First Week: Potential Overload

The bitch about APA VIP Training week one has and always will be the tech setup.  Register the accounts, download and install poker clients, download and install pokertracker, pokerstove, camtasia, teamviewer, skype... hand charts, training files, reading assignments, tracking reports...checkyourbets setup...

Oh my god, let it all stop!

But it doesn't stop there, because after installation - assuming that goes well and smoothly - comes the part where I must have the answer to the question:  "What do all these things mean?!?"

I was a model student in my training days for one reason above others - I was able to figure all this crap out by myself.  But I (and others before me) am more likely to be the exception than the rule.


The biggest threat to a student in the first week is overload.  It is a fine line to walk:  Show a student how pokertracker works, but don't overwhelm him into a stupor.  I try to reduce it to simplest terms to start:

VP$IP tells you how often a guy plays a hand he is dealt.  We just call it VPIP.  If he plays every hand, he is VPIP 100.  If he never plays a hand, he is VPIP zero.  PFR tells you how often the guy comes in with a raise.  If he raises every hand he plays, his PFR will be equal to his VPIP.  If he never raises, his PFR will be zero, regardless of VPIP.  AFq tells you how a guy is likely to act - whether he is more likely to bet or check/call.  AF tells you how the guy is likely to respond to you - whether he is more likely to call, or more likely to raise/fold.  3betPF, Fold to PF3bet, Fcbet, Tcbet, Fold to FCbet...all percentages suggesting the likelihood of each action...WTSD, W$SD, W$WSF, BB/100... ATS, Fold BB to Stl...Float F, Float T... Hey, you can look at all these ranges on pokerstove...!!!

A soft squishy poof, and I imagine bits of brain scattering all over his monitor and keyboard.


I end a long session with a promise that "it will all become clearer as you play, so for now just play your normal game and the HUD will naturally start to make sense."

Yeah, right.  I just got a student excited about pokertracker.  I just demonstrated how I can make exciting 3bets or floats or check-raises using just HUD info. I just loaded a student's poker client GUI with a hundred little numbers overlaid onto the poker table.  And I expect him to kinda ignore all that and play 'normally"...?

A text message in a godforsaken hour describes how he raised his BB against a UTG limper.  He had J4o.  UTG calls and they are heads up.  The flop is J62r, he cbets for value and gets raised.  He 3bets, gets 4bet-shoved, and calls with Top Pair, less-than-crap-kicker.

As I am reading this and wondering how this horrible story was going to end, a question is asked - I forget exactly, but it was about some number on the UTG Villain's HUD, and if he interpreted it correctly.

"Dude, you don't need a HUD to know that you can't possibly be good with J4o on a J62r board against a raise and shove!!!"

So yes, this happens.  I overloaded him.  This settles down however, and things settle in naturally (I hope!) after this initial short-circuit.


The actual fundamental rationale behind all these tools is something I intend to delve deeper into beginning week 2.  Unlike all my previous Programs, this is the first time I did not start Week one with this.

In any case, here's a sneak preview:  Poker, like business, is a game.  A game of decisions.  Decisions are created out of accurate information.  So whoever has the closest-to-accurate set of information is able to make the superior decision.

This is why we pokertrack.  Good decision to bet versus bad decision to call = clear winner.  Good decision to bluff versus better decision to call = slight winner.

Ability to use and decipher HUD versus playing with instincts = runaway winner.


This is why we checkyourbets.  Good decision to play versus bad decision to play over the optimal number of hours = loser.


PT3 guide Files have been uploaded to our APA Philippines VIP Training Group on Facebook.

Elsie and Me

I once had a student with so much passion to learn this game.  Well, wait, it might be an overstatement to actually say he was a student, being that he was never really around long enough to actually finish a single class.  He was actually on and off the tables so much I've taken to calling him "Lightbulb" behind his back.

Lightbulb moment:  i get an email and he wants to deposit to play online.

Lightbulb moment:  I check his balance two days later, his modest roll has doubled up.

Lightbulb moment:  one week later he is busto.

Lightbulb moment:  He writes me a lengthy email with genuine questions about how he can be better.  We decide he is a tiltwhore.  Then I don't hear from him for a while.


Rinse this and repeat - about every two to three months he resurfaces and gives this whole poker thing another go.  He has been Lightbulb since 2009, if I recall correctly.

I often I tell my fellow poker coaches that Lightbulb is going to be an APA VIP Trainee someday.  Chuckles, all around.  They refer to him as a mascot.  A running joke.  The guy whose calling card reads: "hey, is he still around?"

To my fellow coaches, who wish me good luck, he is a Lost Cause.  LC for short.  They remember him for an alleged attempt to get more than his share of the APA free bankroll by creating dual accounts.  They remember him for reporting losses because he played in a net cafe and left his account logged on (ano to, ragnarok?)

They know LC as the guy who logs on to forums asking for dole outs.  A reminder that for every one hundred people who come to us to learn to play poker for a living - and to become professional about the whole thing - ninety-seven of them will be LC.  A bulb that comes on bright and optimistic on day one, and then expectedly just burns itself out eventually...inevitably.

Well, the time to shine for Lightbulb has come.  He has been back and is still around - this time for much much longer than he ever was.

And he has started the APA VIP Training Program.  And unlike the batch sessions I often do, I will be training him one on one.

I don't expect to call him Lighbulb much longer, because I see in him some things he never seemed to have before.  A different kind of light has come on:  more passion than ever, the right questions, the right attitude...Respect for the money in his poker account, most of all.


That last part might be one of the toughest things to learn when playing micro stakes.  Sure, anyone can look at his freshly deposited one hundred dollars and think: "I am going to turn you into a thousand!"

Anyone can get smacked in the face by variance.  In a typical (and recurring) moment of weakness, anyone can look at the remaining eighty dollars - down from over three hundred - and think:  "why the fuck should I care so much about not losing that?  I should just have fun.  I have a salary coming in.  I can reload!"

So fun is had, and a reload is in order.


Lightbulb and me, we've been through this as well.  In one of his impassioned emails for help, he asked me what I could do for him.

"One thing I can do for you is to not accept your deposits anymore.  It's probably bad business for me to refuse you, but the coach in me can no longer stand by while you deposit twenty dollars at a time.  Your next deposit will be for at least three hundred dollars, and if you are ready to be serious, it will be your last."

Well, Lightbulb did me one better.  He earned his roll the harder way - beating ten other guys in a gruelling staking contest.  Lightbulb aka LC, has crossed  a line never crossed before.

So here we are - Elsie and Me - off on a journey to carve out a new name for himself.  For me, a chance to go back to my fellow coaches and say "We're gonna need a new mascot."


In the spirit of our almost exclusively online training, I will be posting on this blog some bites off of our weekly modules.  APA VIP Training Grad "Nizzy" once asked for copies of my materials so that he can review them, and I promised him I'd post them here instead.

So this is for you, Nizzy, I hope you and many others can join Elsie and Me.