After I made my previous post, I thought a lot about what a few respondents said about the lack of opportunity for smaller stakes players to receive high quality coaching due to the price barrier. Although Reid and I both brought up various points regarding why the status quo is in place and why it will not change, I still think it would be fun to mix it up for a little.

Over the next week or so, I have some spare time and am not planning on playing much poker. I was also admittedly inspired by the responses in my last blog post (I do read and consider what everyone says). So, for this very short period of time, to just throw a curve ball out there, I'm going to offer coaching for $200/hr. A few thoughts/comments:

-I don't have unlimited time and therefore cannot guarantee anything beyond a single two hour session per person interested (this is a very temporary thing after all). Let me know if you would want more though, and I will see how everything goes.
-This offer extends to all my current and former students as well, and they will get priority over those who I have never coached before. I'm sure you see why this is fair.
-Payment must be sent ahead of time.
-You can record the lesson to review for your own personal benefit.
-I may be a few minutes late for a lesson (I'm usually not and I usually say if I will). I may also have to reschedule the lesson and will try to give 24 hours of notice if this is the case.
The price is already as low as I can go, unless you are some extenuating circumstance (if you believe yourself to be let me know and I will make some decision).
-You will get 100% of my effort and it will be identical to lessons that I currently do.

Well, that's kind of it. PM me on here to get the ball rolling. Make sure you include what you are playing right now, what you are looking to get out of this, and when you will be available over the next week.

For those of you playing NL50-100, I may still have something for you up my sleeve. I will see how this goes and then make a decision.

Greg

EDIT: I got a ton of requests, and have vowed to give everyone a chance. It's going to take a couple of weeks because I don't have tons of spare time after a few more days, but rest assured everyone will get a chance. I will not be taking further requests after March 21. PM me again if 3 days have passed and I have not replied to you.

Recently, it seems as though there as been a decent push against coaching in the form of stuff like random posts on 2p2. The training sites are then burnt at the stake for not protecting players against coaches that may not develop on all of a student's dreams. Ironically, training sites do the most out of everything out there for coaching.

I'll use myself as an example. I've been making videos since late 2007, among the longest of anyone out there. If I had to guess, I would say that I have make more high stakes (5/10+) videos than anyone else online (I just counted -- there are 35 of those such videos on Leggo and I really, really, doubt someone has more). I've coached a laundry list of individuals and taken many of them up the chain from midstakes to highstakes. I get so much satisfaction from seeing someone work hard and improve. There has yet to be a student who has thought my coaching wasn't worth it -- I say this because I truly pride myself on providing a quality product. The one constant that I almost always hear from prospective students is: "I've seen your videos and I think you explain your thought process the best/among the best out of all the videos I've watched." Let's face it: coaching isn't about how well someone plays poker. That's a REQUIREMENT. The good news is you literally get to watch and determine if someone is good from their videos! (Luckily, I own everyone in my 5/10 videos, examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). I have no sympathy for anyone who jumps on a coach, knowing very little about him, and not being confident on his abilities to play poker. If you are unsure, watch their videos and speak to people. Ask them questions in their threads and see if you are getting the responses that will make you feel satisfied!

Once you determine that they have the ability to play winning poker when they choose to, you must now determine if they have the ability to teach winning poker. Many potentially coaches fail point a, but most fail point b. When I saw posts attacking training sites, I slapped my head and said, "Wow, well, training sites give prospective students the closest thing to a test drive of a coaching session there is in the poker world!"

I would say that if a coach makes good or great videos, that's generally enough to assume that you will have a great coaching experience. However, if you really need more certainty, just ask him to give a few references of past or present students. Ask them at what level they started, where they are now, what difference coaching has made, and if the whole thing was worth it. The last bit of clarification you are looking for here is a coach's ability to take someone else's game (which is most likely fundamentally different than his own), and evolve it along it's own path.

I made this post because I coach and I am damn proud of the effort I put into it. So, I think it's a joke when someone takes a torch and lights the fire in the form of a 2p2 thread saying something to the effect of "I know someone who had a bad coaching experience, so coaching in general is a scam."

