Guys,

Stars, Tilt and Cake are making you an offer you can´t refuse. Any donations made to help ease the terrible struggle of the people in Haiti will be matched dollar for dollar.

If you are going to give another cent to charity in your life, let it be this time when Lederer and the boys match it.

I shipped 1 buy-in to "Aid for Haiti" on Fulltilt. 1 single buy-in. In fact, I should be ashamed for not giving more, and hopefully I will shame myself into giving another buy in.Unfortunately I already gave some today earlier before I found out about this amazing opportunity. However, by the time I wake up tomorrow, I won´t even remember having done that.

Leggo and the rest of the poker-community, let´s show the world that we are not the bumhunting nits everybody thinks we are, and donate 1 or half of a buy-in of your regular stake, and inspire others to do the same. Encourage your friends and family to help through you, so that they too can get 2:1 on their money and benefit from this bargain deal.

Within 24 hours, you will forget about it, and the effect it will have on your life will be completely insignificant. However, a child may have clean drinking water or hospital aid due to your generosity.

Hi guys,

2010 so far has been treating me very well, whereas I have been treating 2010 very badly. Due to Leggo and 2+2 my volume is suffering a bit, but on the other hand I am enjoying getting in touch with other players and coaching.

I did a short one minute strategy segment for the 2+2 pokercast, and when I sat down to see what I wanted to say, this is what I came up with:

"Hi, this is Boywonder, video producer at Leggopoker.com with today's strategy minute:

Having a slotmachine, no matter how sophisticated, is of little use to a casino unless people play on it. That is why, as pokerplayers, the ability to put in volume and having a strong work ethic is one of the most underrated skills you can have. For me, I have found that structure is key. It is important
that I create a routine in my life where I wake up at a certain time each day and start off by reviewing the previous days sessions. My workday is not done, until I have met the goals I set BEFORE the day started, wether it be a certain number of hands played, a certain amount of hours played, or a certain amount of hands analyzed. Anything above and beyond that is me working overtime, and that slice of overtime is the difference between reaching my goals and blowing them out of the water when I review my year on the 31st of decemebr, 2010.

This has been Boywonder exclusively for the 2p2 pokercast on behalf of its official strategy sponsor, Leggopoker. Be on the lookout for more strategy segments from Leggo in the near future."

Thankfully I haven´t made myself too many promises for January, as I try to steer clear of making myself promises I might not keep out of fear of losing trust for myself. But 35 hours of play so far in the month is not going to cut it.

As mentioned however, so far 2010 has been treating me well, even though I am lacking in volume:



Changing the subject, my previous blog definitely stirred up some emotions. Some people were called out by others and felt the need to defend themselves, which they did. Others didn´t agree overall with the post. Many thought it was a very good point and that it needed to be said. Overall the responses were very interesting.

A mention as well to people who want to keep in touch with me or who I am in touch with;

On the 22:nd myself, the girl and 13 friends will be heading up to the north of Sweden to do some skiing, and won´t be back until the 28:th. I am not sure if my friends hotel that we are staying at has an internet connection, but I may be unavailable for a little while. Very much looking forward to this.
Hope everybody has had a good start to the year and that you're not too pissed about me stealing your EV.

/Ben

Hi guys,

Coaching, so far, has been one of the more enjoyable aspects of my online poker career. Unsurprisingly, it feels rewarding to do a good job and at the end of it have somebody says thank you and give you great feedback.

So far, my chemistry with every single person I´ve spoke to has been great, and every single one has booked at least a follow-up lesson.

As dubious as I have always been to coaching and coaching rates, so far I am confident that these students in paticular have been getting value for their money as with everyone we have been able to identify some very key leaks. The common denominator for the guys I have spoken to so far is that they all have the right attitude, which is one of humility coupled with work and intelligence, which in turn makes me feel like I want to go the extra mile with them, maybe spend an extra hour preparing for the session, maybe going overtime for as long as I can until I have another commitment.

