Legopoker

If you read www.legopoker.com at all, you might have heard that I have partnered with Chris Tickner, the current webmaster and programmer. I'm really excited about this, becuase we have a lot of really prime things in store for everyone. Therefore, my blog is being moved to his site, at the following URL: http://mynameizgreg.legopoker.com (I will no longer be posting on this site). It should be a great partnership, and I'm really looking forward to it.

In other news, I have the 10 beta testers, and we will start in about a week. I am also really excited about this course, because I think I'm going to open an entirely new world to these guys (and girls), and everyone's games should dramatically improve.

Stay Tuned (over at legopoker!),
Greg

Calling Beta Testers

I have essentially finalized my lessons for my course, and I am ready to accept beta testers. Please email me at Gregpokerlessons@gmail.com if you are interested in being a beta tester. Here is a formal introduction to the course:

As many of you know, I had that staking thread on two plus two where I got over 200 replies from people interested in being staked by me. Obviously, I had to say no to a lot of people, but it got me thinking about how I could help a bunch of people out. I get asked to coach individuals all the time, and I turn them down for a couple reasons. First, the pure economics of coaching - it kills your EV/hourly/whatever. Of course, I think this fact shouldn't matter if you get enough intrinsic satisfaction from coaching, which many people do (myself included). However, 1 on 1 coaching is exactly that - one person. I would rather be more efficient with my time.

I like helping small stakes players. Quite frankly, I don't see too much joy in helping some guy who is crushing nl400/600 become a winning player at nl1000. However, I love the idea of helping a breakeven/losing/winning small stakes guy really start to find his place, and eventually move up and compete in a different game.

Obviously you read my blog, and I assume that you read a lot of my posts on two plus two. You have seen that I have a different approach to the game than most HSNL players. I don’t play unless I’m playing my best, and a host of other criteria. Poker is so psychological, both internally and between opponents. I focus on those types of things a lot.

I’m also decent at poker :). When I came up with this idea, I was hoping that the name I’ve worked to make for myself, and the high quality nature of my posts/blog entries would suffice in terms of validating my ability. But, I am being told by marketing experts to use numbers, so: I am a winning player at 10/20NL (big winner) and 25/50NL (not as big :P), and for example have made well over 200k this summer.

So, what is this idea? I want to teach a seminar. 10 hours, over the course of about a month. I want ten students at a time. The lessons will be taught over skype, or an alternate voice program if I come across something better. Before the course, I will distribute a quiz to students, and they will fill it out and return it to me. I will go over the quiz, and my expectations during the first class. The remaining classes will be split up as follows:

Class 1 – An approach to the game/Quiz Review
Class 2 – Theory
Class 3 – Theory
Class 4 – Hand Histories
Class 5 – Theory
Class 6 – Theory
Class 7 – Sweat
Class 8 – HH
Class 9 – Sweat

The theory sessions will consist of me lecturing and providing examples to important theories (for instance, when to fold vs call vs 3bet preflop, and how to exploit 2+2 norms). Hand history classes will entail students each emailing me 1-2 hands, and then going over them all as a group. The sweating sessions are when I will play and the students will sweat me – I will be playing the stakes of the students, so they can see how things such as image and table dynamic tie into one’s play.

I’m really excited for the course and it’s going to be a knockout. I am confident that participants will most likely be able to beat the hell out of their games after taking the course :).

However, I need it tested. That’s where the beta comes in.

In a mutually beneficial situation, you get a much cheaper price for my course, and I get people to give me feedback and tweak things. So, you need to be willing to keep in contact during the course, and also write up a formal review afterwards (whether it be positive or negative). If you are able and willing to do these things, the special beta price is $50/hour, so $500 total for 10 hours. I only need 10 people, and I have a couple already, so please e quick if you are interested. Otherwise, I expect everything to go great, and for more courses to be taught in the future.

Once again, if you are interested, please email me at: Gregpokerlessons@gmail.com . Thanks.

Greg

PS I’m still not doing 1 on 1 coaching so don’t ask about that :).

Augusto

It's pretty hot in the DR. I am leaving tomorrow, but I've had a lot of fun. Haggling with the vendors is neat, but they really try to rip you off. I got a lot of people who want to test my beta seminar, so that's good. I'll start that up after I get back from Vegas. My only concern is that some of the specific things I will be talking about are too advanced for SSNL, but that's what the beta is for, right? I haven't really put any poker in the last couple entries, so I'll talk a little about that.

About 10 days ago on UB I played Big Egypt HU on 2 tables. I know he does well at the 2k and 5k HU on FTP, but UB is like my home court, so I play a lot more people on there. It was really annoying because the times that he got my stack, with one exception, were all coolers. However, I had to work and outplay him to win pots. He stacked me quickly twice; about 3 minutes in I lost with AQ in a 3bet pot to 77 on a A97 board. Then, he hit a runner runner flush agaisnt my top set when he check-minraised the flop with air, and bet the turn on the picked up draw.

Image is so important HU. After the two coolers, I found myself down 5k, and then sat at the other table. We battled back and forth. I went down 12k at the bottom when he could do no wrong. I battled back, and decided that he was cbetting too much (almost 90% of the time) so I countered by check raising a lot. I donked into him a few times with very good hands, and we saw a showdown in those hands a few times. I mixed in air a couple times, but he never saw. So, his read on me had to be that I donk with strong hands, which led to this hand.

He raises, I call with 66. The pot is 150, flop is A24, and I donk into him. He raises, and I decide that I can rep a really strong hand. I call, and the turn is a king. I check, he bets pretty big, maybe 850 into the 1250 pot, and I shove. He quickly types, "set good. or 53." It's really satisfying to be able to know what a fellow HS player is thinking, and thusly exploit him.

The dynamic of our match was weird. Most of the time, the turn was being checked through by me. Just the way the hands worked out, it didn't seem like I was value betting very thinly (I kind of wasn't at the time). However, then a hand came up where I raised 9Jo and he called. The flop was 926r, and he c/c. The turn was a queen and I bet again, pretty big. The river was a king, and I bet again for value. I figured that my image at this point was big hand or air when I bet those three streets as bigly as I did, especially given our recent dynamic. He thought for a little and called with 52. Afterwards he typed, "sick was that a vb or a bluff." I wound up making a huge comeback to +400, and then he quit/had to go. I felt pretty satisfied because I seemed to have a good idea of how he played by the end of it but I feel as though I was really starting to confuse him.

Tomorrow I come back for literally the night, and then it's off to Vegas. I'm itching to play.

Greg