play pre-flop.

But I digress. I got up a big stack and then blew a good chunk of it off to fellow Poker Savvy Plus instructor Siola with a questionable play:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 800/1600 Blinds 200 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t60440)
Hero (SB) (t132402)
BB (t65313)
UTG (t50744)
UTG+1 (t15300)
MP1 (t29189)
MP2 (t104493)
MP3 (t42716)
CO (t14914)

Hero’s M: 31.52

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9, Q
3 folds, MP2 bets t3200, 3 folds, Hero raises to t9999, 1 fold, MP2 calls t6799

Flop: (t23398) 3, 3, 7 (2 players)
Hero bets t17777, MP2 calls t17777

Turn: (t58952) K (2 players)
Hero checks, MP2 checks

River: (t58952) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets t44444, MP2 raises to t76517 (All-In), Hero folds

Total pot: t147840

Results:
MP2 didn’t show
Outcome: MP2 won t147840

For one thing, it was a soft table, so I shouldn’t be looking to play pots out of position against the deepest and best of my opponents. For another, if I’m going to do it, I ought to choose a hand with better post-flop playability. So I don’t pre-flop very much.

I’m actually fine with how the rest of it went down, though. If Sam had snapped me off with 66 or something I’d feel shitty about it, but with this line I feel like he had to have AK at worst. That’s obviously way at the top of his range on this board, so there’s no shame in losing to that.

So… I’m doing that now. In your opinion, what makes for a good poker video? Do you learn more from hand examples, power points, theory discussions, watching a full session, etc.? What do you want to see more of? What feels like a waste of time? What makes you turn off a video without finishing it? I’m interested in any and all comments, criticism, and advice. Thanks!

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 162 Tournament, 1500/3000 Blinds 375 Ante (6 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) (t64393)
UTG (t286807)
MP (t283047)
CO (t165436)
Button (t59865)
SB (t164471)

Hero’s M: 9.54

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8, 9
1 fold, MP bets t6600, CO calls t6600, 2 folds, Hero calls t3600

Flop: (t23550) 7, 5, 6 (3 players)
Hero checks, MP bets t10990, CO calls t10990, Hero raises to t57418 (All-In), MP raises to t276072 (All-In), CO calls t147471 (All-In)

Turn: (t397890) J (3 players, 3 all-in)

River: (t397890) 2 (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: t397890

Results:
Hero had 8, 9 (straight, nine high).
MP had 8, A (high card, Ace).
CO had 5, 5 (three of a kind, fives).
Outcome: Hero won t195804, CO won t202086

The guy who called with A8 wasn’t a bad player, either- and he snap called it. I’m surprised 55 didn’t raise the flop, but it certainly worked out well for me, since I don’t imagine I get MP’s stack if that happens. This was at the final two tables. I won a coin-flip or two and cold-decked a guy KK vs. AQ when we were down to 4. Oooh here’s a good one though that I played vs. the same guy:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 162 Tournament, 6000/12000 Blinds 1500 Ante (5 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t281553)
Hero (BB) (t355931)
UTG (t332138)
MP (t1275747)
Button (t586631)

Hero’s M: 13.96

Preflop: Hero is BB with 3, 4
2 folds, Button bets t24000, 1 fold, Hero calls t12000

Flop: (t61500) 2, A, Q (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets t28799, Hero raises to t67890, Button calls t39091

Turn: (t197280) A (2 players)
Hero bets t77777, 1 fold

Total pot: t197280

Results:
Hero didn’t show 3, 4.
Outcome: Hero won t197280

The turn A is a great card to take him cheaply off of his floats. It greatly reduces the number of A’s in his range, and it makes sense that I could bet small with the hand I’m representing.

I ended up losing a big coin flip 99 < AKs, but not a lot I could do about that.

I also did pretty well in the $500 heads up FTOPS, finishing 9th out of 1024, nearly as well as I did last FTOPS, when I took 8th. I’m not thrilled with my bust-out hand:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 40/80 Blinds (2 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) (t1940)
BB (t4060)

Hero’s M: 16.17

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10, A
Hero bets t160, BB raises to t405, Hero raises to t1940 (All-In), BB calls t1535

Flop: (t3880) 3, 2, K (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t3880) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t3880) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t3880

Results:
Hero had 10, A (one pair, Queens).
BB had J, J (two pair, Queens and Jacks).
Outcome: BB won t3880

Yeah, on the one hand, I’ve got 25 BB’s against a guy with a 20% 3-bet. On the other hand, I was just thinking to myself that he wouldn’t be 3-betting light with these stack sizes. Oh well, it can’t be that bad.

If you aren’t yet a member, now’s a great time to sign up for a 7-day free trial!

Please be sure to let me know what you think of the videos.

Please let me know what you think!

The latest scandal to rock the online poker world is Nick “Stoxtrader” Grudzien’s admission that he has played under multiple screennames on both Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker. According to his post in the 2+2 thread on the subject:

In the last few days various allegations have been made that I have played on multiple accounts on FTP and Stars and that by doing so I have violated the terms and conditions of the sites and also cheated in ways including colluding. The relevant facts are:

(1) At no point have I ever colluded. This is a categorical denial without exceptions.
(2) I played on a single account on FTP and a single account on PokerStars for the previous four year period through January 2010. The only exception to this was when I made instructional videos.
(3) In January 2010 I created one new account on FTP and one new account on Stars. I played on these accounts for roughly one month and have not used them since. During that time these were the only accounts on which I played at these sites. I have not played poker since March 7th, and will not play again until I receive communication from a pokersite that I am able to do so.

Since I have admitted to breaking the TOS of stars and ftp I don’t plan on playing any poker until I receive communication from the pokersites that it is ok to do so, and at that time I can share the details of any information I recieve from them. FTP and pokerstars are aware of the allegations and I have encouraged them to do a full and thorough investigation to confirm that what I say is completely accurate. I would like to have the opportunity to continue to be a contributing member of both stoxpoker and 2+2, I ask for your patience while these matters are sorted out over the next few days.

As Grudzien’s post suggests, there are at least three issues here, which I’ll address separately.

I have little to say about the allegations of collusion. Smarter people than I agree that the evidence looks pretty damning, and should they prove true, I don’t think there’s any question that this would be unethical.

Is it ethical to maintain a separate account for the purpose of making instructional videos, either to avoid providing potential opponents with information that can be used against you or to ensure that people do not play differently against you because they know you are recording the session? I would argue no on both counts.