So, the second part of my 5/10 series will go up on Thursday I believe. Although I think the first part was unique in all the great discussion generated from a few plays I chose to make (you should really read the thread HERE if you haven't yet), part two was more of the standard/"boring" me making plays that make you guys go ooh and ahh . So, definitely check out part two when it comes out.


In other news, Danielle and I arrived in sunny Mexico yesterday for a vacation! She had some time off from school, and we have both been working a lot, so we decided to take a relaxing vacation. We were able to get a good rate at the Excellence Club resort at Playa Mujeres, about 25 miles north of the Cancun airport. This is going to be the first trip I've taken in a while where I won't have to worry about putting in work hours, so it'll be really fun to just get away for the 5 nights that we are staying.

So far, the resort perfect and seems to focus on the things that Danielle and I really enjoy (qualtiy facilities, cleanliness, great food, activities, variety, relaxation, pampering ). I'll get some pictures up when I get back. Last night, we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant (they have five restaurants exclusively open for dinner so we are going to try them each once -- eight restaurants total), and they gave us the most amazing dinner coffee in the history of the world. They brought a pushable stove top out, and the chef set some brandy on fire in the cups. After heating up some other ingredients in our glasses, he began to pour various alcohol ingredients back and forth between two fountain pouring cups about two feet apart. Oh, the liquid was literally on fire. So, picture fire flowing back and forth between two cups as the chef lifts one and then the other. I don't have pictures because we didn't bring a camera to dinner, but that will definitely be changing for the rest of the trip! The end package seemed to be coffee, brandy, kahlua, vanilla ice cream, and maybe something else I didn't notice.


I haven't played golf in years, but Greg Norman designed a course here so I'll probably saddle up for half a round. Danielle can be my caddy!


I'll still be online during the week, but obviously not with the frequency of which I am now. I've been spending a lot of time in the middle stakes and small stakes NL forums of Leggo, so post some hands and I'll give them some answers! In fact, I've posted a thread requesting SSNL players to list some of the concepts they struggle with. I promise those will participate will not be disappointed!

Well, back to the beach for me.

I just wanted to post to let everyone know that Part 1 of my 5/10 miniseries is hot off the presses. I would encourage everyone to watch the video and then join in the discussion that we are having in the forums. I have already been convinced that I made one suboptimal play I didn't mention in the video as a result of the back and forth banter.

However, the questions I am being asked are fantastic and really allow me to verbalize some very important topics in the form of long winded responses. So, absolutely watch the video Here and join in the discussion Here. It gets everyone better!

--------------------------------------

So, yesterday was Valentine's Day. Danielle and I went shopping on Broadway by Houston street and wandered into a Bebe. As it turns out, the store had just opened on Thursday, and we fit the part enough to be invited to their private opening party that is supposed to consist of media and random special guests/celebrities walking around drinking unimaginably fruity/girly drinks and socializing. It's today at 6 but we are debating going.

For dinner, we went to Eleven Madison Park. This restaurant was our first experience with ritzy French food in NYC, and it went about how we expected it to. Great service, relaxing atmosphere, and overpriced food. Actually, they tried to sit us in this crappy table where we were both facing the same direction, and we asked them for a different table. Impressed by our request, they moved us to the best table in the house (they mentioned that "team members" get this table when they come in to dine, and also bluntly said it was the best table a few times ).

We enjoyed the meal, and were all ready for our after-dessert items, when the host swung by. He explained that we had another item still to come out, but that we could take a tour of the kitchen if we wanted. I was confused because I had not seen any other guests waltz into the kitchen during our meal, but we graciously accepted the offer. So, we went in and saw the [very large] kitchen, and met the head chef. It was pretty cool to see everything running so effectively yet so precisely, and added a good amount to the overall experience.

On the way out, they sat us at their private lounge and we finished the meal with some macaroons and after-dinner brandy. I'm pretty sure they knew it was a special night for us and added those extra touches to drive home the evening. All in all, it was a fun and special experience and worth trying, but I'm a guido at heart so I prefer Italian restaurants where the waiters bring you bonus dishes because they are worried you aren't full enough from the previous three courses.

