Coaching.
Date: Sat, Aug 23, 2008
As I've previously mentioned, I've had the opportunity to get my feet wet in the business of poker coaching. The results have been so good, that I am confident I can offer a valuable product to any aspiring poker player up to and including mid stakes 6 max NL Hold'em cash games. Since I also seem to enjoy teaching, I have decided to make myself available as a coach.
Coaching process.
I preferably offer live and in person coaching in the Copenhagen area only, and the price is $200/hr. Once the coaching process is well underway, I am going to be more flexible on these terms.
It is a challenge for many poker players to evaluate and develop their game by themselves, due to the solitary nature of the game. There is naturally no qualified debate or discussion of strategy when playing poker, and while participation in online forums can be a big help, it is always a time consuming process and often a frustrating one as well ("I cant blieve u fold that u fkn retard, LOL!!1").
The strength of coaching in person is the amount of two-way communication possible. It gives me the opportunity to watch you play while you explain your thought process. Afterwards we will discuss strategic issues that I notice during play, and obviously also situations that you currently find to be frustrating or difficult. While poker strategy is the primary area of focus, I will also be able to evaluate your whole approach to the game, including mind set, bank roll management, multi-tabling and technical aids, and alert you if I spot potential conflicts with the life of a professional player or areas with room for improvement (wife control problems is an area of expertise :)). As the coaching process continues we can mix in theoretical discussions and improve on already working strategies. This would be my suggestion for a valuable coaching process, but your ideas and needs are obviously the deciding factors.
References.
As this blog documents I am a winning player on 6-max cash games up until 2000NL. My main source of income this year has been 1000NL typically played at 7-10 tables. My hourly rate this year over more than 200k hands has been about $500/hr, so this coaching offer is of course dirt cheap. I play at the poker office in Copenhagen, and this gives me the opportunity to discuss strategy with 11 other professional players on a daily basis, giving me an excellent overview of the online poker scene.
If you are interested, drop me a line at poker@hasloev.dk. I expect us to exchange a couple of emails and/or have a conversation before we decide if there is reason to continue.
Back in the game.
Date: Tue, Aug 19, 2008
Online screen name of the week: OMGCAPSLOCK
Its been two weeks since my return to the tables, and things have mostly been going very well. The first week I played only $600NL tables, in order to ease back into the grind without getting too rattled by the beats, and also simply as a reaction to my bankroll being slightly smaller than I like. After winning the first 10 buy-ins, I started mixing in $1000NL tables, and now I am mostly playing those, although frequently I think the games are much better at $600. When the difference in opponent skills is too noticable, I don't feel too proud to ditch the $1000 games. Mostly it is my opinion that you should try not to get too hung up on playing at a specific level if the games are better elsewhere.
I am up a little over $20k since my return, even though I dropped $7k of all-in results through bad luck yesterday in a break even session. When you can run that much below expected results and still break even, things are pretty good. I am also about half way through my 100 hour goal, which could have been better I suppose. I will get there though, no question about it.
I have had some interesting battles with other regulars around the 3-betting game pre-flop. I punish players who steal too often, and some won't back off. If they steal too often, and fold to 3-bets too seldom, the result is lots of big pots with mediocre holdings on both our parts. If you don't know what is going on, it can seem like a stupid game of chicken between two bullies. In fact, it is just a logical consequence of players trying to exploit a particular leak, namely playing too loose preflop. If you often 3-bet someone who often steals and then often calls your 3-bets, you would be losing a lot of money if you didn't adjust your post flop play accordingly. And suddenly I have a situation where I can't fold a pair of eights out of position on a jack high board with 250 in the pot and 875 behind. A logical consequence of the 3-betting arms race, or a macho pissing contest? Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.
Chase for 100 hours.
Date: Sat, Aug 9, 2008
Here I am, back home again from holiday. I spent a couple of weeks in Italy, enjoying the mountains, the sea, the ice cream, the pasta and of course the wine. Italy is a nation of aesthetics. They love beauty in all forms, buildings, people, cars, and they spend more energy enhancing and celebrating it than any other people I have visited. When a 200 year old building is considered new, you know they must spend a bit of money on building maintenance here and there. This is very enjoyable when you are on a holiday, but I think for every day life it might become too much for a dull scandinavian like myself. On the other hand, the fine art of taking a break for a perfectly brewed espresso is definetely something to be inspired by, even up north of the wine countries.
It has been an expensive summer, and while vacationing is more or less supposed to be so, I have also been losing a nice pile of money on teh poker since beginning of May. I have booked about 100k hands of poker with a net loss to show for it. I will give you a minute to think about how long it would take you to play 100k hands.