Both Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker forbid players to play on more than one account. Lee Jones, the former poker room manager at Poker Stars, once suggested that online poker would be better off if everyone played under a new screenname every session, insuring anonymity for everyone. Regardless of what you think of the one-account-per-player policy, though, it is currently the rule and must be followed. To do otherwise is to gain an unfair informational advantage over opponents who play by the rules. In the current online poker environment, players have a right to know who they’re playing against.

Loss of anonymity is to some extent the price you pay for the opportunity to earn money as a coach or instructor Grudzien could have simply obscured his screenname in post-production, as I used to do in my videos. While this doesn’t provide total anonymity, it solves the worst of the problem without harm to one’s actual opponents in the video. Moreover, Full Tilt Poker provides special “educational” tables where its affiliated Cardrunners pros are allowed to make videos pseudonymously, and all players there understand in advance that this is a possibility. Given Stoxpoker’s relationship with Cardrunners, this ought to have been an option available to Grudzien as well.

Even obscuring one’s screenname in an instructional video is not entirely beyond reproach, though, which is part of why I stopped doing it. Grudzien’s customers and students deserve full information about the person they are paying. I don’t consider the practice downright unethical, because ultimately students can choose not to hire Grudzien if he refuses to disclose his screenname and results, but even this requires that they at least be aware that plays under another account than the one they know from his videos.

In Grudzien’s case, the problem is particularly acute since it seems his primary account was actually a well-known ratholer (ie, a player who buys in for the minimum, plays almost exclusively pre-flop poker, and quits if he doubles up). Regardless of what you think about ratholing, students paying for poker instruction have a right to know that the person they are hiring engages in the practice, as this potentially limits his experience and authority regarding post-flop play.

Thus far, Grudzien has been cryptic about why he changed screennames in January:

There are online poker players who have used 2nd screenames for the purpose of deceiving others into giving them action, evading taxes, collusion, entering multiple times into the same tournament, ghosting, to obscure previous results and stats, to clear extra bonuses, to circumvent affiliate CPA or rakeback rules, to bypass the pokersites shortstack buy-in time limitation, to teamplay, to share action with others at the same table, to chip dump or otherwise engage in underhanded actions I do not know about. I have never done any of these things. Beyond that I cannot and will not comment on the screename issue, nor can I say why I cannot elaborate further other than to say that my reasons for that are serious and personal.

Contrary to the demands of the bloodthirsty mob, Grudzien does have a right to privacy and does not have to out his “serious and personal” situation to anyone. Even without knowing the situation, however, I feel comfortable stating unequivocally that changing screennames is not an ethical response.

Regardless of Grudzien’s intentions, playing under a new account provides him with an unfair advantage over his opponents. He knows who we are and have data on their play, but we do not know who he is. I say “we” because, if Nick really is 40putts/bulltf0rdtuff on FTP and Knockstiff/gr3atvlewbr0 on Stars, as is widely believed, then I myself had a good deal of experience with all of these accounts. In fact, there’s some unintentional in “Dominating Short Stacks”, the most recent video I’ve published on Poker Savvy Plus, in which I play against a table full of short stackers on Poker Stars. One of the players was gr3atvlewbr0, who at the time was unknown to me.

At one point, I say, “bballjim and greatview, to the best of my knowledge, are not professional short stackers…. [T]hey very well might be recreational players”. I go on to contrast them with Littlezen and hibachi41, who are professional short stackers, and explain what I expect to be the differences between them. I specifically talk about adjusting my open raise sizing to gr3atvlewbr0 in a way that I wouldn’t against a professional short stacker because I don’t expect him to be able to exploit it as well. I talk through a hand where I lead the flop instead of going for a check-raise because I don’t expect a recreational player to continuation bet a missed flop as often as a professional would.

All of this indicates the kind of informational disadvantage I was at against this new account, while Grudzien had access to all the data and experience he had on my foucault82 account, the only screenname I’ve ever used on Poker Stars. No matter how serious the mysterious problem facing Grudzien may have been, he has no right to a solution that comes at the expense of myself and everyone else who played regularly with his old accounts.

500/1000/100, I open complete 73o in the SB, Lauren checks.

Flop Ks Js Jc, I check planning to call a bet and bluff river. She checks behind.

Turn 7c, I check, she bets 3000, I call.

River 9d, we check, I show my hand, and it’s good. Owen comments on my playing 73o and predicts that I won’t be giving a lot of walks.

I open raise to 2400 with Ad 2d on the Button, Owen calls on the BB.

Flop Kd 9d 5c. He checks, I bet 3300, he calls.

Turn 8d, he bets into me 6400. This is close, but in retrospect I think a big raise to 24K or so is best (I have about 50K behind). He’s never getting away from any flush and may stack off with two-pair or worse putting me on a semi-bluff. However, I called.

River 2d, he check-folds for 9000 and tells me he had two-pair.

Last hand before table breaks, I open raise to 2600 with 33 in MP, prematurely balding Middle Easternish guy calls in BB.

Flop Ad Qd Qh. He bets 4000, I call. I put him on a Q or a bluff, possible with a flush draw. 33 is one of the worst hands to bluff catch with, but I think he’s going to play very predictably on the turn and I may even be able to bluff him off of a turned or rivered pair, so I call.

Turn 3d. He bets 9000, I call.

River blank, he check-calls 10K and looks sick when I show my turned full house. He told me he had a Q, which I’m sure is true.

This one I think I bungled badly. Against a guy who’s capable of hand-reading, bluffing, and thin value betting, I think a call is OK. Against a random live player, I should probably shove turn. He’s rarely bluffing, never folding a flush, and probably not folding trips. Failing that, I should bet bigger on the river, since he’s always either check-folding or check-calling with a Q. Probably 15-17K is best.

My new table was a lot tougher, with Andrew Robl, Paul Wasicka, and a few other solid players whom I didn’t recognize by name. The table also featured wild-haired backgammon legend Paul Magriel. I actually played with Paul on Day 1 of the PCA, and though I don’t think he remembered me, we had a little interaction there. I was wearing my Foucault t-shirt, and the dealer asked who the man on my shirt was.Since most people don’t know who he is anyway, I usually answer that question with “a writer I like”, unless I’m in a book store or coffee shop or something like that.

Paul, however, asked, “Which writer?”

“Michel Foucault.”

“I thought that was Foucault. I don’t much care for him myself.”

Looking Paul up and down, I answered, “Yeah, I figured if anyone at the table would know who Foucault was, it would be you.”

