Rolled On The River

At the end of April I started staking and coaching a friend of mine (who had no exposure to poker whatsoever) from the ground up on two conditions:

#1 – that he would blog his journey with weekly entries

#2 – That he would watch at least three StoxPoker videos a week.

He has diligently been blogging whilst learning and I think his most recent entry provides some valuable insight into the path of learning via videos. With his permission I have included it below:

Poker videos come in two flavours, theory and practical. Theoretical vids show the math and psychology behind the games, and the practical ones show the teacher playing games and putting the theories to use in real situations, I started my little poker life watching mostly theory videos in the form of Ed Miller’s classroom clips, and slowly moved on to more practical ones. I would reccommend a combination of both, the theoretical ones are so valuable, they could replace almost any book, giving step by step instructions on the variety of plays out there, while taking the time out to crunch the numbers behind certain decisions and certain situations.

The practical ones take a coach on his thought process during a session, and the audio is usually (not always) recorded during the sessions, so you can get a grasp of what the coach is thinking on the fly. What I’m saying here is that both types of video should bring your learning full circle, which is the impact I’m beginning to feel. On one hand, you learn a bunch of theories you have try to match to the practical situations in which they apply (see Ed’s Art of Misapplication vid), on the other, you are watching the hands as they come up, and trying to work out what the most relevant information you should base your next move off.

You may be 3-bet with AJ, your decision has to be one of position, stack size, and player statistics. You also have to consider any history you have, and a few other situational factors. Watching practical videos will show you, for example if the guy was short-stacked and prone to 3-betting, you should put him all in, because thats what you saw a coach do. While on the other hand, the theoretical videos will give you the numbers behind stack to pot ratios, the advantages of position, and the ranges of players with a certain percentage 3-bet percentages.

Though this may seem like an absolute plethora of information to process in a short amount of time, continued theoretical and practical study sessions prove to help make the right theory stand out when you’re faced with a problem, the culmination bringing about better, faster, more informed decisions for you at the tables.

I’ve found both to be vital in moving forward so far, and I’m sure I’ll continue to in the future.

You can view the original entry here

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who is rather well off, and who used to play Poker recreationally quite frequently. Although he was ultimately a losing player, he didn’t mind losing a few hundred dollars on the weekend since he considered it to be ‘entertainment money’. Unfortunately, he is no longer interested in playing after a couple of heads up matches where his opponent decided that, in some way or other, verbal abuse gave him some hidden psychological edge.

As a collective, we should be promoting poker, as well as trying to create a fun atmosphere where one doesn’t need to understand every nuance and rule of the game in order to enjoy his or her self. When I was learning poker, and a total fish, I remember having a whole host of people willing to help me out, and to ensure that I was comfortable and enjoying myself. I’m seriously wondering if someone just starting out today would feel inclined to play through more than an orbit.

I really don’t mean to be so negative about this issue, but it seems like you can’t play at all lately without seeing somebody berating a player for their Ace high call on the river, making a snide comment about a poor pre-flop call with a hand like J2 offsuit, or making a scene when somebody pushes all in with a low pocket pair and sucks out.

If you are one of these people, please stop! If you see somebody making a play like this, relish the fact that, although you may have lost the hand to a poor player with poor cards, you made a winning decision and can be happy that the game of poker is alive and thriving. As for the age-old excuse that table talk will somehow cause your opponent to stack off against you lighter – nonsense! Any small temporary edge you’re gaining by tilting this opponent is offset by the fact that they’re more than likely to quit you earlier (increasing your chances of being hit and run), or won’t re-deposit once they’ve run through what they already have online. Instead, if you get sucked out, just reply with ‘nh’ and enjoy knowing that, although you lost your money, the chances having it returned are much better than if the TAG player down the road scooped the pot.

I’ve taken a new student on board who’s learning poker from the absolute ground up. This student is a real life friend of mine, who I’m staking and coaching for the long term. My coaching was under one condition: That he is to make 2-3 blog posts a week, as he progresses in knowledge, which will provide himself and others with a diary that shows a player’s progress from not even knowing the hand rankings correctly, to beating the mid-stakes online. The link to his blog is http://padawan.rolledontheriver.com – Enjoy!

If I had to recommend an online poker room, it would be PokerStars. Why? Not because of the software, or because of the player volume, but because of the excellent support. Every time I have had an issue with PokerStars I have received prompt, eloquent and informative responses.

Nothing more to say – just a random PokerStars praise entry. Keep up the good work, guys!

A poker player can be one of two types – a pessimistic player, or an optimistic player – and this will effect his reaction to the games he plays.

The pessimist loses a hand. He may have played the hand poorly, but his ego doesn’t let him reflect on the hand and realize this. His first thought after the cards are mucked and the dealer is shuffling, is something like “Again! AGAIN he caught his flush on the river!” The pessimist may have allowed the villain to draw correctly, he may have polarized his hand, or he may have checked a street when he shouldn’t have. Either way, the pessimist lost the hand. Whether it was his fault or not is something he doesn’t consider – in his mind he simply got unlucky.