So, I went to the tail end of the Borgata Winter Open in Atlantic City. I arrived on Wednesday, and played the 2k HU NL tournament starting Thursday. It was a test of stamina. The average match took two hours, and the bracket was double elimination. Foreshadowing, losing and entering the loser's bracket is a huge disadvantage.

In the first round I drew Gavin Smith and was able to defeat him. In the next round I played a large Italian man name Tommy and was able to win as well.

In the third round, I would up losing to a nice guy named Rob. I thought I played a "B" game, but got him to not care about winning by the end of the match. Starting starts were 25k, and I was down to 8k at one point, but battled back to 17k. At 150/300, he limped the button and I raised to 1300 with AQo. The flop was A53fd and he called my bet. Turn To I bet again and he calls. River 2o I go all in and he calls with 43 for the rivered straight, and I'm off to the losers bracket.

There were 64 entrants into the tournament and only 6 got paid. 4 from the winners bracket, and 2 from the losers bracket. I admittedly didn't think about this as I was playing any of my matches, but realized afterwards that it kind of was critical for me to win my early matches. Had I beat Rob, I only would have needed to win one additional match to make the money. However, now that I was in the loser's bracket, I needed to win four more matches to make the money.

It was around 4:30 PM, and my next match was at 9 PM. I went and hung out with some friends, and then returned to play. Well, the 7 PM match that led into mine went 4.5 hours, so I waited there until 11:30 to play the winner. I played a very nice woman and was able to grind her down for the victory.

In my next match, which started at 1:30 AM I played chook2121 (I think that's his online name). He was the champion of the last 2k HU tournament the Borgata ran. After the match we did the standard "I'm so-n-so online" banter, but during the match I kept quiet when he was asking me who I was. I actually ran a big bluff all in when he donked three times on a montone T3Q flop, turn 3 river x, and he folded J3 face up. I didn't know what he specifically had, but I felt he was pretty strong based on the dynamic (of course I thought he was good enough to fold a strong hand). Additionally, I didn't think he thought I would make a huge bluff as I hadn't done anything but smallish bluffs up to that point. So, I went for it and luckily it worked out.

I ended at 3:30, and want to give a shout of to Jason "Klink." He sweated a good chunk of both matches that night and helped me get through.

I woke up the next day at 9:30 and went in to play at 11 AM against the people who had lost their last match of the day and had been resting since 7 PM. I played the champion from the last Borgata HU tournament (it was a 1k) and was fortunate enough to beat him, so I moved on to the bubble match. I wound up playing Jeff Madsen who actually gets a decent amount of credit from online people for his live play. However, I guess he was fatigued because I sucked out in two consecutive small pots and he imploded. So, I went marching through the money into the final 6. Of course, Madsen won the main for $625k so who's laughing now!

I played Rob again, and played very well this time. The tournament was a very lax environment -- Rob and I each had a spectator hanging out at the table. My dad actually came down for the weekend to hang out so it was nice that he was able to watch up close (although he seemed engrossed with the ponies!). I was dealt a disappointing loss when I got Rob to start shoving 85% of hand with around 20bbs. I lost a 20bb pot A9 < QQ, a 40bb pot A9 < QJ, won a 40bb pot KJ > K8, and lost when I was covered by 1k with A8 < KQ. So, what can you do other than get it in ahead and hope for the best.

The main event was slightly uneventful. I made it to day two and lost when I had a big stack (our table was ridiculously deep stacked, average was probably 65k at this point). I open to 2400 in EP with KK at 500/1k with 110k, Gavin Smith calls in LMP with 250k, an online limit holdem player who was playing every hand calls OTB with 115k, and the BB shoves with 6k total. I re-iso to something like 17k, expecting the limit guy to call because he's literally playing nearly every hand. He does, and I CRAI on a 89J fd board over his bet of 20k (he's betting 100% of the time here). He tanks for a while, says "I'm not good enough to fold this", and proceeds to call it off with 89. I blank and I'm out just like that. I literally left AC 30 minutes later.


Shout out to Kingsofcards (Tom Marchese) for placing third for $190k and Dave Fox for finishing 7th good for $92k.