Anyway, at 600/1200/100, Paul opened in MP2 to 3400. He had less than 25K behind, so I made it 8200 to go with QQ on the Button. He hemmed and hawed and called. The flop came 9d 8d 3d, and he open shoved his last 15K or so. I had the Qd, but even without it, this would be an easy call. He showed me 98s for a flopped two pair, but with an overpair and a flush draw, I was still a slight favorite. I didn’t get there, though, and that one hurt me.

A while later, Paul open limped in MP1, and a decent guy who was almost certainly an online tournament pro raised to 3700 with 26K behind. I woke up with JJ and shoved in 38K or so, only to get called by QQ.

Next hand, the UTG player raised, and I was forced to fold whatever garbage I had. Hand after that, I was in MP1 and, without looking at the clock, folded T4o. Then, I saw there were only 2 minutes left in the level, and I realized I should have shoved any 2 before the blinds went up and cut even further into my fold equity. It turns out I would have been called by KQ and lost, but that’s not the point.

I spent 15 minutes on break, came back to 800/1600/200 blinds, and shoved in 7700 with Jc7c UTG+1 on the first hand. The guy on my left called, and it folded to Magriel who put the guy all-in for about 40K. After long deliberation, the first caller folded, and Paul showed Kc 2c. Pretty great spot for me, but the flop gave me nothing to work with, and a K on the turn sealed my fate.

I played some hands well, but failed to get full value from my monsters on more than one occasion. Overall, though, I just don’t think this one was mine to win. I ran good in medium pots but bad in big pots, and that’s just not the way to do it.

On the plus side, I got back to my room in time to late register for the $500 FTOPS main event, which I’m currently playing. Thanks to everyone who followed along and wished me well.

Two other moderately interesting hands:

50/100, I open to 300 with AA64, solid online guy on the button calls, decent slightly passive European lady calls on BB. Flop Q95r, she checks, I bet 600, Button calls, she check-raises pot, I have a pretty standard fold.

100/200, four limpers, I check Q246 in the BB. Flop Kh Qh 2c (I have no hearts). Checks around.

Turn Kh Qh 2c 7d. I check, first limper checks, same lady from before bets 500, gets one fold. I have about 3K in my stack and fold, but I am not so sure this was good. I think check-raising probably gets me a fold maybe 20-25% of the time, and while I’m not ahead of her calling range, it’s very difficult for her to be ahead of me for both high and low.

Overall, playing live PLO8 wasn’t nearly as fun as I was hoping. I think this was mostly because I was card dead all tournament and the structure sucked.

100/200, aggressive and very good guy raises to 450 UTG, I call next to act with Ac7c, same young kid from before calls in BB. Flop 7h 4h 2c. Checks to me, I bet 400, kid calls, original raiser folds. Turn 9c, kid checks, I bet 1100, he raises to 3500 with about 10K behind. After considerable thought, I call. river 9d, he bets 3500 pretty quickly, I call, he shows something random like Qd6d.

Sometime after this hand, the kid asks me what my screenname is online. “I don’t play online” I tell him straight-faced while wearing a Poker Stars cap and sweater.

He doesn’t get the joke and insists, “No no I recognize your voice, from a training video.” I can’t help but smile at being recognized. “Yeah, I’m Foucault82.”

“Oh yeah, from Poker Savvy!” I believe this is the first time I’ve been “recognized” in real life for the celebrity that I am.

Anyway, 100/200, the kid raises to 500 on his button, good aggro guy calls in SB. I have AKo in the BB and insist on counting kid’s stack precisely as he shouts random numbers, waves his hands back in forth in front of his chips, and generally behaves immaturely. Looks like he has a little over 6K behind. I squeeze to 1675, he shoves, SB folds, and of course I call. Kid shows A5, so I don’t know if he thought he had fold equity or if he was value shoving, but damned if he didn’t flop trip 5’s. “Don’t go telling people I taught you that,” I caution him as he drags the pot.

150/300/25, new, seemingly pretty decent young guy at table opens for 800 in CO, good aggro guy from before raises to 2200 (second time he’s done this), I count my stack and eventually cold shove for about 15K with QcJc. He snap-calls AK and I lose the flip. To be honest, as aggressive as he was, the dude really didn’t 3-bet very often at all. I think his range is pretty polarized there and he’s not folding many if any of his value hands just because I’m cold shoving. Stuff like AQ that he might lay down he’s probably not 3-betting.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all enjoyed yourselves responsibly last night (and last year, for that matter), and that you are striding confidently forward into a new year.

Yesterday, I revisited my 2009 poker resolutions. Now, it’s time to make some new resolutions and set some new goals for 2010.

Resolution One: Play NLHE Cash Games

Particularly in the big games, virtually everyone is good and getting better. It’s not enough to be better than they are at the start of the year; if they keep improving and I stagnate, then they’ll be owning me by year’s end. So this year my focus will be on putting in hours at and away from the table.

Goal 1: Average 15 Hours/Week Playing My “Regular” Games

If I wanted a job, I’d get one. I want to have plenty of time for other things that are important to me: friends, family, travel, volunteer work. Then again, most of those things require (or at least benefit from) money, too.

I’ve found that 15 hours/week enables me to earn a pretty healthy income, far more than I could make at any real job I could get, without impeding too much on my lifestyle.

I consider my regular games to be anywhere from 2/4 NL to 50/100 NL as well as big tournaments like the Sunday Majors, the FTOPS, and the WCOOP; time spent playing any of these will count towards my goal.

Goal 2: Earn $X in NLHE Cash Games

It’s very tough to predict or control what I will earn playing tournaments. With cash games, though, it’s mostly a question of game selection and putting in hours. It’s not something I’m going to announce publicly, but I am going to set a target, and I am going to put in extra hours towards the end of year if I’m on pace to come up short.

Goal 3: Earn Supernova status on PokerStars

I gave up on this goal last year, largely because Stars doesn’t have deep stack or ante tables. I don’t want to sit in bad games just to get VPPs.Poker Stars is continuing to sweeten the deal, though. In addition to the cash bonuses that can be purchased with FPPs, they’re now offering up to $1000 in bonuses just for earning VPPs.

My plan for this is to table select as usual in the beginning of each month, and then assess my progress towards the end of each month. If I’m on pace to come up short, I’m going to put in extra hours above and beyond my weekly goal just grinding 9 tables of $1/2 NLHE (or smaller) until I hit my VPP target for the month. Hopefully this is something I can do relatively stress-free, just an hour or two at a time, when I’m not in the mood to put in a proper session in higher stakes games. To be honest, my hourly rate should still be quite good multi-tabling SSNL, so hopefully this will incentivize me to make a little money in what would otherwise be downtime.

