Great job Bob! Add to it if you think of more. Just jump in... :)
A weekend at the World Series of Poker Academy
in Forum > General Poker Chat
I had the opportunity to attend a World Series of Poker Academy last
weekend and our esteemed administrator asked me to write something
up. Since writing is definitely not my strong suit I can't guarantee
that this will be useful but I will try.
The instructors were, Mark Seif, Paul Wasicka, Joe Navarro and Mark
"Poker Ho" Kroon. The amount of information they gave us was almost
overwhelming but presented very clearly. The course was divided
between lectures and hand analysis. We were at tables and the pros
dealt hands and we played them out. Afterwards we turned over our
cards and the play was critiqued. I think this was probably the best
part of the course since if we played it badly they would tell us how
we could have improved it. We also talked about how other students
played the hand and how we might have done it differently. They
didn't pull any punches when talking about the hands either. I busted
one of the other students and Mark Seif had more than a couple of
things to say about how he played it. I was holding AA and got him
to raise me all in with KJ. Oops!
They made very clear that the three most important things to take
into consideration when playing are position, position and position.
Aggression is also important but position is more important. They
also talked about raise sizing. All of them said that an initial
raise should be 3 times the big blind plus any limpers. A reraise
should be 3 times the initial raise plus any callers. Another point
was that if you are going to play you should get to heads up as soon
as possible. Playing multiple opponents is harder and also reduces
any advantage you may have. The chance that you will win with AA
against one player is a lot higher than against 3, 4 or 5 players.
Joe Navarro talked about tells naturally. He was a very good
presenter. He was able to make his thoughts clear to all of us. We
had a tournament Saturday night and it was amazing to walk into the
poker room and watch people after his presentation and be able to
know what kind of hand they had. I would strongly suggest that his
book, "Read'em and Reap" to all of you if you play live. I finished
14th in the tourney by the way. Paul Wasicka finished second. Mark
and Mark were both knocked out. It was an experience to play against
all 3 of them.
I am sure there are other things I should talk about, but right now I
can't get my head around everything I heard over the 2 days. I highly
recommend the academy to everyone. I think it will be money well
spent.
I have been trying to use what I learned at the academy with somewhat mixed results. As has been said, playing opponents that think at the tables is easier than those who don't. I have won and finished on the final table several times since the class. I was able to use the info brought out by the pros to win hands with cards that I am sure were not the best, but when I did it was against players that were capable of thinking through what it was I was representing and acting accordingly. Against the most common type of player you should not try to bluff as they will call even if all they have is a small pair. They can't find a way to lay anything down so just play good hands against them. This is easy to say but hard to implement sometimes. You have to watch how others play to try and figure out what they are capable of doing in a hand. The weakest players very seldom deviate from a set way of playing. They will way overbet the pot if they get a good hand or go all in before the flop with anything. Sometimes they get lucky, but if you can be patient and wait for an good hand you can get all of their chips. I have seen this playing in both live and online tournaments. The one thing I have noticed is that online players seem to be a lot looser than live players. It is not uncommon, even with a raise and a reraise in front, for 5 or 6 players see a flop. All in bets are very common before the flop. Patience is key and even with it you are going to take hits because the poor players are going to get lucky. They think they are playing good poker. Don't try to convince them they are not. Not only will they not believe you, you do not want to educate them because in the end you will get their chips. Just now won a hand from a guy who thought a pair of 5s was a good all in hand.
I hope this makes sense. I warned everyone earlier that I am not a writer by trade or vocation.
"I warned everyone earlier that I am not a writer by trade or vocation."
And yet Bob, it comes across well formed...