...
The question that everyone asks is of course: Have you played bad, or have you just been unlucky? Of course it is more or less implied that it would be impossible to be unlucky for such a long stretch. Well, that is obviously up for debate, but I will maintain that yes, I have more or less been running bad while playing well. It may sound like I am ignoring obvious warning signs, but I simply haven't played significantly different from the previous 100k hands in which I basically cleaned up the tables. It is hard to believe when you haven't experienced it, but the amount of variance in poker results is just mind numbing, and I have received a heavy dose of the worst of it the last 3 months.
All that is going to change now, and I have promised myself 100 hours of solid poker in August. To start with I have dropped down to 600NL to try and gain some momentum, confidence and hard currency before I return to my beloved 1000NL that have treated me so harshly lately. I have already booked 20 hours with earnings of a little over $200/hour this week, so it has been a pretty good start. Yesterday was a roller coaster. I played 6 hours, and I was down 6 buy-ins at one point. I finished strongly though, and brought it back to even before it was over.
I will update a bit more frequently now and hopefully it will be all reports of happy days and big $$$.
Royal flush!
Date: Thu, Jul 3, 2008
I don't remember getting a royal flush before, but tonight I got one. Not that it's a very interesting piece of news, but these are slow times. I started with a horrible run after coming home from Vegas, but I am back to green now, although not by much. My plans for the coming week includes some spear fishing and poker playing, and then I go on vacation with the wife on Thursday.
I have been coaching a friend of mine a little bit lately, and I have found that very enjoyable. I show up live at his place, and we discuss the game as he is playing, and I pin point whatever general weaknesses I see. I could definitely see myself doing that some more. If you live around Copenhagen and feel like getting some new input, let me know. I don't come cheap though. I think $200/hr is about right for what I can offer, considering that I make more than that playing poker myself. It has to be live though. I think a verbal discussion gets the points across much quicker than emails, and besides I sit in front of my computer enough as it is. When I get back from vacation, I will write down something properly about how I can help people improve their game.
Congratulations are in order for Spain with a spectacular Euro Cup win. I don't remember such a huge skill difference between two teams in one of the big finals. Spain was just completely outplaying Germany 75 out of 90 minutes.
Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $5/$10
6 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
Hero: $1000
UTG+1: $1121.30
CO: $1419.14
Button: $1223
SB: $1129
BB: $1137.24
Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is UTG with :jc :tc
Hero raises to $40, UTG+1 folds, CO calls, Button calls, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: :kc :qc :kd ($165, 4 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $100, CO calls, 2 folds.
Turn: :6h ($365, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $200, Hero calls.
River: :ac ($765, 2 players)
Hero raises all-in $660, CO folds.
Uncalled bets: $660 returned to Hero.
Results:
Final pot: $765
Snap back to reality.
Date: Thu, Jun 26, 2008
This post just to let you know I haven't fallen off the earth and that my brain is not completely melted from my stay in the Nevada desert sun. I am slowly getting used to a world where things make a little sense. No pink stretched hummers and the inside temperature correlates roughly with the outside temperature. Looks like I am getting rid of that cold I picked up out in the desert. I have had some annoying hardware problems, so I have only just today gotten back to the grind of online poker. It is almost a relief to get back where bet sizes are sensible.
Otherwise the last couple of nights have been spent with the Euro Cup of Football. It has been a couple of decent semi finals, although the Russian performance tonight was dissapointing. Hard to understand what happened to the team that destroyed the dutch. I guess a final of Germany vs Spain is pretty good, considering that it could have been Turkey vs Russia. That would have been a bit of an anti climax. Anyway, I am just happy that Italy is out. Their match against Spain is one of the most disgraceful I've seen, bad even for Italy. It is just a shame that Donadoni orders 11 guys, many of whom can do great things with a football, to just stand and defend for 120 minutes.
It is nice to be home, even though I miss my Porsche. That is one nice ride, and a cabriolet is made for the Vegas heat. When you accelerate quickly from 50 to 90 mph past a roaring truck on the freeway, you know you are alive. It cost me $500 for a day, it was worth every cent and it is not close. A+.
Short stories from Vegas.