Resolution Two: Diversify My Income Streams

This has been a long-term goal of mine, and I feel like it’s well underway now. Not only is it nice having some guarantee, variance-free income, but it’s a fun and rewarding break from grinding to coach aspiring MSNL players, write for Two Plus Two Magazine, or make videos for Poker Savvy Plus. It even helps me to cultivate and demonstrate other skills, like writing, teaching, and marketing, that would prove useful should I ever decide to seek proper employment.

Goal 4: Monetize This Blog

I know I keep saying it, but sooner or later I really am going to look into making money a little more directly from this blog. I feel like it’s right on the cusp of being pretty profitable. That doesn’t have to mean ads, though it might. Maybe I’ll…

Goal 5: Write a Book

I’ve talked about this before, but this is the first time it’s ever been an explicit goal. I’ve already got some downtime sketched out in the next few months to work on this and have been kicking around some ideas in my head. Rather than trying to write one big, expensive e-book as a lot of people have done, I’m thinking of doing a series of smaller, modular works that could be purchased separately or as a set. Those of you who read this blog regularly are going to be a big chunk of the target audience, so keep an eye out for posts in the next few weeks soliciting your input about what you’d like to see in a poker book authored by yours truly.

Goal 6: Average One Blog Post Per Day

I know it’s been a little quiet on here of late. Part of that is the holidays, and part of it is just laziness. I want to get back to posting once a day. There will probably be more non-poker content, and not all of the poker stuff will be equally in-depth, but overall you can expect to see more and better content here.

The other part of the problem is that fairly often during the week, I’m staying somewhere where I don’t have a reliable internet connection. I’m pretty sure it’s possible for me to write stuff in advance and schedule it to post on a particular day, though, so that’s really not an excuse.

Goal 7: Average Five Hours of Coaching Per Week

Coaching was extremely fun and rewarding for me last year. So far, except for my group seminars, I haven’t done much to market myself as a coach or actively solicit students. I’ve mostly just worked with students as they’ve come to me, and so so far that’s kept me just about as busy as I’d like to be with coaching. I want to ramp it up a bit this year by setting a monthly goal and actively soliciting students if necessary to ensure that I’ve got a regular stream of students.

By the way, if you’re interested, check out my poker coaching information.

Resolution Three: Improve My NLHE Skills

There are so many good reasons to make an active effort to improve my NLHE. In addition to the obvious benefit of getting better and winning more money, studying can give me new material for blog posts and book reviews, introduce me to new coaching and video producing techniques, help me to monetize what would otherwise be downtime, restore my focus and confidence during a downswing, and help me keep up with what my opponents may be learning and trying at the tables.

Goal 7: Average an Hour a Day of Dedicated Studying and Improvement

I’m going to be very broad about what this can include: reading books, watching videos, reviewing hands in Hold ‘Em Manager, talking poker with a friend, and even blogging (when it’s related to reviewing my play).

I may even hire a coach. It’s funny: many of my students expressed some concern about the cost of coaching when we first discussed working together. After a few hours with me, though, these same students have always told me that coaching was far more valuable than they expected and that in retrospect they considered it a very good investment.

Yet, cheapstake that I am, I still balk at paying hundreds of dollars an hour for a high-stakes coach. I probably ought to just suck it up and purchase a few hours. To be fair, though, I do charge less than most comparable coaches. Plus, I don’t have the option of hiring someone who coaches as well as I do :-).

Goal 8: Use Hold ‘Em Manager

I switched from Poker Tracker to Hold ‘Em Manager last year. PT2 is great, but HEM is just better. For the last part of the year, I was playing without it on my laptop. It does get in my way sometimes, but I’d rather learn how to work with it than insist on playing without it.

Goal 9: Finish the Year with a 4BB/100 Win-Rate at 5/10 NL and/or Higher

Same goal as last year, since I didn’t achieve it but still think it’s very viable. It might be cheating a little, but I’m going to allow myself to count my results from bigger games towards this goal or not depending on whether I do better in them than I do in 5/10 (this was the cast last year). Basically, if I am at 4 BB/100 over a big sample at 5/10, then I don’t care how I’m doing in bigger games. If I’m not doing quite that well at 5/10 but am at 4 BB/100 if I also count bigger games, then that’s certainly a fine result as well.

Goal 10: Play 50,000 Hands of Heads Up NLHE at 5/10 and Higher

Last year, my win rate at heads up was twice what it was at ring games. Plus, it’s a great way to improve poker skills in general, and at stakes above 10/20, it’s often the only way to get action.

The only problem is that I can’t play as many tables at once, so my hourly rate isn’t necessarily better, plus it’s tough to get action from people I actually want to play. Unlike with my other goals, I don’t want to resort to playing smaller stakes just to hit this goal. I will try to be more diligent about starting tables and maybe even playing some people against whom I don’t necessarily have an edge, since part of the point here is to get better.

What About You?

How did 2009 treat you? What are your goals, poker or otherwise, for 2010?

The field featured 201 players, including most of the best in the world, and the final table definitely represented that. Dani had to tangle with the likes of Ted Forrest, Greg Raymer, Justin Bonomo, Alec Torelli, and former Poker Savvy pro Isaac Haxton, who finished second to eventual winner Vitaly Lunkin.

Congratulations Dani!

Then again, playing against a great player can be a fun challenge that forces you to step up your own game. At least that’s how it started out:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $10.00 BB (2 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) ($2305.50)
Button ($5576)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8, 8
Button bets $30, Hero calls $20

Flop: ($60) J, 9, Q (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

Turn: ($60) K (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

River: ($60) 10 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $40, Hero raises to $120, 1 fold

Total pot: $140 | Rake: $0.50

Results:
Hero didn’t show 8, 8 (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won $139.50

In general, I’ve found that people don’t bluff nearly as often as they should when there is four or five to a straight on the board. The thing is that even when you are called, you usually chop the pot, so it’s a very low-risk bluff. Still, I get shown a (better) straight way too often when I do look people up.

Ansky, of course, is an exception. I think that he will, appropriately, bet 100% of his range when I check it to him here. Further, I think he probably will not give me credit for being able to check-raise bluff in this kind of random spot.

