HERSCHELW's poker camp

What is "Camp Herschelw"???
"Camp Herschelw" is a weeklong virtual poker camp where you can tune up every facet of your online poker game.

Below you will find the schedule of events for the Camp:

Day 1: Herschelw University
On day one you go through all of my key NL holdem courses in order to develop and/or refine your NL holdem skills. The courses that will be taught include:
7pm: Chipping up early in NL Holdem mtt's
8:15pm: Blind on Blind play in tournaments.
9:30pm: Short stack play.....Be the ninja!!!
10:45pm: Mid to late game strategy: Riding the big stack.

Note: if you've already taken these classes I have added some new elements and changed a bit of the advice to fit the changes in online play. Also, a refresher never hurt.


Day 2: Resources and Self analysis
During day two I'll show you the tools pros are using to analyze thier game and exploit leaks in thier opponents. We'll spend time learning how to use them and talking about self analysis and improvement. I'll also cover strategies I use to analyze and improve my own game. After covering resources and self analysis we'll begin the process of going through one complete HH per student (that you choose and send me).We'll discuss the different hands and situations you encountered and explain how you could have played them most optimally. I'll also take time to give you a number of things to work on after we complete the HH review.

7pm Intro to self analysis tools
8pm Self anaysis strategies
9pm-midnight personalized HH analysis

Day 3: Putting the pieces together
On day 3 you'll get the chance to see me put together all of the things I have taught you so far and attempt to take down an mtt. This is a great opportunity for you to see late game first hand.

8pm personalized HH analysis continued
9pm Group sweat session


Day 4: Sng and HU play
On day 4 I will be bringing in a guest pro to teach you the finer points of sng play. This pro will be a recognized name in the poker community and will likely be one of the pros from the new poker training site I am launching June 1st. The pros teaching on the training site are Malicous222 aka Ghettofabolous, USCphildo, FU_15, Assassinato, Agame18, and UHbigtex.(note: only one guest pro will be teaching the sng lesson.)

7pm Guest pro teaches sng play
8pm HU play
9pm-midnight personalized HH analysis (continued)


Day 5: Show me what you learned!

On day 5 everyone will play thier typical mtt session and attempt to implement the things that have learned. During this session I will be available the entire time to answer questions and give you feedback on hands that you play. I will spend some time with each player watching thier tables and talking through hands and situations as much as possible. If one of our group members does end up getting deep in a tournament(as long as there is not another player still left in that tournament I will actively coach them through the end of the tournament with everyone else listening on through skype.


8pm til finished- Group poker session with coaching


Note: The schedule is subject to change.

Why should I choose you to coach me?
First and foremost I have proven results both as a player and a coach. I have successfully coached all different levels of players from $1 buyin players to $200+ buyin players. I have personally been both an extreme LAG player and a very solidly TAG player at different points in my career. Since I've been a consistently winning player playing TAG, LAG, and everything in between; I definitly understand the concepts that each type of player needs to learn. I teach to your style and don't attempt to convert you to mine.

Players I have previously or am currently teaching are:
Terrellk11 (5+ wins in the 3 months I have been coaching him including winning the 50/50 on stars for $10k+)
Que1620(+$7k with 2 wins in his first month as my student.)
Chomper4(50 FT's so far this year. Which is more than one per day he has played if I am estimating right.)
Ma77th3gr34t(FTOPS win for $100k+)
Coronababy(multiple FT's each month)
and many others.

What are the dates of the camp
I will be offering two camp sessions:
July 14th through July 18th


What does it cost???
An entire week of group coaching including a personalized analysis of your game will cost $435 per person.

How do I signup?
In order to signup you will need to send a $100 non-refundable deposit to herschelw on pokerstars or full tilt and post in this thread stating that you have done so. It is transferable so if you know someone who hasnt signed up yet and would like to then you can have them send you $100 and they will be able to use your deposit toward the camp.

Is there a limit to the number of students?
Yes. The class will be limited to a maximum of 9 students and will likely sell out so if you'd like to come to the camp sign up as soon as possible to guarantee a spot.

Training site

I'm launching a new training site June 1st with USCphildo, malicous222/ghettofabolous, Agame18, Assassinato, and FU_15. I'm really pumped about it and we've got plenty of great surprises in store for you as we get closer to launch.

good days, bad days......

Well I ran way above expectation last week with 9 FT's in 5 days of play. All good things must come to an end and unfortunately I've gone two days without an FT. Gross..... I played great the first day and just ran bad and just played so-so today. I had a huge stack in the stars $150k and then got out flopped in Blind vs blind play with KK on a JcJd8d flop. KK

Two new students

I'm excited to be working with both in_da_riva and iwinwith22 and hope that they can have the kind of success my current students are having. Congrats to Terrellk11 on his 2nd win since we started working together(mattdogg too) and eclipsing $18k in profit over the 2 months we've been working together on his game. Also, congrats to Que on getting his biggest career win this month for $5k. Way to go!