Other than that, I've been hanging out in NYC. I've met some new friends, and I'm had more video troubles. Apparently, Windows 7 is a different beast than Vista when it comes to Windows Media Player, so I'm trying to figure that out. However, I promise to have those videos out soon!

My prediction for tomorrow is that the Colts will win, but I'm rooting for a good, high scoring game (with the Saints squeaking out in the end).

Hey Guys,

Just wanted to drop in and say that my computer is no longer capable of making videos. I ordered a new one yesterday and it should be here tomorrow or the next day. I have footage for a 5/10 series saved and ready to go.

Additionally, if you would like to play me HU for a video, I am taking volunteers/challengers! Just let me know here.

PCA was fun. ME couldn't get anything going on day 2, got 2nd in some dinky HU NL event out of 64. I'll be in AC for the tail end of the Borgata Winter Open if anyone will be there.

A more detailed update to come!


Greg

I don't really set New Year's Resolutions, but I do have goals. In 2010, poker and myself will tangle like never before.

I've spent the last couple of days thinking about what I want to do in the next year poker-wise. In certain ways I've lost the fire for 6m NLHE, and I've grinding through the awaiting process at HU tables for more than my fair share as well. Ironically, as stated in a couple of my 'boxes' posts, this has made my holdem game stronger. When it came time to draw up a poker plan for 2010, I made a list of all the ways that I could make money playing poker:

NLHE 6m
NLHE HU
MTTs
SNGs HU/6m/Full
PLO 6m
PLO HU
Mixed Games

Most of these categories split further into live and online. In 2010, I want to become a complete poker player. I want to be able to sit down in almost any game imaginable (in other words, go fuck yourself full ring limit holdem, etc.) and be confident in my ability to perform at the highest level. This task will require a ton of work away from the table, but, as I have found, that's where most of the work gets done (as a bigger bonus, most of the game types on the upcoming list are solvable/nearly solvable/easier because they betting structure is limited). Without further ado, here are the games I will be playing in 2010:

NLHE HU and 6m online: As of now I would categorize these games by low to moderate volume. Most of the work I do is away from the tables and the beneficiaries are you guys/students.

PLO 6m and HU online: I will probably be devoting around 2-4 months on omaha in the next six months. My game does not even resemble what it did two months ago. I can now draw the line between what hands are acceptable and too weak to play in various situations preflop, which is something I think everyone who switches to omaha hopes to do. I feel comfortable in most of the games that run at 5/10 and 10/20, HU and 6m.

Mixed Games: I want to be comfortable playing in all 100/200 8 games by the summer. That effectively means learning bottom to top 5 games, but these won't be too difficult between receiving coaching and dissecting the games mathematically. Additionally, something like stud hi ten years ago is almost identical to what it is today, and cannot be compared to NLHE 2 years ago vs. today. I want to be able to potentially play the 50k 8 Game at WSOP.

MTTs: I want a 20k+ score online in a 'normal' buy-in tournament (i.e. not a WCOOP 5200 main event). Live I want a 50k+ score. I'm going to hope to play 5-8 big buyin tournaments not including WSOP. For the WSOP, I plan on being prepared to play over half of the events. I have no idea how often I will have 'tournament' day online, but I feel very comfortable when I play them now. I really want everything to come together during the WSOP, so I'll be working extra hard to come into it as prepared as possible. From my experience, most "good" cash game players are slightly better than breakeven at tournaments, and I've worked hard enough to overcome that statistic. The next step is parlaying my cumulative skills into a big payday.

SNGs: There is some small merit to being capable at SNGs. The 6m/9m ones mirror the endgame of MTTs, and sometimes randomly playing HU SNGs is fun. From my experience, I have an edge on almost all the regs at the ~500 HU NLHE limit (they tend to get surprised when I don't shit the bed with <35 bb ). Of course, I will be rarely playing any sit and gos, but I included it because I will still play some.

Yes, that means there is no chance I play limit holdem ring games*

I wanted to put a dollar goal, but it was tough to quantify what everything here would amount to. After some consideration, I'll go with $750k-$1MM.

Here's to 2010. I'll see you at the finish line!