But as mentioned, I am and always have been dubious to coaching and coaching rates, particularly those of players I have tangled with and whose games I have very little respect for. In some cases, I think I can flat out say that they are so overpriced in regards to their winrates and what I have seen from them at the tables that the best thing they can do is either improve or change their line of business because coaching won´t last forever, and they´re not making that much playing anyway. In setting mine, I tried to get some advice from a couple of people with way more experience of it than myself and whom I respect, and also to compare myself with some other coaches with similar rates from Leggo (yes, even Leggo, sorry guys), DC, Cardrunners / Stox, Bluefire, 2+2 and a couple of other places. What you find is a small group of real respected winners in the 6-max games of today, a few people that are complete unkowns if it were not for the recommendations of other respected (or formerly respected) players that may or may not be good coaches or players, and a drove of people who I would like to compare winrates with or whom I would like to sit down and talk strategy and 6-max with. In partcular, I saw a very clear trend of once upon a time winning 6-max NL players that have changed their games to HU NL or PLO (essentially they are not cutting it anymore, and are basically content to sit around all day until someone who has no clue what they´re doing gives them action), or gone back to school, and still somehow think that they are in tune with TODAY'S 6-max 5-10 and 10-20 games. The reality is that at it´s equivalent stake, 6 max nl is the toughest game, by far, to make a living at. Being a 2-4 6 max reg is tougher than being a 2-4 hu reg (as long as you are a winner on PTR nobody better than you will give you action anyway, so don´t worry about playing any tough opponents - definitely my experience), 2-4 PLO reg, or 2-4 any reg. But because of the amount of action, it is potentially the most lucrative and has the most longevity.

This has nothing to do with the training sites in themselves. This has to do with a number of their coaches, whom they have little control and supervision over once they are taken in as winners at the time. The responsibility and selfinsight lies and should lie with the coach.

There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. There are some great players, and some great coaches who might not be great players due to whatever reason. I do subscribe to the fact that the greatest coach might not always be the best player, in fact I am convinced that this is true. But two things; why would anybody want to take a chance on them when there are real proven strong winners out there, and how are these people who no longer put that much volume in up to date with todays games? The 6-max game of today is different than that of 6 months ago, which was different than that of a year ago. This game is not static. Beacuse of this, it is one of the few games that even though a coach may not have to be a great player, he always has to be a player first, and a coach second.

The reason I teach 6-max is that it's my profession and that´s what puts food on my table. Not coaching, not HU, not PLO, which will be me selfpromoting myself, which I also think is fine.

You see, the tragedy of the poker training industry is that because a lot of you guys are at a percieved information disadvantage and think that some people are sitting on something special, a coach can feed you any type of garbage and you won´t know wether it´s gold or golddust. And trust me, a lot of guys from what I have seen in the past couple of weeks, are just putting out the first thing that comes to their minds - sounds good at first glance but garbage. Poker always sounds good on paper, and it always sounds good when you break out pokerstove and "assign" haphazard ranges and talk equity and lines and balance and talk about how "everybody today is not cr-ing enough turns". In the context of you being a huge winner in the games today, you talking like this makes sense, because what you are saying translates to skill. If you have found yourself "running really bad over the last year", you should come back with these statements after they have made you some money, or if not you shouldn´t charge for them.

The reason I feel about this is that I now have two students who have worked with other coaches whom were very respected once upon a time, and are probably great guys and definitely very intelligent, but have no business teaching lines that exploited the so called vanished regs of two years ago. Well, they don´t have any business charging for it, anyway.

All this is just my opinion, and it´s my blog, so I am definitely entitled to it. This blog is going to offend some people, which is great, because those will be exactly the people I´m writing about - Hi guys.

Hi guys,

A couple of days ago, in an effort to socialize and spend some time with my younger brother doing something he likes, we decided to head to Stockholms only (legal) casino, the government-run Casino Cosmopol.

We sat down at a stake where my brother was comfy, the equivalent of 8 - 8 $ blinds.

Now I haven´t played live in a very very long time, so obviously even though I was playing far below my monetary comfort zone, there was still some anticipation and excitement as to who the live pro´s were and how they played, and basically how that scene works. Those guys are still, at least to me, a bit mythological. You kinda know they exist, but might not have seen that many. As an online player, you are subject to a lot of forum discussion concerning the level of play, how live players are subpar, how a lot of players don't know fundamentals, etc.