Thanks so much to everyone who applied to be one of my students. I appreciate you taking the time to write thoughtful applications. I definitly take the time to read through them consider each one. I encourage you to apply again when I take on new students since many of my current and previous students applied more than once before being selected.

Coaching

I've been coaching a lot more lately and my students have just been killing it. Terrellk11 won the 50/50 last month and this month continued to kill it winning the ftp $32k guar. for $7k and then my newest student Que1620 just got his biggest win lifetime for $5k winning a $26 buyin on ftp. I'm taking on two new students soon. Hopefully we can continue the success.

Tournament poker

When I switched to cash games I felt so good about not having to play tournament poker for a while. I honestly thought I wouldnt have much of a desire to do it again for a very long time. I felt like playing mtt's again this week and I am back with a vengence. I won the AP $25 buyin 7k guar for $1750 on my first night back and only played 6 mtt's that night. One out of 6 isnt too bad. Tonight I played my 2nd day of tournament poker in a row and was able to get best double finish in the big doubles. 3rd in one and 11th in the other. Oh so close to double FT for like
$8k+ . Gotta ride the heater so I'm going to forgoe cash game poker for one more day and play tournaments.

Supernova

I finally got to supernova on pokerstars. Pretty exciting. Probably going to have the concierge service pay to redo my front lawn, buy me a new couch and redo the fence in my backyard. So funny to be able to do all of that stuff with poker points.

20k-25k hands of short stacking

I've probably played 20k to 25k hands of short stack 200NL and am aout break even. After running some software that evaluates the luck factor using the hands you have in pokertracker it seems I have ju8st run terribly. I've come to the realization that this might not be something I do all that often. Playing 24 tables short stacking generates massive VPP on stars and has hepled me get very close to Supernova so that is one nice result I have had. I also generated a few hundred $ worth of FPP. I'm back to full stacking. Die shortstackers! :)

short stacking

I have always hated short stackers in cash games. They are like mosquitos......you never notice them til they bite you. I was looking at my VPP for the year on stars and noticed I was getting pretty close to supernova. That led me to thinking about how I could get there faster and I arrived at the ideas of looking at short stacking myself. I had been considering doing it on double VPP days to pick up points faster. So Brandonpl and I spent some time a couple of weeks ago working out a system for shortstacking that we thought might be profitable. It seems to me that the good short stackers must be doing pretty decently overall and with the milestones bonuses stars is giving out for 200k+ VPP it would make sense to me to put in some time accumulating points. So I've played roughly 19k hands of short stack poker and am up $226. lol. I definitly have some kinks to work out in the short stacking system.

FTP $20r WIN

Prior to tonight I played 3 or 4 days of tournament poker and was down $10kish. Kind of crazy. $1k buyins and $100r's will cause you to blow through some cash really quickly. I've been transitioning to playing full cash games pretty much full time and that has had it's ups and downs but in general it's been pretty great. I've learned a lot about myself and self control and it's been fun to have a new challenge. I played tournaments tonight for the first time in a couple weeks and despite 16 bad beats in one night(yes, I counted) I was able to pull through, keep my cool and win the Full Tilt $20 rebuy $11k guaranteed for $3375. Not a huge wins for a professional but very nice none-the-less. Feels amazing to finally get another win.

Wow, I never thought you could run this bad in cash games

Yesterday was a crazy crazy day of cash games. Total of around -$3500. That's around 9 buyin's WOW..... I played terrible at the end of the session and honestly can I say I experienced real tilt for the first time in months. The one upside to the whole thing is that it helped me get more focused.

Now today I sat down refocused and reenergized. I decided to just play stars and get the kinks worked out on one site. Stars has the most predictable players but prob lower earn per hour because the tables are generally tighter. I was up $1kish for most of my session. Then tragedy and my set of J's loses to a set of Q's for a $1400 pot($690 of which was mine). Finished the day +$50. Not what I had hoped for after 6 hours and 5k hands but progress at least I finished in the +.

A conversation on faith and poker....

Every time I go someplace where I meet new people someone inevitably asks the customary small talk question, "What do you do for a living?". What then ensues following my answer is a reaction unlike that received by almost anyone else. Sometimes it's fascination and they can't stop asking questions (and then apoligizing for asking so many questions ) Other times it's a funny look. Either of those responses is fine by me. Once in a while someone will later slip in a critical comment of a religious nature about how what I do for a living is wrong. Normally this comment is said in the most non-chalant way they can think of to say it. Today I had one such comment made to me. Allow me to share a portion of this conversation with you:

dental assistant: "So did you go to college?"

me: yes

d.a.: "So then you'll have something to fall back on...."
(I reply mid sentence)
me: yeah

d.a.: "....If you get tired of this poker thing or if you someday get some sort of spiritual conscience."