*I actually did play limit holdem recently, but that was to knock out supernova. I closed it out with some HU SNGs, obviously.

Happy Holidays to everyone out there (and Merry Christmas to those celebrating today). We will pick back up with our strategy series in the next few days. Shame on you all; almost no one listed things that temporarily or permanently expand or shrink your poker box.


I personally am in Florida with my mother's family. Interestingly, the title of professional poker player seems to have a ton of credibility with the current generation of grandparents. Apparently, soldiers from WWII were allotted a few months of unemployment after the war (regardless of if they had money/a job), so many chose to gamble with it. My grandfather's family owned a pool hall that had a poker room in the back. I learned that my grandfather used to hustle pool to pay the bills in high school and shrotly after. Just the way I would never play SNGs professionally, my grandpa explained that pool made him money, so he had no reason to go into the poker games.

Accordingly, we played a friendly game of poker last night. The five contestants (my dad, grandfather, myself and my two younger brothers) each started with 100 chips at 1/2 NL. It was a typical loose/passive game, but, as with all poker games, eventually shit goes down.

The first knockout occurred when I raised preflop with about 45 chips to 16 at 2/4 (we moved the blinds up out of boredom). My dad called and I shoved for eff a 3/4 PSB on a T84fd. I was dissapointed when my dad called all in (I covered), but somehow was flipping against 35hh. I faded and we had our first victim.

My youngest brother went out shortly after on fairly epic fashion. 3 handed to the flop of AKJdd. My grandpa donks, and I raise. My youngest brother cold calls with about a 1/4 PSB left for the turn. My grandpa calls and the Kh turn hits. My grandpa bets out again, I fold, David goes all in. He get called and announced flush, flipping Q5hh. To his dismay, a flush is actually five cards of the same suit, not of the same color, so he is drawing to a T river. A 9h harmlessly falls and he loses to K6o.

It was getting fairly late and my luckbox grandfather was getting tired. 3 handed, fairly deep, with all around the same stack sizes, I get KK in the SB. My grandpa calls OTB, and I raise big in the SB. My brother in the BB announces all in. A little humorous history about him. He is a D1 athlete in baseball who is projected round 1 or 2 in the MLB draft this year. He is obviously a very aggressive ballplayer and person in general, but it's funny when he plays poker because he plays incredibly weak/tight. For example, I would snap fold JJ in this spot, because he would call with all his non-amazing hands (amazing defined as either QQ+ or KK+ and AK), even if it meant putting in 60% of his stack preflop. My grandpa overcalls all in.

I flip kings, my brother has aces and is very excited to be in great position to win the tournament and go tell all his friends how he played well and won the family tournament. My grandpa flips T4cc. As you can imagine, the board ran out JT464. This "ridiculous play" left my brother confused and frustrated for the rest of the night. In fact, the first thing he said today was that he can't believe our grandpa "stayed in with such a bad hand what was he thinking!" My grandpa confidently replied, "Seeing seven cards gives you a lot of chances to win."

Hell, it seemed to work for him.

Happy Holidays,
Greg

When I made my last post, there was a bit of a discrepancy over what exactly your poker box is. The reality of the situation is that it doesn't matter what specifically we define the box as, but rather that we understand it's purpose.

In fairness, my own personal view of the poker box was in line with Reid's. The box is this big mansion with lots of secret doors. Various experiences give you the keys to new doors, or provide you with the knowledge that they exist. Everyone's box/mansion is the same size, but some people realize that there house contains more than others'.

The other view might be that our box can expand, but we still cannot think outside the box because once we do that, our box has just expanded . It's fairly abstract but I think the general point was appreciated, which is what I wanted obviously.

I considered listing all the ways in which I thought our poker box might expand or shrink, but, since many of those are intuitive, I'll touch on a couple points that may be useful:

-Our poker box temporarily GROWS (technically returns to full capacity) when we take a short period of time off. This is the case because playing temporarily taxes our minds, which SHRINKS our poker box (1).
-After a certain period of time off from poker, our box temporarily SHRINKS (we become 'rusty') (2).
-Overplaying does not allow our box to fully recover from the last session, which makes it temporarily SHRINK. If you are in a perpetual state of overplaying, consider the effects on your poker box.