Well, even though I was somewhat prepared, I am still in shock as to how poor some of these guys at this particular casino were (the amateurs, as expected, were of course clueless but that´s fine, it´s not their job). I am not talking about some live plays that are not made online but are suitable in that circumstance - playing live you realize quickly that its sometimes correct to openlimp and call a raise or open 8xbb. You realize that ranges differ a lot from online, overall. Those things are fine. But handreading skills still left a lot to be desired. Getting value and protection was unheard of.
What struck me was that most of these guys had probably spent very little time away from the tables on their game, and I was amazed at how people were obviously refusing to invest a small amount of time for a potentially large reward, as I think I would stake any decent small stakes regular in the highest games they had (equivalent of 15 / 15 $) and expect him to be one of the top pros in the room (out of a pool of maybe 25 - 30 pros, is my guess).

These guys would do so well to take an immediate monetary hit and play in the small stakes no limit games online for one or two months, see the money lost as an investment and come back to those games and clean up. Obviously, there were a couple of guys that could play quite decently, but they were quite few.

Also, there is the matter of variance. Online, large sample sizes are needed to determine if you are a winner. Live, it is almost immediately obvious if you are a winner in the game or not (albeit how big of a winner may take years to determine, by which time you are playing a different game - so there is no such thing as a live known winrate, I think);

If you have seen one training video, you might be a live pro.

If the name Mason Malmuth is at all familiar to you, you might be a live pro.

If you have used the word "range" anytime in the last 6 months, you might be a live pro.

Just kidding, of course. All in all, it was a lot of fun though. The social aspect is definitely great, and before today I had always thought, like a lot of people, that live tells were very overrated. Now, not so sure.

Btw, I broke even and the kid netted a small win.

Hi guys,

I have played my first hands for the new year, and have gotten off to a very good start with a 13 buyin day;



In the future I won't necessarily be posting detailed weekly / monthly results for reasons obvious to many Swedish pro´s, but I will try to keep everyone regularly updated as to my last 50 - 100 k hands played so you guys have an idea of what I´m going through at the moment.

My first video came out yesterday. It is a video of me 4-tabling 200 No Limit on Ladbrokes. There is only 9 minutes of actual gameplay, the rest is me talking about situations. To me, the preflop spots are spots most of you are familiar with. What is interesting when going through a hands is discussing postflop as much as possible, so rather than you guys seeing the situations unfold I am describing many alternate situations, ranges, opponent types and turn / river cards and how to play them. In my opinion, that type of information is the most difficult to comprehend, the least common, and the most valuable. Many coaches and pros can get by and "look" as if they are strong players by discussing hands at a glance, but a players real strength isn't uncovered unless he posts results that will shut me up or is willing to go indepth, especially postflop. So unfortunately, I think that at least my next video will be in the same format, if maybe not that extreme.

I have been getting many PMs about coaching, and I will get back to each one. It seems that I will be starting to coach a few players, and see if it is something that will lead somewhere. I have to work out some details yet, but after some consultation and advice it seems that my rate will be somewhere in the 400 - 500 range, and will then increase or decrease depending on demand and how much time I am willing to spend on it. I am a grinder player first and foremost though, so my schedule will be limited. If interested, get in touch.

I would like to spend some time talking about goals for the new year, realistic goals and unrealistic goals and how I think we should relate to them, but I am 6-tabling as I write this so another time.

In the meantime, good luck at the tables.

Ben

Hmm, some very good points in the comments to my previous blog entry, and some very, very varied answers from a few thousand hands to basically never.

I might talk a little bit more about this later on, but the reason I started thinking about this during a session a couple of days ago is that I flatted the same player a couple of times from the blinds with the same hand, went to showdown once and then stacked him the third, which is a statistical anomaly in itself, the chances of it occuring astronomical.

I also remembered thinking about this almost a year ago when a player I thought was a HU-reg was chatting and berating another reg about his preflop predictability at a 6-max table and I remember thinking that he doesn't know that these guys aren't paying that much attention to his preflop tendencies as much as his preflop stats and that he´s greatly overrating preflop balance and making substandard plays for balance´s sake in the 6-max atmospehere of those / these days.

Does anybody agree?

Hi guys,

Let's say you and I are both 1000 No Limit regulars, playing on the same site, same limits, for five years. We are both multitabling grinders, playing an avergae amount of tables, let's say 6. And we both play between 35 and 50 k hands each month. We both have average stats, and we play an average amount of pots against each other. We notice each other about as much as we notice the other regs, neither more nor less. You pay as much attention to me as to everyone else, and you are about as observant and mindful of the game in general as most regs are today, as you and I both are, which is sometimes very and sometimes not at all. I guess we run into one another once every couple of days, like we do with all the other regs playing our limits and our volume. There is, let's say, 50 or 60 of us altogether. Maybe a little more.