The optimist reflects on his hand. It may not be during the session or immediately after, but he is critical of his own play and can take his ego out of the equation. The optimist deals in theoretical money – it doesn’t matter if he finishes a session up or down, provided he has made the best possible decisions throughout his session, he can be pleased with his play.

In lue of my ‘Life as a poker professional‘ post I’d like to point everybody to the StoxPoker Blog. A number of Internet pokers best players as well as StoxPoker’s psychology coach post here and provide a rather unique insight into the life of a poker professional.

Disclaimer: Although I am biased by working with StoxPoker I do genuinely feel that the blog is one of the better poker blogs on the internet and strongly recommend spending a few minutes flicking through an entry or two.

Although many people assume it will, playing poker for a living doesn’t mean you aren’t still working full time. To do it, and do it well, you’ll need to be putting in similar hours – you’ll just get to choose when you do them. It’s a typical grandiose notion that professional poker will release you from the shackles of the rat race, but you still put in the hours, you still have to be wise with your money and accounts, and you still have to pay taxes. Essentially, you put on a new set of shackles – provided you see normal life as being chained down.

Before you consider playing poker for a living, make sure you really love the game. You may think your job is repetitive now, but multi-tabling poker all day can be just the same. You should also take into consideration what future opportunities you have in your current position – is it really worth giving up a potentially good long-term career for what could possibly be short-term money and freedom?

However, if you have strong self-discipline, and the ability to critique yourself (this is a particularly handy skill for post-flop match reviews), then poker may just be for you.

So you’ve played a few hundred hours of poker online, have an established win-rate over a large number of hands (250,000+), and want to take a shot at becoming an online poker professional? Where do you go from here?

First of all, think about how much money you would be comfortable with having in reserve. Now double it. Having far more money at your disposal than you need not only decreases your risk of ruin, but will help you cope with those inevitable ‘down days’ that much better. You’re not going to profit every day – and if you don’t know this before you start, you should reconsider your decision – and having a large amount of cash in reserve is nothing but a good idea.

Secondly, what are your expectations? How much money do you want to make, and how many hands do you plan to play each month? When you first go from having a 9-5 job to what may start out feeling like an endless weekend, it’s very easy to start slacking off and not playing as often as you should. Have some goals to help keep you focused.

Third of all, what are your pre-session and post-session routines? When you were working you presumably had a routine. Whether it was the drive to work, or a morning coffee, you would have had something which mentally prepared you to work. As a poker professional, having a pre-session routine will help you to mentally prepare to play your absolute A game. A good example of a pre-session routine would be to wake up, have a shower and breakfast, grab yourself a bottle or glass of water and then start locating good tables. Post-session routines aren’t that different – this could be opening a video site, such as StoxPoker or Deucescracked, and watching some videos, or posting hands from the day on TwoPlusTwo. Either way, your post-session routine should help you to close off your day until you start again tomorrow.

Anytime before you bet or raise there are always two things that I feel should always go through your head (before you start considering outs / pot odds):

Number 1. What hands am I going to get value from which I am beating?
Number 2. What hands am I folding out which are beating me?

If you are betting without being able to answer at least one of these questions then you are betting without purpose. Bluffing is one thing but don’t become another “cold bluffer” (a bluffer who bluffs without knowing why they are bluffing).

For almost eight years now, I have been playing and studying this wonderful game called poker. I’ve played Limit Hold’em professionally, coached numerous players, written many a forum post, and currently work as the production manager for StoxPoker.com – the best job and people to work for in the world.

Although I’ve played and studied many different variants of poker – from 2-7 triple draw, to Razz, to No Limit Hold’em – I’ve never really taken the time to get my No Limit Hold’em cash game to the same level as my Limit Hold’em cash game (I usually play up to $20/$40 Limit Hold’em a few hours each week when I’m not busy doing StoxPoker work).

The aim of this blog is to document my progress from being a profitable player at .50c/$1 No Limit Hold’em (currently 7.2BB/100 after 48,600 hands), towards being a profitable player at $5/$10 No Limit Hold’em. I hope to make this jump over the next 18 months (gradually moving up limits), and want to prove to myself that I can beat, as well as document, the different limits along the way.

Points to remember and take with me on my journey:

My aim is to fit in some poker study where possible each day – fortunately this is already included in my daily work routine (reviewing StoxPoker videos before release). Added to this I have pretty much every book in the TwoPlusTwo library, have pulled out “Harrington on Cash Games” Volumes I and II to study, and intend to follow that up with Ed Miller’s “No Limit Hold’em – Theory and Practice”.

Hopefully over time I can post meaningful content (and hand histories), which might help others who begin the same transition.

Enjoy!