Take backs from boot camp

WPT BootCamp Training for Cash Games completed

I spent two enjoyable and information filled days at the FoxWoods Casino attending the WPT BootCamp for Cash Game Players. There were 40+ attendees with almost 20% of the audience being female.

Our instructors were:  Lee Childs, Rick Fuller, Nick Brancato, and Eric ‘Rizen’ Lynch.

Rebecca Joy, Event Coordinator at WPT Boot Camp, was the person behind the scenes that help to make things happen. Thank you, Rebecca.

The training took us from Pre-Flop play right down to river play.

The format was lecture, questions and answers, and then labs for each topic.

We were all giving a chance to play several hands of No Limit Holdem poker and then explain why we took the actions we did.

Being able to discuss my game was great and the pros told it like it was.

I took back some great ideas and concepts that I will work into my game.

I will let you know how it works out.

Have you ever had a chance to talk with the pros about your game?

What would you most important question be?

Do you feel it would help?

Preparing for a two day Cash Game training boot camp!

In just one week, I am going to be at Foxwoods for a two day WPT Cash Game Training Boot Camp.

How does one prepare for a training camp?

I am doing so by reading about poker, playing cash games, listening to podcasts and videocasts and just thinking about poker.

The training was a gift from @ChrisBrogan and Katrina Brogan and family and I am very thankful for the opportunity.

My training instructor is going to be @LeeChilds.

I realized I have posted about this before, but, now I am really getting excited about the prospect of face to face time with poker pros concerning how I play my game and what can I do to improve it.

Have any of you been to boot camps/training camps?  What has your experience been? Has it improved your game?

Update:  The list of instructors is as follows:

Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Lee Childs, Nick Brancato, Rick Fuller

Supporting the TPT – TwitterPokerTour

Recently PokerStars started what they thought was an original idea, a “twitter poker league”.

Well, I hate to tell them, but the “Twitter Poker League” has been around a lot longer and has been on twitter a lot longer.

Best yet, there is no charge to be a member. Plus there are all kinds of rewards and camaraderie that cannot be measured in monetary amounts!

Check out the Twitter Poker Tour, the original Twitter poker league!

I think you will see that the “TPT” is the one.  Check it out and let me know what you think?

OhCaptain has issued the following Invitation – Everyone is invited – Time to spread the word and give back

OhCaptain has planned and oranized a charity event to benefit the Ronald McDonald House charity. $5 of your buy-in goes to the Ronald McDonald House.

here’s the details:
Date: June 16
Place: FullTiltPoker
Time: 9PM CDT (Same time as Mookie)
It will actually be running in place of the Mookie. BDR will be broadcasting it.
Charity: Ronald McDonald House
$5 + $5(Tournament, charity)
Password= vegas1
Tournament#= 164273435

See the entire post by OhCaptain by following this link!

Give something back by playing. Dead money is accepted (if you don’t play).

Attempting to rekindle with what was missing in my poker game

About a year ago, I would have said that I had more confidence and focus in playing either cash games, tournaments or sit n go’s at various types of poker games. Somewhere along the line, that left me.

I began to suffer some losses and could not put a handle on to what was happening. I was playing a type of “ABC” poker, but was also mixing up what I was doing so that I would not be too predictable.

Slowly my losses began to accumulate in both cash games, Sit n Go’s and small entry tournaments. While I still liked playing poker, I really did not like losing.

Slowly I stopped playing as much and as a result stopped blogging as much, tweeting as much and online socializing, as much as I used too.

In short, I got into a rut.  There was even a pile of unread CardPlayer magazines on my bed-stand. A few months ago, I started reading some motivational books as well as the un-read magazines.

I am not saying that this has helped my poker game but at least I am working on my attitude.  I had even found a June 2009 Bluff Magazine that had Daniel Negreanu on the front cover and an interesting story about him.  This issue had a lot of good articles and stories. The two that caught my eye and helped me were tittled “The Power of the Inner Core” by Sam Chauhan and “Finding your Poker Focus” by Joe Beevers.

It was exactly in these two areas I needed work on.

Saving that “old” magazine was helpful. I have since ripped out those pages and review them whenever I feel the need.  I know that this has helped me and I hope it helps you as well.

Do you have a favorite poker magazine? What about them helps you, teaches you, or encourages you to be a better poker player and all around person?

Getting back on track

Having taken some time off from posting and playing, I felt that it was time to get back into action.

Game plan:
1. Play more online cash games, up to four hours per day, Monday thru Friday
2. Play a limited amount of tourneys and Sit n Go’s, perhaps no more than 4 a week.
3. Blog at least once a week, more if possible.
4. Start exercising at least three days a week, starting off with walking and lite jogging.