This next hand is the one I’m most proud of. Ansky is the SB. The key to this hand is that I’ve seen Ansky cold call three-bets from out of the blinds with medium pocket pairs, so his range here is wider than you might think:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($2000)
Button ($637)
SB ($2005)
BB ($2391)
Hero (UTG) ($2590)
MP ($2000)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with J, A
Hero bets $20, MP raises to $70, 2 folds, SB calls $65, 1 fold, Hero raises to $290, MP calls $220, SB calls $220

Flop: ($880) K, 10, 8 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $444, 1 fold, SB calls $444

Turn: ($1768) K (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($1768) 2 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1856 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: $1768 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero didn’t show J, A (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won $1765

To the extent that there’s a golden opportunity for a 4-bet squeeze play, this is pretty close to it. Both Villains have wide-ish ranges, and the cold call will probably scare the original 3-better. Plus, with stacks as deep as they are, I still have room to get creative post-flop.

The other neat thing about this hand is the turn check. I was planning on shoving a lot of turns, but this was a pretty awful one. Obviously it’s much harder to represent the K when another one comes.

It’s very unlikely, though, that Ansky checks the top of his range to me on the river. It looks like I’m either giving up on a bluff or trying to check down a modest hand, so if he’s got a big hand, I expect him to shove the river.

Having excluded the top of his range, I have to wonder how many of his “cheap showdown” hands call a river shove. Given my above assumptions, my shove is going to look pretty strong. He may think that if I needed to bluff, I would have done it on the turn, and that if I have showdown value, I would often opt just to check it down. Thus, I’m counting on my hand looking like a monster to him.

Of course, just as I am feeling pretty proud of myself, he goes and does this:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($1776)
BB ($2766)
UTG ($1253)
MP ($2262.25)
Hero (CO) ($2463)
Button ($6596)

Preflop: Hero is CO with K, 9
2 folds, Hero bets $35, Button calls $35, 2 folds

Flop: ($85) J, 2, 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $66, Button calls $66

Turn: ($217) K (2 players)
Hero bets $144, Button calls $144

River: ($505) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $388, Button raises to $6351 (All-In), Hero calls $1830 (All-In)

Total pot: $4941 | Rake: $3

Results:
Button had 9, A (flush, Ace high).
Hero had K, 9 (one pair, Kings).
Outcome: Button won $4938

Obviously he backed into an unlikely monster here, making it a great spot for an overbet shove on the river. I generally don’t beat myself up over paying off the very top of a guy’s range, but here it’s hard for me to imagine him showing up without the goods. If he wants to bluff, there’s really no reason for him to overbet the pot. A pot-sized or smaller raise would entail less risk and potentially represent a wider range, since it could more plausibly represent thin value from something like a set. But gah, who knows. This is why it sucks having good players on your left…

When you talk about approaches to poker, there are two extremes. At one end you’ll find players who are guided almost entirely by instinct and don’t spend a lot of time articulating their processes. At the other end you’ll find players like Andrew ‘Foucault’ Brokos, who spend so much time articulating their process that one wonders – when do they actually find time to play? All kidding aside, Brokos is an excellent player with a focus on mid stakes no limit cash and some interesting insights into what it takes to make both a good poker player and industry alike.

Suppose that when your opponent bets, you think there is a 30% chance that he has a hand strong enough to continue and a 70% chance that his hand is too weak to stand a raise. If you raise his bet, you will win the pot 70% of the time and lose the amount of your bluff 30% of the time. As long as you choose an appropriate raise size, that’s a very profitable proposition for you.If your opponent will play predictably on the turn, though, and many will, then it may be even more profitable just to call his bet and see what he does on the turn. The 70% of the time that he does not have anything, he will check, and you can now wager the same amount that you would have with a raise, or maybe even a little less, but steal the pot 100% of the time. The 30% of the time that he does have a hand, he’ll bet again and you can fold, saving yourself the amount that a bluff-raise would have cost you.

I’m also featured in Kristy Arnett’s new Run It Twice series on Cardplayer:

People want to be able to play a lot of hands from late position, which makes sense because that’s where you make most of your money. If you are getting three-bet a whole lot from the blinds, you have to fold some of the weaker hands that you are raising with, so some people have started making these small raises so that they can call more three-bets preflop and also lose less money if they fold when they get three-bet. It’s an adaptation some people have made to enable themselves to play more hands from late position.

This is my bread and butter game, and even if I don’t do anything to improve, just maintaining my current winrate and putting in hours will be very valuable to me. Of course I do want to get better, but my general focus will be on playing rather than doing stuff to improve (posting hands, watching instructional videos, etc.).

Also, I’m not going to worry too much about non-NLHE games. I tried to do it last year, but it didn’t prove too productive. I’ll play/study them when I feel like it, but it’s not going to be a priority. I’m confident in my ability to pick them up quickly should that become necessary/desirable and I choose to devote all my time to it, such that I don’t think I need to prioritize working on them now.

Goal 1: Earn $X in NLHE Cash Games

It’s very tough to predict or control what you earn playing tournaments. With cash games, though, it’s mostly a question of game selection and putting in hours. My goal for 2009 is to earn in NLHE cash games what I made playing any form of poker in 2008, so that anything from tournaments is just a perk. Hopefully this will help me to keep my focus even if I do make a big tournament score, since that won’t count towards the goal.

Goal 2: Earn Supernova status on PokerStars

This shouldn’t be tough, and I’m already off to a good start. Basically I need to earn 100,000 VPP’s (PokerStars’ frequent player reward) over the course of the year. Having earned 3200 already, I’m on course to do this by September.

Last year, I played on Full Tilt almost exclusively because they have rakeback. My understanding is that the Stars VPP program is actually worth more if you devote the time to getting into the top tiers of it, though. Plus bigger games seem to go more frequently and are maybe a little softer.

There are a couple of drawbacks, though. For one thing, I have way more money on FTP than on Stars and it’s not that easy to reload. At the moment I’m mostly grinding up my balance playing 5/10 full ring games, and that’s going OK, so hopefully this won’t be a barrier. But I’ve already passed on a few potentially good 25/50 games for lack of funds.

Also, Stars doesn’t have Deep tables, which are getting really popular on FTP. They do have some tables with a 50BB minimum buy-in, which helps with the short-stacking problem, but I really like playing deep. There are a lot of regulars who can handle a 100BB stack very well but make mistakes playing 200BB deep. Since the bigger games are comprised mostly of regulars, that makes a big difference.

Still, I don’t think Supernova status will be tough to get, so I’m going to go for it. The next level, Supernova Elite, require 10 times as many VPP’s, though, and I don’t think I have any prayer for that.

Resolution Two: Diversify My Income Streams

I laid the foundation for this last year, but I really haven’t capitalized on it yet. Now that I’m starting to get a higher profile in the poker world, I think there are ways for me both to generate passive income and to combine poker with some of my other interests, such as writing and teaching.