Date: Fri, Jun 20, 2008
I played in a tournament at Bellagio early in the trip. An old rock to my right started out loudly declaring how he would never raise an ace and a face card, "never!". Another player questioned his truthfullness, and he repeated "NEVER!", clearly agitated. First hand I remember him playing he was betting flop and turn of a semi large pot on a QJxx board with two spades. When the river came a non spade king, instead of considering his action he just started mumbling "You motherfucking...", and checked it down. He showed an ace high flush draw, and the other guy took it down with KT for a rivered one pair. Clearly the old guy thought the world was against him. 20 minutes later we had the most brutal of suckouts on the table as some guy was sent out of the tournament with 33 against AJ on a JT3 board. Turn, T, River: J. Just a sick beat that pretty much left the table shell shocked. The old guy commented "well, what about me with that king on the river, talk about being unlucky". Half an hour later, he flopped a flush from the big blind against another guys set. A set against a flush is not in horrible shape with 7 outs on the turn and 10 on the river, and he hit one of those. That was too much for old guy who stood up and yelled "Did you ever see shit like that in your life?!?!?". My answer would be, well, yeah, once or twice. He also got in a few choice words about the WSOP management who wouldn't let him play in an event when he was only half an hour late. Some people just have no luck at all.
In the $5k event, I played at a table with both TJ Cloutier and Allen Cunningham. The only table chatter I overheard there was TJ telling how he had once seen Doyle get away from quad tens "years and years ago". As he himself has documented in his book 'Championship NL Hold'em', TJ is the very definition of a solid rock, who has made his living at the poker tables folding a lot, and then soul reading people in big pots. He displayed both in a hand where he 3-bet from the button. The first raiser then said "why so little?", and then 4 bet it. That sent TJ into the tank. After a while he said "Another raise...". Then "...with a speech...", and then he folded queens.
Most places in the world, driving a Hummer will be a powerful statement in itself. But in Vegas, some people can't handle the thought of someone not noticing how much money they have. So they stretch the Hummer. A lot. And then they paint it pink...
Thomas from the office had Gus Hansen at his table in Mondays event. Obviously, the first time Thomas raised his blind, Gus instantly moves all in for a full stack early in the tournament. Thomas folds and Gus says to him: "I only do that when I think I have the best hand". And then smiling: "...but I always think I have the best hand."
Same Thomas busted Phil Helmuth in an earlier event with aces against Helmuth kings. Helmuth took it gracefully, shaking his hand saying "That's the only way they beat me".
Event #31.
Date: Mon, Jun 16, 2008
Event 31, $2500 short handed was a bust. Everything is back to normal, as I lost with a set against a flush draw all in on the flop. Biggest dissapointment was not busting Jamie Gold as he was all in preflop against me earlier in the day. I had 88 against his 22, but he spiked the deuce. His words were: "Everybody tells me I am the luckiest man in the world, I might as well run with it". He busted later though, so I guess he wasn't that lucky.
No. 30 out of 2706.
Date: Mon, Jun 16, 2008
Not a bad result when you look at it that way, but of course it would have been a bit nicer to see the final table. For 30th place I took down $13,666, enough to keep my tournament gaming in Vegas close to break even.
There have been a lot of big hands today, and I don't really have the energy to recount them all. At one point I had 270k chips, which is 90 times starting stack. Things went downhill from there though, and the last hour I was severely short stacked most of the time after losing a 170k pot with AK vs 99 preflop. I survived one all-in with JTs against A3o, but I finally busted with T7o called by AQo. I shoved 75k from CO, 6k/12k blinds, and 1k antes. Good shove IMO, considering each orbit cost 26k.
Early in the day, I would have been in the top 10, if my pocket aces had held up against queens. Overall though, there is no question I was lucky to go so far. But of course, I wish my luck could have held a few hours longer. Such is the life of a tournament player.
WSOP cash.
Date: Sun, Jun 15, 2008
I played my fourth event of the series yesterday, or I should say, I am still playing it! I have made it to day two of event 27 ($1500 NL) with a little over average chips, and we are in the money.
It was a great day 1, in which everything suddenly worked out, in sharp contrast to earlier events this year, when nothing worked out. I played two different tables, both of which was among the best I have ever played. On the first table, two thirds of all hands went unraised preflop, and on both tables the level of passivity was at times almost mind numbing. It was very cozy though, with an 80 year old geezer to my left who couldn't really see the board, and a middle aged woman across taking the 'friendly game' prize. They went very deep with the method of call preflop, call flop, call or check turn, call or check river and show down a set, trips or a straight for the winning hand. They combined for a total of 2 preflop raises in five hours, and on one of those the lady put in 2200 chips from the button when the blinds were 600/1200. I will never know if it was actually meant to be a call as well. On the other raise, the lady knocked out the short stacked geezer with kings against queens. She is still in it with a decent stack.
There are just 224 players left, and first prize is $628k and of course a bracelet, so that is where I am going.
I gotta run, I am playing in an hour and a half. Wish me luck.
Vegas update
Date: Fri, Jun 13, 2008
As I am sporting the mother of all hang overs, this will just be a brief report of our doings in Vegas. Pretty much every one of us is losing at the tables, so there is not much profit yet.