This hopefully will add some balance to my game.

I am looking forward to improving my cash game with the gift of a two day training session that Chris and Kat Brogan gave me.

I will be going to Foxwoods on August 6/7 to meet up with Lee Childs and other members of the WPT Boot Camp: 2-Day Cash Camp. I follow @leechilds on Twitter to keep track of his poker exploits.

For me, this summer is starting to look just great!

What are  your poker plans for this summer? Do any of your plans involve travel? Are any of you going to Vegas to play in the Main Event?

Plenty to do – but I am still playing some poker.

For the first time in three years, I have finished a month of cash games and ended up in the black.

While the amount is very modest, it is a start. I ended April with a plus of $14 playing cash games.

I was still in the red in tournament play, having lost $41 in tourney play for April alone.

For May, I am starting in the black, although my year-to-date figures are in the red.

In my YTD cash games, I am down $200 and in my YTD tourneys, I am down $34.00.

I still have a ways to go. But I am still learning more about myself and I am getting some solid tips from the comments left on my blog.

I have recently purchased and installed PokerTracker3 – micro stakes edition – and will start to look at the results in order to help plug more holes in my game.

I already know that I am going to find that I am playing too many marginal hands out of position. That is always a road to disaster. I constantly make notes about my opponent’s tendencies but I really need to work on my own.

I recently read an article in CardPlayer magazine in which Vanessa Rousseau was interviewed and spoke about  a statistic she called RL ratio, or Raise Limp ratio. Knowing your own and you opponent’s can help you to play better.   I need to learn more about this and I will read her blog post about RL ratios  here, at this link.

Do you get good records of your wins and losses? If you are a US citizen, you should, in the event your are fortunate enough to make an income from playing poker.  Where and how do you learn to improve your poker game? Are you open to suggestions, ideas, and poker tools that might be available to you?

… follow-up to “I am a losing poker player!” post!

As I mentioned in my last post, I have finally decided that I am not having a run of bad luck which is causing me to lose at playing poker.

It is how I play that causes me to lose.

It is when I fail to extract extra value for my good hands.

It is when I fail to fold hands even when the evidence is in that the hand is in trouble.

It is when I go on tilt and bluff away my stack.

There are a lot of leaks in my game that need to be plugged.

But I am working on it.

My last twenty four sessions on Absolute Poker playing No Limit .10/.25 has seen me winning enough to be in the black so far for April. In fact, if I just look at the last 24 sessions alone, I have won over $63 or almost $2.75 per session. I realize that is not a lot but it does mean that I am moving in the right direction.

Now, looking at my spreadsheets, I see that I have had some good runs in the past and then went down hill from there, so I will not get too over confident that I am now the improved player of the year.

What this does mean is that my bankroll on Absolute is growing to the point where I will be able to move up to the next level, .25/.50 and see if my success continues.

What am I doing different?  I play with the idea of winning small pots, I watch my position versus the big and small blind, I keep track of the other player’s tendencies, I try to mix up my play so that I am not easy to read. I try to pick off the bluffs that in the past caused to fold winning hands.

I still need to learn to back off when I am re-raised and I don’t have the best hand.

How do you adjust from being a losing player to a break-even  player and finally to a winning player?

The evidence is in – I am a losing poker player!

This does not come as any surprise to me as I am making re-deposits to my online sites each year when I finally run my balance with a site down to $10.00 or less.

There is only one site in the last three years that I actually have more than what I started with and I don’t play there very often.

Why am I saying this?

I have always had aspirations that I would one day be a great poker player and would make a living at it.

Based on my earnings so far, I could be losing that weight I have been meaning to take off, because I would not be earning enough to buy food with.

Where do I go from here?

I love the game, I love the action, I love the books, videos and poker shows.

So I will probably end up being a recreational poker player. I will probably play a few tournaments a year and I will probably continue to blog about my successes and my failures. Now this could change if I have three or more winning years in a row. But I am not holding my breath until I do. I am blue enough already.

I will still read new books about poker and will share my thoughts about them.

In fact, I have just received two books courtesy of Robbie Vorhaus, written by his cousin John Vorhaus.

One is a book of poker fiction, titled “Under the Gun” and the other is a poker book titled “Killer Poker Online 2 – Advanced Strategies for Crushing the Internet Game”.  Both of these books look like a great read and I can’t wait to get started reading them.

Do you know what type of a poker player you are? Are you a recreational player? An amateur? Semi Pro? Pro?

Does knowing what type of player help your expectations when you play?