I had this woman's hand shoved into my mouth holding an impression of my teeth that was in the process of drying so I could not respond. I never saw a good one on one opportunity to respond and I didnt really want to embarass her when the dentist came back. So I left without responding.

I have always struggled to articulate why I believe that playing poker does not violate the tenets of the christian faith. I normally respond by addressing the verse that most christians use to argue that gambling is a sin. While I cant find the specific verse at the moment, the verse describes people in the temple casting lots for jesus' clothes. The issue being addressed in the verse is actually the disrespect for Jesus and the place of worship and not the actual act of gambling. In fact lots were cast to determine many things and the practice is not specfically condemned to my knowledge.

As I was having my personal time in prayer with God tonight and listening to worship music I decided to see what others may have had to say about poker and faith. I found something that I feel compelled to share.

The excerpt that follows

Below is an excerpt from a blog post(The complete post can be found here: http://ccexplore.blogspot.com/2006/0...-candor.html):

I've explored before the struggle with poker as a sin. I was fortunate enough to receive a call from Steve Brown, a minister who teaches at Reformed Theological Seminary, as well as leads a ministry called Key Life Ministries, which is a syndicated radio show. He has this incredibly deep voice, looks sort of like a balding Santa, and tackles alot of white elephants in the room regarding faith and religion. He almost never kowtows to the official line; he believes in the truth is all about exploring, which I really like alot. He was good enough to join me for a quick interview. Thought you might find it interesting.

cc: What are your thoughts on the seemingly gray areas like poker when it comes to sin and our lives as Christians?
Steve: I love playingpoker and did a lot. I used to play regularly, and I was pretty good, but I haven't played poker regularly in seventeen years. I don't think there is anything wrong with poker, and I don't think it is a sin. A number of years ago, we looked at casinos here in Florida. They asked me to develop a sermon against gambling. I thought it would be very easy, but I couldn't find anything, there really wasn't anything in the Bible. Most church folks don't understand poker. I don't think there isn't much different between the stock market and poker. I have a large radio ministry, so I do keep these thoughts to myself as I don't want to separate myself from the majority of people who I minister to.

cc: What's the difference, from a pastoral point of view, between gambling as a recreational activity, gambling as a source of income, and gambling as an addiction?
Steve: My closest friend is a physician in North Carolina, and he was in the Armed Forces and learned blackjack. He made piles of money, and we were both Christians. He would play all night and clean house, and he had to be careful about going back to the same casinos. This was before the shuffling machines. Some people are really good at poker, and it is the moral equivalency to picking stock. The addiction thing you are moving into a different area. My father was a drunk and gambler, and there were Christmases where we didn't have gifts nor much to eat. If you see yourself moving in this direction, then you need help.

cc: Even with the explosion of poker in America, it is difficult to have discussions about it in the church. Is there a place for poker players in churches or in a relationship with God?
Steve: That's the nature of institutions, any institution whether it be a church or Ford Motor Company, that they punish people that get out of line. That's why some churches are dying. Often, the churches make rules that really are more cultural. I think it's important to remember that people are really screwed up. All people. Once we agree on this, then we can love each other and can grow. But this is an issue for the church. Sometimes it is a smokescreen, an easy escape when we feel uncomfortable with what we hear and think. The church today is growing and changing in a way that is very approachable. The emerging church movement is very laid back yet authentic, very Gospel oriented. People should check around. We are all wired differently, and the Church is so big, bigger than it has ever been.

cc: Sometimes I think of poker as separating me from other believers. Can we ever be too bad to meet Christ? Can we ever be good enough to join Him?
Steve: Everyone is screwed up, and God is not angry at you. God doesn't sit in the sky, He isn't sitting in the sky with a lightning bolt. God isn't ticked that you're playing poker. Having said that, we have a responsibility of grace, that we should be compelled to act on our faith. God doesn't want us good; he wants us to be His.










I hope all this was food for thought. From time to time I have run into people of faith who have struggled with whether both poker and faith could coexist in thier life. I am convinced without a shadow of a doubt that the answer is yes.

Giving it a run.

I've been asked by many of my poker friends to create a blog to share about my poker experiences. I've finally gotten around to doing it. I hope you all enjoy reading what I have to say. I try to make poker a passion for me and not just a job. I hope you all enjoy what I have to share about the many passions in my life.

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