As I said, let us say that you open an average amount of hands from late position, let´s say a button and cutoff average of close to 40. I 3 bet you with the hands I should be 3-betting you, and mostly fold. Becuase you´re a reg I kinda stay out of your way, but 3-bet some suited connectors from time to time to keep you honest along with, of course, most of my pairs.

However, I always, and I mean always, just call w AJ, suited or unsuited. Never mind the hand, substitute it with KQ if you want. I always do this, 100 % of the time, completely unbalanced and exploitable. Let's say that unless you know I am doing this, I have the ranges down perfectly and I'm actually profiting by coldcalling your steal out of position. I play this particular hand very well postflop, becasue I play it so often in this position and am comfortable with my relative hand value versus your range in mostly any spot.

How long do you think, honestly, it will take for you to pick up on this? How long until you notice me? I am very curious as to what you guys think about this.

Hi everybody,

This will be the first blog entry I have ever made.

As an introduction to who I am, I'm 27 years old and my name is Ben. Like most of you, I am a very very average kind of guy that happened to be at the right place at the right time, and happened to be good at whatever it was that was put in front of me (or rather, relatively good). I guess what I did quite well, in retrospect, was to take advantage of it.

There will be a couple of you that know me under the name Boywonder on twoplustwo. Throughout the last couple of years I have posted a couple of brags which led me to get in touch with a few of the training sites which led me to get in touch with the guys at Leggo.

After 3,5 years of grinding, I have finally decided to join. For a person that has been such an introverted learner with basically no pokerfriends and having watched not more than maybe a handful or so training videos and has never posted in an online strat forum in his entire career, it´s a pretty big step. I'm curious to see what you guys think about it, but also what I'm gonna think about it. I think I´ll like it, in which case I´ll be here for quite some time if the guys will have me, but I might hate it in which case I won't. Might as well start the blog off with some honesty

I provide for myself and my family playing primarily 6-max No Limit. These days I play 5-10 and 10-20. For any of you guys that are familiar with me from twoplustwo, there are a couple of things that I adress over and over again. First off, I really believe that anybody reading this, with reasonable intelligence, could make 250 k or so a year playing poker. Secondly, I believe that what differentiates a 1-2 NL grinder from a 10-20 grinder is mainly the ability to focus, emotional control, selfinsight, and the other "soft" values of poker. I believe that these soft values can be taught.

As for the hard or technical aspects of poker, they can be taught as well, and I guess that's what you guys are here spending your hard earned dollars to learn. So the results of the people you pay to teach you are very relevant. And poker is fresh produce. If I have been a big winner up to this point but find myself a losing or breakeven player in 2010, I will quit. That forfeits my right to put my name out there and charge money for my services, even though I may still be a great player or a great teacher. That's just my opinion, and I know many don't agree. I think you guys should hold me to these standards.

I started playing poker in sept. of 06. I started playing cash games in January of 07, and went fulltime pro in March 08. So far I have made 7 figues playing poker winning at almost 5 ptbb lifetime (most importantly, winning at that rate now, this year). But my proudest poker achievement is that my biggest downswing doing this has been 22 buy-ins, or 22 k. Some may call me risk averse. Some may say that this has come at an opportunity cost. I may even agree with them. But poker never owed me anything, nor was it ever there for me to boost my ego or drive around in a Lamborghini (coincidentally, nothing wrong with either). For me, it was there to provide a steady income and a better life for myself and my family.

Here are the most recent graphs I posted on twoplustwo:





I want to end with you guys asking yourselves what you saw or see when thinking about success in poker (if any, some may think that poker encompasses many things or only think abstractly around it). think about the motivators. As I said, for me, especially in the beginning, there was quite a clear vision of a steady income, college funds, a house with a garden, my fiancée and family being comfortable. These became my motivators. I think for some, there was a vision of playing the nosebleeds and climbing to the top of the mountain, that would in turn take care of the life stuff by itself (a vision that I never had.) Whatever your answer it's the right one for you, and should dictate how you prepare, play and plan you career.

See you guys around,

Ben