50% Discount on 1-1 Poker Coaching from April 16-24!

For those of you thinking about signing up for 1-1 poker coaching, now is a great time to do it! I am running a special promotion for all sessions held between April 16-24. The cost will be $75/hr (1/2 half off my normal rate of $150/hr!)

1-1 coaching is a great way to take your game to the next level. We will identify and correct leaks in your MTT game and work on strategies based on your individual needs. If you are not sure about coaching, you can check out my latest PXF videos where I recorded two coaching sessions.

Sometimes Less Is More; 2nd Place Stars $40K GNTD 6 Max

I didn’t play much poker at all in February which is why I didn’t bother to make any blog posts . It was a month filled with snow in NJ so I didn’t do much of anything actually. I caught up on some movies and started playing more FIFA and NCAA Basketball on PS3….In total my Feb poker numbers look like this:

• MTTs played: 19 (-181 behind monthly target)
• Cash game hands: 0 (-10,000 behind monthly target)

Maybe I was dealing with some burn out from January but I just didn’t feel like playing too much. Or it could have been the weather. Or it could be that I’m not making consistent money from MTTs like I did a few years back. It was probably a combination of a lot of different things. The good news is when you have a job and other sources of income you can actually just take time off and not play. Why waste money when you can’t bring your A game or stay focused for an entire MTT?

There is more to life than poker so it is important to have some balance. Having kids you have to think about someone other than yourself and for me this is good because it forces me away from the tables regularly. Sometimes it can go force me too far away and I get frustrated that I’m not getting to AC for more of these WSOPC and Borgata events every couple of months. But on the whole I think it’s better for me in the long run. I suggest everyone finds some balance and I think your game will be better off for it.

So yesterday I actually sat down and played a session. It was my first session for the month and I wasn’t too focused. I busted a few games with poor play and was down to one table pretty quickly. And as luck would have it, I actually had a decent stack and we were starting to get to the mid to late stages of the tournament. Sometimes when I’m not motivated and at the top of my game it can be hard to play those first 2-3 hours knowing that we still have a long way to go before the final table.  (By the way,  I don’t think there is an easy solution to the problem – I just think it’s a matter of discipline and professionalism. You have to be committed to getting the job done.)

So I really just started trying to get in the zone and focus on my opponents and find spots to chip up. I managed to make some good decisions, get a few very important suckouts and ended up heads up with a good size chip lead. I made one key mistake vs my opponent heads up which I regret but overall I thought I played pretty good. And although I am never satisfied with second place, I think it’s important to not beat yourself up too much. Poker is just so brutal most of the time – is it really worth turning what was actually a pretty good day into something else? I don’t think so…….

January Wrap Up

I can’t believe January is already over! Time flies by so fast some times. I did a good job of getting in volume for MTTs but didn’t play nearly as many cash hands as I had hoped. With Full Tilt’s new Rush Poker, perhaps I’ll be able to hit my target for February a little bit easier (or if I simply spent more time playing cash after I hit my MTT goal for the month!)

• MTTs played: 313 (+113 ahead of monthly target)
• Cash game hands: 2903 (-7097 behind monthly target)

Full Tilt had Double Guarantees Week last week and the prize pools were amazing. I had two deep runs but only managed to get 16th and 21st as my two best finishes. I feel very good how I’m playing so I’ll just keep plugging along.