So yesterday was yet another land mark in my poker career. I decided that it was time to get a coach...
So why would I want a coach? It's not because I'm a losing player by any means. It's quite the contrary actually. I feel like I've been in the process of becoming a much more advanced player recently. I know my mental game is, and has been awesome. Both in the aspect of not tilting and being very disciplined in quitting in time etc. But also in the aspect of focusing hard on my table and being able to combine an analytic approach to the game while still relying on my subconscious mind to pick up patterns and help me make decisions by giving me the "feel". I'll get back to that later on...
First let me tell you about my experiences with my new coach, Raymond Wu.
What first attracted me to Ray was his devotion to the game. He really seems to take the game seriously and he seems to always want to find new things to improve in his game. He doesn't "grind", he plays poker. And this is a mindset which I think is absolutely necessary to acheive full success in poker. I think Rays approach to this game will shine through in his coaching. I think he will be able to teach how to learn.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
Ok so back to yesterday. At 20:00 CET we had our first lesson. I had some probs getting AIM Pro to work which we were supposed to use for a remote desktop feature. We ended up instead just doing an old fashioned sweating session where we spoke through Skype and I told him my hole cards while he was watching the tables from his client. It actually worked surprisingy well, but I hope that we can sort a remote desktop solution out by next thursday.
Ray seems like a really good guy and an easy lad to talk to. Also he's chineese, which is kind of funny...
I've been playing some NL400 lately, but we decided to start out at NL200 playing 2 tables. This felt good so I could get a sense for his style. I don't think he got much info on my style of play since I double checked just about every move with him for the first session... Silly perhaps, but I think I got a good feel of how he wants me to play this way.
The pre-flop play is very similiar to what I've been playing before. My PF stats have been about 23/17 but I'm now going to aim to make that somewhere in the ballpark of 22/20. The lowering in vpip basically will come from playing even tighter from the SB which I have had a tendency to complete with hands like Qxs and unsuited connecters lately. Drawing hands suck playing oop, simple as that...
The area where I think Ray really can help me improve is my post flop aggression. Ray plays a very aggressive style and his post flop aggression is pretty crazy. I have a post flop aggression of about 2.6 today, and I want that to get to the 4-5 range.
I think the session went really well. I got to feel out his style and I'm definately got a few things that I will take away from this session. I have two interesting HHs from our session yesterday which I will post in my next entry later tonight. We ended up +$471 after 360 hands, so the lesson payed for itself basically ;)
If I do ok this week we will be playing the NL400 games next session which feels good.
We will be having one 2 hour session each week on thursday. My plan is to evaluate each lesson and list goals for myself for the upcoming coaching session. These goals will touch gameplay issues as well as number of hands played, and pretty much anything I can think of.
This blog entry is becoming quite the long one so I'll wrap it up now by giving you my first set of goals and focus points for this week.
- Play 10.000 hands of NL200
- Focus on aggression in every session! Play my draws more aggressively and focus on forcing tough decisions on my opponents at all times. My aggression when I meet Ray next time will be at least 3.6
- Watch at least 3 Cardrunners videos and read through the medium/high stake forums daily. I also need to start posting HHs for crying out loud...
Results since Ray:
Winnings: $471
Hands: 360
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