(1) Playing actually allows us to experience situations that have the ability to expand our poker box permanently, but most of the time we do not take advantage of it. Whenever we encounter an interesting spot, it usually receives a "hmm, interesting" acknowledgement, and, if it is particularly interesting, gets brought up to friends or posted in a forum. However, we almost never actually conquer the spot; we do not take enough time, playing with ranges, opponent types, various streets before/after, to be fully confident the next time we enter a similar situation. This uncertainty prevents progression, and causes us to become results-oriented. We learn to simply change what we will do next time based on what happened the last couple of times.

(2) Going from personal experience, people usually underestimate the amount of time in which it takes us to shed the rust. When taking a significant time off playing or focusing astutely on a game (NLHE, PLO, whatever), I would attest that it takes 3-5 full days to return to normal. This includes playing with moderate-heavy volume, and reviewing/re-familiarizing yourself with the situations of the game.

One of my central themes seems to be: Play less, review more. In the future, I'll go over what that means -- for now, consider the following:

How many really good HS grinders that you know force themselves to play? The answer is very close to zero; almost every one plays when they want to because they want to. It allows them to both mentally recover from a previous session, and to continue playing their A game. A very high volume 2/4 NLHE grinder recently figured that playing too many hours cost him about $150,000 over his career. He made about $100,000 from rakeback, and lost about $250,000 from being in games when he should not have been playing.



I have a lot of things that jump through my mind that I can talk about, but I want this whole experience to be more feedback oriented. Ramblings tend to be all over the place, so don't be afraid to ask for clarification if needed. Also, I would appreciate if you told me what you thought of this post, and what direction you want this series to go in. As an exercise, post a couple ways that your poker box can shrink or grow that haven't been mentioned yet (by me or my user comments before your's)

Greg

PS. I am going to be creating another monumental 6m 5/10 NLHE multipart sereis soon. PokerStars or Full Tilt?

My inspiration for making this series was based off my own experience. I went off learning PLO, dabbling in 7/8-game, and playing NLHE tournaments, both live and online. When I went back to HU NLHE, or 6m NLHE online, I destroyed everything in sight. I was making all these sick plays, and just embarrassing regulars at 5/10 and 10/20. I realized that the reasons I was able to do this were:

1) My mind had been expanded from playing other games. When you learn a new game, you aren't restricted to 'rules' the way that you are after playing a game for hours and hours every day. You just do what feels right (twss). Interestingly enough, you emulate your mindset after a great session in your staple game. "Wow, I played really well. I was going with all my reads and just owning people!" Sound familiar? Well, when you play different, less familiar games, you're not necessarily owning everyone, but you're still going with all your reads, and never playing on autopilot (your lack of knowledge forces you to sit there and try to absorb every piece of information you can).

2) I was playing less. I was fresher when I played, I was more enthusiastic, and I cared more. I then realized that I could actually change that theory to: I was playing less HU and 6m NLHE online. I was still playing a decent amount of poker, but I was dabbling in different games and arenas. Playing too much breeds an autopilot style of play, so playing too little is always better than playing too much.

These two factors allowed me to both play at capacity, and expand my thought process. We'll discuss why and how later, but at least some reasons should be intuitive.

Getting back to concept of the 'box', and thinking 'outside' of it, we can't. Our poker box is our cumulative ability to think about situations and theory. It's everything that we know that we can apply to a street, a line, a hand, a player, a session, metagame, etc..

I am going to make the argument to you that the poker box is the most important aspect of our game. Therefore, managing our poker box should be one of, if not the, highest priorities for a poker player. The good news is, we can expand our poker box, both temporarily and permanently. The stereotypical bad news is the opposite: our poker box can shrink, both temporarily and permanently.

Use this post as an introduction to this concept and think about the importance of both expanding your box, and keeping it at its current maximum capacity. Brainstorm how you would be able to grow your knowledge base (ie your Poker IQ), and think about what detrimental things may cause your box to grow in the wrong direction. I'll be back with some lists tomorrow/the next day, but I want participation and feedback when I post them. The more effort you put in, the greater the results will be.

Greg