Goal 3: Monetize This Blog

I was surprised by how much I made off of blog ads last year with virtually no effort. In general do find internet ads to be tacky and intrusive, but in this case I am giving away a lot of very valuable information at no cost to you, so I hope my dear readers will understand if there are a few ads on the page. I’ll try to keep it minimally intrusive, and the plus side for you will likely be a nicer layout and better content. Expect to see a new look later this month.

Goal 4: Get Back Into Coaching

I’m not going to set an hourly goal for this because I don’t want to force it, but I think I ought to do some more coaching. With the right students, it is in fact very enjoyable and rewarding. Plus, Poker Savvy tells me I can offer my students a free three-month subscription, which hopefully will sweeten the value of the package without costing me any more time. I may also consider doing group sessions that lower the costs for any individual person while helping to get me an hourly rate comparable to that of actually playing poker. Expect to see more information about this soon.

Goal 5: Market My Writing

I’m still just doing the easy stuff, writing for the occasional people who approach me. I think I want to get my name out there a little bit more and publish in some more high-profile ways. I don’t know about writing my own book, but I’m in discussions with a well-known player now about contributing a chapter to a book he’s doing.

Resolution Three: Improve My NLHE Skills

This is a lower priority than just putting in hours. Then again, practice is the single best way to improve, so I want to do what I can to maximize the learning value of my time at the tables.

Goal 6: Use Poker Tracker More Effectively

I barely use Poker Tracker for anything beyond record keeping, and I know I’m only getting like 10% of its value. I often don’t even use the HUD because it distracts me when I’m playing a lot of tables. But I want to be able to do at least some basic evaluation of my play to try to identify some leaks, such as I found with suited connectors in one of my year-end posts. Plus I want to put together a HUD layout that is truly useful for me.

Goal 7: Finish the Year with a 4BB/100 Win-Rate at 5/10 NL.

This is somewhat beyond my control because I won’t play a large enough sample size (there are good players who have had 100K hand break-even streaks), but if I can maintain this win-rate, which I think is about twice what my “true” rate is now, I’ll be in great shape.

Goal 8: Play 50,000 Hands of Heads Up NLHE

If I’m not going to do PLO, heads up is probably the next best game for me to get better at. At stakes above 10/20, it’s often the only way to get action, and that’s even more true the higher you get. Not to mention that thinking through heads up situations makes you better at playing marginal hands in general. Maybe I’ll read and review Moshman’s new book as well….

Resolution 3: Diversify My Income Streams

I’m happy with how this turned out. I got into coaching, joined Poker Savvy Plus, and increased my income from poker writing (slightly).

Goal 7: Start making money on the blog/website. (Achieved)

I’m not making money, but at least I’m not losing it. I made about $15 off of the ads on the blog- not the old Google ads but the Amazon affiliate links on my poker book reviews. Obviously that’s not much but it was enough to cover the cost of hosting the blog, which was the goal. It makes me realize that if I were to put some effort into it, my site could be worth some money. Also the blog has generated some interest for my coaching and probably contributed to my getting hired by Poker Savvy.

Goal 8: Start coaching. (Achieved)

I dove into this pretty aggressively at the beginning of the year but didn’t find it as satisfying as I expected. It’s tricky to find a price that’s fair to the student but also worth my time relative to playing poker. To my knowledge, the students I have had have all increased their profitability and considered their lessons worthwhile. Still, the price remains a sticking point for a lot of potential students, which is understandable.

The thing is that for me to block off an hour of my time tends to be pretty disruptive of my schedule. Like if I have a four hour block when I might otherwise play poker, but a student wants a session right in the middle of that block, then it kind of screws the whole four hours. I get out of the zone and lose a lot of time in transition if I try to play for an hour, then stop and coach for an hour, then play for two more hours.

I do enjoy the personal interaction of coaching and I like seeing my students improve their confidence and their games. I’ll just need to keep working on the right formula. One thing that I think will help is that Poker Savvy is now allowing me to offer free subscriptions for my students. That will both increase the value of the package for them and give them access to a lot of my own thoughts on poker theory, freeing up their paid time to focus exclusively on their application of key concepts.

Goal 9: Affiliate myself with an instructional website. (Achieved)

Early this year, I did some guest videos for Poker Savvy Plus. Those proved popular, and I met with the entire PSP team while in Las Vegas for the WSOP. Starting in August, I became a “Core Pro” and now produce four instructional videos per month for them. I’ve done series on Flop, Turn, and River Fundamentals, on some of my deepest tournament runs, and am now in the midst of one on Full Ring play and one joint tournament video with Tony “Bond18” Dunst.

My familiarity with education and teachers has definitely been an asset. While I’m far from the best player on the PSP staff, my videos have been among the most popular- probably because of my ability to structure and explain important concepts.

Goal 10: Get a book deal. (Failed)

Meh. I didn’t really try at this, and I’m not at all sure I want to. The book market is saturated and poker’s popularity is already on the decline with the general public. I don’t think the kind of book I’d want to write would have broad appeal, and besides names seem to sell poker books a lot better than quality content. It’s just a ton of work for surely less monetary reward than actually playing poker and less “sense of accomplishment” reward than my work with the Boston Debate League.

I do appreciate all the people who have encouraged me to write a book, though. An ego boost is always welcome!

That’s the last of the resolutions. Tomorrow I’ll post some year-end miscellany: more stats, biggest pots won and lost, etc. Then on Monday I’ll have my resolutions for 2009. Hope the new year is treating everyone well so far- it certainly is me!

I must admit, though, that spending five hours a day, five days a week in charge of a bunch of teenagers is more than a little exhausting. Even though we had a great group that was for the most part eager to learn about debate and easy to get along with, it was still a lot of work and pretty draining. I was in no mood to play poker at the end of a day, that’s for sure.

Here’s me taking notes on the board during a short debate two of our students had about the morality of eating meat.

Poker-wise, I ended the month almost exactly dead even after rakeback. I guess that’s not too bad given that my several forays into 25-50 resulted in several bad beats to the tune of five figures. I did make more of an effort to learn PLO, watching the PLO Leakfinder series on Cardrunners and the PLO guest series that Tom Chambers did for Poker Savvy Plus. I put in several sessions at 2/4, and even though I was a net loser, I feel like I am getting much better at reading hands and board textures.

The World Championship of Online Poker starts today, but I probably won’t begin playing in earnest until next week, so that’s when you can expect to see more regular posts. Sorry for the extended silence.

