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Could you give us some tips on deep stacked play to get an idea of what you might be doing diff than your average grinder than helps you crush harder? I'm interested in some coaching.

As with poker in general, though this is even more true with deeper play, there is no absolute answer, everything is situational. Some quick advice I can offer, everyone know's poker is a game of position, it's importance is even more true the deeper you get. For that reason alone I'd advise 3 betting a lot more in position, and tightening up oop. You also change your 3b ranges. Off suit broadway hands drop significantly in value, thus vs decent agro villains flatting stuff like ak/aq off oop becomes more standard. The value of suited hands go up, especially stronger suited stuff, i.e. 100 eff I'm not a big fan of 3 betting weak suited aces oop, as vs your opponents calling range you'll frequently be dominated and on a lot of textures you have v avg equity. Deep the value of these sort of hands goes up dramatically. The main reason being people will attack the same monotone textures that smash your range, not to mention peoples calling ranges deep being a lot more weighted towards suited stuff as well.

On that topic, knowing which textures to attack in the pf callers position is important, when deep in position being extremely aggressive is key, i.e. you open 1010 from the CO 200 eff, reg in the sb 3b's with a 3b % from that position of 10 %. The flop is j97 two h and he cbet's 60 % pot. 100-150 eff he's never going to fold anything he bet purely for value, thus I'm balancing my weaker calling range by flatting my entire range, including sets. Deep this changes as I'm attacking so frequently and expect to have some decent fold equity by the river even unimproved. Oop in his shoes, this is very difficult to counter. He's forced to fold anything he was betting as a bluff with decent bd equity, as 3b bluffing flop isn't really an option as he'd be naturally flatting all his stronger stuff to let me bluff off, even with AA 200 eff+ this will not be an appetising thought. This often leads to a dynamic where he's frequently c/cing oop, either way I win as I can cut out the bluffs from his range and play accordingly vs his value range. This is a very simplified scenario and is basically the tip of the iceberg, but I hope it gives you some insight into the basics of successful deep play.

Hi,

Thought I would give a quick holla to tell you of my experience thus far with Alex.

About myself: I used to be a pro, then thought I would try a job for a year in the real world. I have now come back to playing poker full time. I am currently playing 2-4 to 5-10 and live 5/10.

I am using Alex to find leaks, talk strategy and to help me remember stuff I have forgotten/ missed out on. Though I have not been coached for Alex for that long, it has been more than that – I will come to that in a bit – it seems I have gotten side tracked on the generals of coaching – to see my review of Alex skip to the bottom.

I was always sceptical about getting a coach. It was something I was aware of, but never sure if was for me. What can they teach me??? I am a good player, and those who can’t… they teach right?

Then the other month I started reading Jman 28's well. In it he talks where he talks about having a coach. so I started looking into it; the pro’s and cons of it.

Against:

1) the cost ; I am paying for something up front where it is hard to place a residual value. Having never done experienced coaching this is a hurdle to jump.

2) Could I not use friends instead?

3) how do I know how good a coach is? (see my review at bottom)

For: (I apologise for my flicking between tenses. Some of the benefits are being witnessed retrospectively)

1)Self realisation. I believe it is part of human nature to always think we are better at something than we are. We can be proud… me especially! It seems that I have a tendency to justify moves incorrectly or just blame it on a cooler/luck. Is that the type of poker player I want to be? Is it true that pride precedes a fall?

2) I am having someone who is dedicated to looking solely after me. From a personal standpoint I feel awkward asking my poker friends (who are better than me), to spend their time coaching me. I want someone to put some considerable time either sweating me, or going through my stats etc. I am not as good as I think I am, so should be +ev!

3) If I can get a good coach, I will have someone knowledgeable looking for leaks who already beats the games I play. They will also know how to exploit the different types of players I will be playing with.

4) I have another set of eyes / a different set of opinions how to play – linked with 1.

5) I can be a bit lazy on occasion. I prefer to play more than study. It has dedicated me and to look through past sessions and really work on my game and identify what I am doing wrong. How else am I going to improve?

6) It should help me improve quicker and move up stakes.

7) I can tell bad beat story and get them off my chest. I don’t like telling bad beat stories because no one wants to hear them. With a coach, I pay him to listen. And guess what, maybe they are not all bad beats? Maybe sometimes I am playing bad and need someone to tell me I am…

8) I can be an aggro spaz monkey. By having a coach, I am thinking about hands a lot more in depth and more often. By talking about sessions it has help to reduce tilt - I am more often thinking about strategy instead of going on auto pilot. This gets plugged in from having sessions talking about strategy.

Sorry about the side track. Now to what you want to know….. Is Alex a good coach?

My first impression of Alex when I skyped with him, was an English guy with Americanisms; instead of saying how are you, nice to meet you he says “Whats up” or “wasssup”. I didn’t really know how to respond to this…. an airplane?? Had I inadvertently gone into a budwiser advert? I went for “good thankyou” .

Having chatted to him for a couple of minutes; my impression of him was that he was affable, articulate and charismatic about poker. Having been coached by him, I can say he is still these things, as well as being able to explain theory etc. concisely and in a way which can be understood.

We have had sessions in different formats. In our first session we went through my Holdem manager. He looked for stand out leaks in my game. He knows about his stats!

From then we have gone through sessions chatting about the larger hands I have played. We often go into them at some real depth, as well as getting side tracked by theory points. Further, we often discuss what if scenarios (eg different rivers cards), all other lines available to me, and we put ourselves in Villains shoes with a range of hand vs myself etc and talk how to play.

From then we have gone into live sweats so that he can see the intricacies of my game, including momentum, aggression etc. A plus point of this is that it also brings up situations where I may be making small leaks which would not be identified in the general holdem manager reviewing.

I don’t really know what else to say except that Alex is an excellent coach. He knows what he is talking about and I can feel improvements in my game already. I am approaching it slightly more analytically and calmly. It does make a big difference and Alex is great at spotting areas to improve as well as instilling confidence.

Looking at the cost of the coaching I think it is amazing value for what you get. Once you jump that hurdle to pay for coaching, you will come to the realisation how plus ev it is really is. When I searched around, Alex was less expensive than the other coaches at this level. I think he has the competency to charge a lot more so I would definitely recommend him on price as well as skill!

From a pro’s point of view I think he is definitely someone you should use. He has beaten/beats these games and will help you increase your winrate. He is the type of person who is also happy to talk about hands out of sessions! From a non Pro’s point of view, use him to plug you leaks and improve your game. Poker is much more fun winning/winning more!

In answer to the question if you should use Alex, I will use an Alexism: “Fist pump all in”!

Good luck people!

in(terested) before the rates go up!

ATOTHEC could you briefly tell us what methods of learning/training you used to rapidly rise up through the stakes in such a short period of time?
Also how many hours a day would you study? I just want to figure out what kind of factors could contribute to such a rise.
I started playing at 25nl and 1yr later was playing 100nl which i was happy with but when i hear about stories like yours it kinda blows me away and makes me feel like im underachieving(obv you could just be a genius or whatever).