I played event 21 yesterday, a regular $5k NL tournament. I doubled up early with aces against eights all-in preflop, but went totally card dead after that. I also made a semi bad bluff that cost me a chunk. I finally bust with 30 BBs about 5 hours in with a flush draw and over cards against aces.
It turned out to be a good day anyway, as I saw the cirque de soleis show 'Ka', which is an awesome production. Other prime activities include a long drive in the desert. We started out by Hoover Dam, drove by Lake Mead to the Valley of Fire, and then home. Day before that we visited the gun range, where I shot Saddam Hussein in both eyes with a Desert eagle in two shots total. I also tried an AK-47, an M16 and a .45 hand gun. Much fun. Our internet is basically not functioning, so sadly I can't spoil you with updates as much as I would like.
Now, sleep.
Event #13.
Date: Mon, Jun 9, 2008
Event #13 Saturday went much better than #9. I lasted over twice as long, and lost as a much bigger favourite. About 100 minutes in I raised from UTG+1 with 97s, and get 3 callers. I flop a flush draw, and BB bets about half pot. I call, and so does the button. We are 3-way, the pot is growing big and on the turn I make my flush. BB checks, I bet 2/3 pot, Button raises, BB folds, and we go all-in. He shows a flopped slow-played set (not a good play imo). He obviously rivers a full house, and I am gone.
The beats you take playing live poker are somewhat harder to bear than online. Everything is much more in your face, it takes longer to play the next hands, and the emotions of yourself and your opponents are an important part of the game much more so than online. This recent beat is not exceptional at all, but it took its toll on me emotionally. It more or less ruined my day actually. But I am nothing if not stubborn, so I will keep plugging of course. Yesterday was a vast improvement, we hung out at the mansion for most of the day, and then went for a good meal and some cash game. I watched game 2 of the NBA finals, played 10/20NL at the Bellagio for a few hours and won $1100 in only small pots. A good solid evening that I think I needed.
WSOP Event #9 and other failures.
Date: Fri, Jun 6, 2008
Event 9 had the look of a great tournament for myself and a couple of the guys: Short handed, which is our normal game and a large weak field to take advantage of. Things didn't work out though, I busted with aces against a flush draw on the flop only 45 minutes in. I succeeded to some degree with my plan of establishing a loose aggressive image, and I suppose that prompted my opponent in the final hand to make a large overbet all-in on the flop with the flush draw. But when you can't win a hand as a 68% favourite you are not going to get far in any tournament.
I played in a $1080 tournament at Bellagio afterwards, and busted in that one about half way in after folding a lot. 6 hours of tournament poker took a harder toll on me than expected, so I called it a day after that. I haven't really had any cards to play with so far, so I have yet to see if my aggressive strategy will work.
Back home Mathias sucked out on me in a 4-way pool tournament that I had practically clinched. Everything is so rigged. Today we go shopping.
Reporting from Vegas (baby).
Date: Thu, Jun 5, 2008
I arrived in Las Vegas Monday, and the guys joined up yesterday, so the 'Pokerkontoret Mansion' is up and running. I managed to sleep until 7AM today, so hopefully the jet lag is not going to bother me much. The house is cool, the car is cool, and it looks like it will be a great trip.
A few of us will play in WSOP Event 9 today, it is a $1500 6-max event, and I am really looking forward to that. I hope to really attack the table and build that crucial early big stack, that could allow me to dominate the table the first few levels. Of course it is a risky strategy that will often quickly cost your tournament life, but I think it can be very profitable to play a lot of big pots against bad players who are more afraid to bust out early than you are. We will see how it works out. Of course the most important thing is always to adjust well to the other players.
And the beat goes on.
Date: Thu, May 29, 2008
I played in the weekly Thursday tournament in Casino Copenhagen this evening, and lasted about 40 minutes. Things went as planned early, as I attacked the blinds and weak limpers of whom there were plenty (the limpers that is, the number of blinds was standard). There was about 4 weak calling stations at the table.
Then one of them 3-bet me preflop when I had AK. I called, hit an ace on the flop while he hit a set of nines, and I was crippled. Ten minutes later I lose a preflop all-in with ATo against a calling station with 65s. He called a raise from CO, and then called my shove from SB as well, for about 15 BBs. nh, wp.
Since my last post, I have had two losing cash game sessions. The last one I was just about to get away with a $2k win, which would have been huge this month, but then as I was going home I sat at two very juicy 2000NL tables for an hour and promtly lost 4 buy-ins.
I am now at break even for the month, and feeling some poker sadness.
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