Dani’s playing 10/20 heads up no limit almost 250 BB deep. He 3-bets KJo from the BB and calls a small 4-bet. The flop comes 632r, and they check it through. Turn is an Ace, Dani checks, his opponent bets $400, Dani raises to $1000, the guy moves all in $4000, and Dani calls with King-high no draw. His opponent has J7, and Dani wins the pot.

What was he thinking? Visit his blog to find out.

It’s a great honor to be affiliated with Poker Savvy Plus, because as far as I’m concerned, this site is at the forefront of poker instruction.

I like that we are moving past the model of “watch me while I play poker and talk about whatever happens” and focusing on the targeted development of specific skills. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned a lot from the traditional “sweat” video, and now that I’ll be producing videos more regularly, you’ll see some of those from me as well. But I also have a background in teaching and working with teachers, and I know that there are much more effective ways of helping people learn. I’m committed to pushing the envelope when it comes to techniques and methods for teaching poker, and I like that Poker Savvy Plus is as well.

Remember, if you want to check out any of my videos, it’s free to sign up and you get a 7-day free trial.

Interview with Poker Stars

O By the Way Blog 1

O By the Way Blog 2

PokerNews Photos

Poker Savvy/Cardplayer Round Table

And honorable mention goes to the Hendon Mob, who reported that:

“Only five players — Andrew Brokos, Pat Dattilo, Marc Friedman, Vinod Jadav, and Stefan Mattsson — cashed in both the 2006 and 2007 Main Events. All were going for their third consecutive cash this year. However, only one player survived (and is guaranteed to cash). He is Stefan Mattsson, from Stockholm, Sweden – currently in 308th place).”

Really, 308th place? Sick run, Stefan. I’m really surprised there were only five of us who cashed in ’06 and ’07.

Also according to Hendon Mob, the record for consecutive cashes is held by Bo Sehlstedt, who cashed in 2004-2007 but failed to cash this year. C’mon, Stefan, we can take him.

I can’t claim to be a poker celebrity, but yesterday I got a taste of what that would be like. After waking early, going for a swim, having breakfast, and putting in some non-poker work at my computer, I made my first trip to the Rio. I wasn’t going to play but to meet up with Bill Ordine, a reporter from my hometown paper, the Baltimore Sun, who is working on an article on poker and philanthropy. He’d already interviewed Barry Greenstein, who’s known as “the Robin Hood of Poker” for donating over a million dollars in tournament winnings to a children’s charity, and Annie Duke, who organized a $5000 buy-in charity tournament called Ante Up for Africa to coincide with the WSOP.

My own story is a little different. I’ve donated only a little more than 5% of my poker winnings to the non-profit organization that I founded, the Boston Debate League (BDL). My real contribution is all of the time and work that I put into it. Poker is what enables me to do that. I average 20-25 hours of work per week for each, and I make enough playing poker that I can afford to put that kind of time into the BDL.

It’s great that Bill is doing this article, because poker sometimes gets a bad rap among the general public. People tend to believe, not entirely without reason, that poker encourages a cut-throat, every-man-for-himself mindset and that it rewards lying, treachery, and deceit. Hopefully an article in a major newspaper that focuses on the good that poker enables people to do will help to clean up that image.

Poker hasn’t just given me the financial freedom to do “good work”. It’s also taught me valuable skills that a liberal arts education did not. To paraphrase Ms. Duke, poker isn’t fundamentally a game of lying, it’s a game of pricing and negotiation. I do feel it’s given me some business sense that has proven useful in meetings with foundations, prospective donors, the Boston Public Schools, and other individuals and institutions with which the BDL works.

Largely, the interaction between my poker “work” and my urban debate work has been a one-way street. That is, poker gave me the skills and financial freedom to grow the Boston Debate League, but the latter didn’t do much for my poker game, except maybe making me feel less of a leech on society by gambling for a living.

Recently, however, that’s started to change. In addition to playing, I now make money by coaching poker as well. Sometimes this is with individual students who pay me by the hour, but I also work for a video training site called Poker Savvy Plus. They pay me to record videos of myself playing or talking about poker and then offer these videos on a subscription basis to people who want to improve their game. My experience teaching debate and working with professional teachers has definitely made me a more successful and popular poker coach.

Yesterday, I got to meet my co-workers at Poker Savvy for the first time (in most cases- there were a few I already knew). But first, I had about an hour to kill between my interview with Bill and my meet-up with Poker Savvy. So, I headed down to the Amazon Room, the convention center at the Rio Hotel & Casino where the WSOP is held. I was hoping I might see someone I knew, but the odds were slim. Actually, the odds were good that I’d see someone I knew but slim that I’d recognize them. Since I play poker almost exclusively online, I plenty of people by their screen names but have no clue what most of them look like.

As luck would have it, though, I was spotted by my friend Richard almost immediately. Richard goes by Shorty both because of his last name is and because he is immensely tall. He was just starting a 20-minute break from a tournament he was playing, so I accompanied him for a quick bite at the WSOP Poker Kitchen while he told me how things had been going for him so far in Las Vegas. Mostly he raved about how soft and juicy the side games were and asked what I was planning on playing.

I told him the truth, which is that I had exactly $10,000 in cash on me, which I needed to buy into the main event. My plan was to play $5/$10 or $10/$25 games, hope for the best, and then find a Bank of America (there are none on the Strip, so I’d have to take a cab there and back) to withdraw more if I didn’t win. Shorty told me that he was leaving town that night and would be happy to lend me some cash since he wouldn’t need it. We exchanged phone numbers so that we could meet up when he was finished playing that night, and then he got back to his tournament.

I wandered around for a bit longer and then headed up to the suite in the Rio that Cardplayer magazine had converted into a studio for the duration of the WSOP. This is where I’d be meeting everyone else from Poker Savvy to record a roundtable Q&A session where we discussed poker topics submitted by Cardplayer readers.

Since I arrived about fifteen minutes early, I had some time to hang out with the Cardplayer crew, including the main reporters/hosts for their internet content: Shawn Green and Lizzie Harrison. Those of you who follow the poker scene may know these two, and those of you who don’t probably won’t be surprised to learn that Lizzie is an attractive and buxom twenty-something. Her looks have earned her a bit of a cult following on internet poker forums, and I can assure you that she is at least twice as hot in real life. But she, Shawn, and the rest of the Cardplayer crew were also very down to earth and fun to shoot the breeze with.

After about twenty minutes, the other Poker Savvy people started to arrive: Justin “Jurollo” Rollo, Dani “Ansky” Stern, Isaac “Ike” Haxton, Chris “Tribefan” Rhodes, Tony “Bond18” Dunst, and some of the behind-the-scenes guys. We took our seats and waited for the star of the show, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, to join us during his break from the Ante Up for Poker tournament.

