I don't think as poker goes you can really call me a "beginner" anymore, although there's always more to learn, of course.

But this year has been, for me, absolutely huge. I've had two big wins now - both tournaments, one online (2nd out of 350 for $10.5k) and one live (6th out of 1,120 for $11.6k)

My cash game, also, while still up and down, is much more solid. I can't really say I'm winning, overall, but I can say that over the last six months I'm also not really losing - so... breakeven at cash and good enough at tournaments to take down 2 biggish ones in 3 months.

This leads me to my question - where do I focus now in my learning - and what advice in general are the long term winning players willing to share with me now that I'm hitting the point where I'm starting to see really strong results?

Some are obvious:
- Don't violate BRM
- Don't get cocky
- Don't break the game that got you here

But ... what do I focus on now to get even better?

Niiicceeee GG WP

If you want to develop your cash game read Janda's new book. (Assuming of course you have read his original. If you haven't read Applications thats a bit of a no brainer place to start.)

Haven't read him - adding the first one to the Kindle now

Take some money (1k?) and invest it in tools/training/coaching. Also learn to actually construct ranges if you haven't done that already. Gratz on the scores!

How did you go so deep in the online tourney, just a good r.i of cards/flips or did you have a strategy in place? If like to know what kind of mindset you was in

Congrats on the winnings keep it up

The online tourney was the BetOnline 50k. It's a pretty terrible structure to be honest - pathetically small starting stacks, very short levels and a full hour of rebuys where you get a ton of people trying to double up with just about anything and if they don't they just rebuy.

In that tourney, in early levels, you really just have to play tight and wait for premium cards. At the end of the first hour, rebuy ends and there's an add on. I typically can run a long time - not always cashing of course, but getting close pretty often, in these types of tourneys on 1 BI with the add-on. After rebuy ends, those same ATM people hunker down and get super cautious - which you can exploit.

Of course if you start to get short you have to start making more moves, and your ranges have to adjust for position as well, but generally as I said, I run a long time.

In this particular instance I stuck with my usual strategy. I happened to hit a particularly hot heater which got me into an early and strong chip lead, and that let me put pressure on people post blinds. Between good reads and good cards it was like I could do no wrong. One of those dream streaks of cards, kwim?

I also feel I have a pretty strong final table game. Most players I find can't adjust well to going below 6 handed. They play 6, 5, 4 and 3 handed like they play 9 handed, which means I can make a lot of blind stealing moves from every position. In this particular final table, two of us knew how to play it, the others didn't, and so we ended HU and with the blinds deep enough that really the final battle was between two well matched short stacks with the chip lead moving back and forth a lot.

It could have gone either way - as it happened - classic AK vs QQ and I lost the flip.

I would first define what i enjoy playing the most, is either cash or MTTs and get the best possible coaching for it.

I generally like MTTs better but between my day job and home life, I can't play the ones I really like (multi day structures) nearly as often as I would like to, so I end up playing more cash.

The question you should be asking doesn't change. What is my biggest leak? The solution is to fix it. Now if you don't really have an idea what your biggest leak is, then seek some short term individual coaching to figure it out.

My concern would be why after 4 years on 2+2 can't I beat the lowest levels of cash game play. That suggests you have some bad habits that are going to be hard to break after years of reinforcement. Most likely, you don't even recognize they are a bad habit. Two common ones for intermediate live cash players are completing in the SB and playing fit or fold with small pairs or SC.

ICM if you playing more mtts

put money into coaching

Coaching is something I've considered - so now the question is - how do you go about finding a coach worth his or her salt?

Difficult to answer this imo. You can start in the coaching subforums, just do your research and if you do buy coaching just buy 1 hr first before you buy some massive package.

I would pick a number, a certain amount of money, that I would be really mad at myself for losing. Then I would withdraw that amount and play with the rest.