Can’t Find A Coach … Oh Well!

I was reading Your Worst Poker Enemy by Alan Schoonmaker and in it he makes the point that having a poker coach is a really terrific idea, and every serious poker player should have one.  A poker coach can be a friend you can bounce poker ideas off of and who can critique your play, or somebody you hire who does that kind of stuff as a living.

 

I thought about this and saw how it makes sense.  I mean, I don’t know what I don’t know, and I’m sure that I could always benefit from having another pair of eyes watch my play and share their conclusions with me.  I have a couple of friends who are into the poker scene, but I don’t have much of an opportunity to spend enough time around them to actually critique certain plays or provide advice on how to do things better.  And although there are plenty of coaches out there who do this for a living, almost all of them live in faraway places like Las Vegas or L.A. or Michigan.  Their business model is, “Pay me $200 for an hour’s work, then send me a bunch of hand histories of your play, and I’ll email you back some advice.  I’ll let you know when your hour’s up.”  I’m sure this can be valuable, but it also seems coldly impersonal.  If I hire one of these e-coaches and do a session with him, then later follow-up with him on some other stuff, is he even going to remember who I am?  “Let’s see, is this the maniac who cold-calls preflop three-bets with seven/deuce offsuit, or is he the tight rock who only places Aces and Kings?”  I honestly don’t know if I’d get my money’s worth.

 

Fortunately for me, I found a local guy who does poker coaching for a living. He’s been playing poker for over thirty years and coaching for over ten years.  In my discussions with him, he has a very clear strategy and approach to the game that I’m certain could benefit me.  We spent some time talking with each other – I guess I should say, interviewing each other.  He spent as much time asking me questions about my playing style, strategy, poker philosophy, etc. as I did with him.

 

Ultimately, he said, “You know, I don’t think I can be very much help to you.  You seem to have a very successful style and good results, and your approach to the game doesn’t show very many weaknesses.  I’d be happy to take your money if you’d like, but I don’t think I’d be able to give you much useful advice.”

 

I was pretty surprised to hear this and actually more disappointed than flattered, but I guess I’ll take my kudos where I can get them.

 

But this may be why I blog so much; or at least, try to.  If I put some hand information and thoughts down on paper, it helps me consider strategy and ways to do things better.  It’s also useful when I look at older posts and re-learn stuff I knew before and forgot.  So maybe my blog is a coach of sorts.

 

 

I am surprised to see that the World Series is nearly upon us.  I’ve only identified one event that I am going to be sure to play; that’s the $1000 buy-in NLHE tournament that starts on May 30.  That is, two weeks from yesterday!  I’m hoping to play some more events too, or at least hang out at the truly lucrative cash games nearby, but between a huge workload in my real life and the fact that I’ve pretty much used up all my vacation days, I really don’t know if I’m going to be able to do much more.  I know that the Main Event is out; I have something else already scheduled that week that I couldn’t move even if I won a free seat.  *sigh*

 

I will post a hand I played recently in a $2/$5 game.  I haven’t done that for awhile!  The point of this particular hand is to show that sometimes Ace/King actually is successful.  I’ve heard Ace/King called “Walking Back to Houston”, which goes back to the days when the Texas rounders would overplay the hand and then, well, have to walk back to Houston without any bankroll left.  People still overplay the hand today, as if they’re holding pocket Aces.  The fact of the matter is Ace/King is a drawing hand.  I’ll raise with it pre-flop, but if I don’t flop a pair I’m gone.  And if the pre-flop action gets too heated, I don’t have any problem folding it preflop.

 

I hadn’t been at this table very long at all.  I’d only played a few hands since sitting down, and hadn’t shown down a single one of them.  In this hand, I was in the cutoff seat with A©K©.  Everyone folded to me, so I raised it $10 to $15.  The button called and the blinds folded.  I had never played with this opponent before and I didn’t have any kind of read on him, so basically I could only play my cards.  I was totally preparing to fold on the flop if it missed me (which a flop will do two out of three times).

 

The flop was Aª K¨ J§.  At first glance, it looked gorgeous (two pair!) but upon further examination, it looked more troubling, with all kinds of looming straight possibilities.  I didn’t really think it likely that my opponent had flopped a straight (Queen/Ten usually can’t stand a preflop raise; at least I wouldn’t think so).  But it’s very possible it was on the way for him.  I decided to check, looking for a check/raise.  I thought that would be the best way to define his hand.  If he re-raised me, I would start to worry.  My opponent bet $15 – rather a small bet – so I raised it to $60 to make drawing a very poor decision, odds-wise.  I would have been happy to take the pot there … but he called the raise.

 

The turn was the 7¨.  If my hand was good on the flop, it was almost certainly still good.  I put out $100 – again, with an eye toward making a drawing hand pay too much to make it worthwhile.  Again, he called.  There’s no way he could have me beat … is there?

 

The river was the 8¨.  This put a backdoor diamond flush on the board, and some less-likely straights as well.  I ignored those, and value-bet a smallish $150.  I was confused at what my opponent was calling with (a smaller two pair maybe?) and my bet was meant to block anything he might choose to bet.  He called; I showed my hand, he mucked, and I dragged a $600 pot.  If he was drawing, he played very poorly.  If he had an Ace, he should have let it go after all the strength I was showing.  But it is the mistakes of our opponents that build our bankrolls.