For those who don’t know, Mike is, to understate the matter, a character. Though he’s had tremendous success as a poker player, winning multiple WSOP bracelets and several six-figure prizes, he’s also lost a lot of money to compulsive gambling and spent some time in jail for possession of cocaine. He’s called “The Mouth” because he talks non-stop at the table, often berating his opponents’ play, singing his own praises, or just generally calling attention to himself.

Lately, he’s made some impressive gains in getting himself together. In the last year, he’s dropped over sixty pounds, motivated by a $100,000 prop bet to get from 241 lbs down to 179. Just recently, he won his third WSOP bracelet in the $5000 rebuy 2-7 single draw rebuy event.

So we are all sitting in front of the cameras and waiting for Mike when suddenly there is a loud thump on the door. Someone opens it, and The Mouth comes crashing into the suite like a stampeding rhinoceros. “You all wouldn’t believe how f—ing fast I f—ing ran to get up here,” he pants, nostrils flared. “Let’s do it! Let’s go! Let’s get this thing f—ing started!” he shouts, clapping his hands. He takes the last available seat, which is in the back.

I’m wondering if the most famous guy here shouldn’t be seated more prominently, but it turns out not to matter, because Mike makes himself the center of attention no matter what. He fields the first question enthusiastically and then interrupts whomever is speaking when he decides he has something to add. When he isn’t shouting over us, he is gesticulating wildly to the people off-camera that he has to go in a minute or that he would like a bottle of water. We pass it to him, and he consumes the entire thing in a single ten-second chug, then tosses it haphazardly aside.

I don’t imagine that much strategy content slipped past Mike’s antics, but the clip should at least be good for comedic value. It doesn’t appear to be up on Cardplayer’s website yet, but I’ll let you know when it is.

After the taping, we went out for drinks sans Mike. Truthfully, an afternoon with a bunch of internet poker players is not generally something I’d look forward to. Most are brash, self-absorbed, whiny, and otherwise annoying. But I must say that to a person, my co-pros at Poker Savvy were a great bunch. They are all very successful at poker and have a lot to brag about, but they don’t come across as stuck up or anything, and they have some good stories.

For the full-time professionals, the WSOP is a magical time of year. Groups of guys, from four to ten or more, rent palatial houses in Las Vegas and spend weeks playing poker and partying their asses off. I don’t think any of the best stories were intended for public consumption, but you can probably imagine the sort of debauchery that a bunch of guys in their early twenties with way too much money can get up to in Las Vegas. I’m only a few years older than most of them, but that whole lifestyle has never really been my scene. There are times when I feel little pangs of regret and a sense that I could be living a seriously crazy life, but for the most part it doesn’t appeal to me. I do love hearing the stories, though.

We left the bar around seven, and I got a ride back to the Rio. I’d had only one drink in anticipation of putting in some hours at the tables that night. As I was waiting for a seat to open up, I ran into Shorty again. He had just been eliminated from his tournament and was going to go pack his bags then bring me some cash before leaving for the airport.

About an hour later, I was seated in a tight but not particularly tough 10/25 game when I spotted Shorty wandering the cash game section. I stood up and waved to catch his attention, played one more hand, then walked away from the table for a minute to speak with him. “Here’s $7500,” he greeted me, handing me a roll of $100 bills. I pocketed it as he shared some intel on players at my table whom he’d played with in the last few days, then I wished him a good flight and returned to my game.

This really underscores the value of reputation in the poker community. I’ve known Shorty for about three years online, but we’ve met only two or three times in real life. Yet, just as a favor, he’s willing to lend me $7500 in cash on the understanding that I’ll send him a check when I get back to Boston. It’s just a reality of high stakes poker that people often need access to large sums of cash, and now to money on various online poker sites as well, and it’s infinitely easier to manage the logistics of moving this money among friends than to deal with the hassle and expense of wire transfers, getting to an off-Strip bank, or withdrawing from an ATM.

Poker friends can also help you raise money by staking you in a juicy game that’s beyond your bankroll. They reduce your risk by putting up some of the money you need. Then if you lose, they eat the loss, and if you win, they get a cut. In fact, I was up on the WSOP before I even got to Las Vegas as a result of buying 10% of a friend who has had a phenomenal run, making two final tables.

Of course there are scumbags who take advantage of people, borrow money they can’t or won’t pay back, and rip off their investors. But reputation spreads quickly, and these people can quickly be cut off from the world of poker financing. Because I have been an active and ethical member of the poker community for several years, I know many people who would lend me money in a pinch, stake me for nearly any tournament I wanted to play, or help me transfer funds between online poker sites. And there are plenty of people for whom I would do the same.

Some of the scenarios that Brokos goes over include how to play a strong hand like A-Q after missing the flop or hitting a flop that leaves your A-Q weak. He discusses what kinds of flops are perfect for continuation-bets (C-bets) and when it is better to check and see what develops.

The first one, I opened for $100 with AJo in the CO, and both blinds called. The flop came Jd 7d 4d, and unfortunately, I did not have the Ad. They checked to me, I bet $200, and the SB called. I hadn’t been in the table long, but I’d already seen him make one very loose call for a pretty big bet on the turn. He checked a 4c on the turn, I bet $500, and moved all in for $1600 total. I hadn’t realized he was that short, and while I didn’t feel great about my hand, I felt priced in. It was definitely borderline, though- I would have folded KJ. He flipped 77 and I was drawing to 2 outs, which I didn’t hit. Kind of a cooler, though I don’t think stacking off was mandatory. Maybe a smaller turn bet and folding to a raise would have been better.

The next one, I opened to $100 with 97s in MP3, the SB called, and the BB, a Finn who was new to the table, made it $410. He covered me, and I had well over $5000, so I called, again not realizing how short the other player in the pot was. The BTN shoved for $675 total, and thankfully the Finn just called, so I called as well. I was pretty shocked the Finn didn’t reraise there, because it was pretty obvious I didn’t have a monster. The flop came J98, he checked, and I opted to check behind. Scandinavians are known to be aggressive in weird spots, so I wanted to see what developed. The turn brought 5, giving me a double bellybuster. He checked again, so I bet $1100, and he folded. The river 6 gave me a straight and won me the pot to put me pretty much even on the night.

Simply e-mail a question or two that you would like asked during the video tomorrow. We’ll put the names of every person who submits a legitimate question into a random raffle, and if your name is chosen, you get the year-long membership completely free of charge.