WPT Boot Camp Comments

[johnbaker3]

Dear Friends:

On July 17th and 18th, I attended the WPT Boot Camp in Tulsa OK along with 45 other players. These are some of my observations and comments.....

1) It was well organized, well presented, and an overall good experience; don't ask me about SW Airlines on time issues...
2) We got 2 days of class instruction, 2 tournaments, a workbook, and some go home goodies. Tournament winners got some extras. Made some new friends and enjoyed myself overall.
3) Total cost was about $2 K with a discount on the program down to $1500...one of the less expensive sessions offered.

After getting home, I started using the techniques taught by TJ Cloutier. He is quite the gentlemen, and at 6'6" I wouldn't call his mother any names....

So far, I have gone deep in 3 freeroll tournaments on Poker Stars: finished 222, 277 and 291 out of 10,000 in the Lambo and 55, and 69 out of 5000 in the 10 FPP tournaments.

On 8/14/10 I finished 2nd in our home game with nine players; the winner sucked out on the river to take me down...on 9/11/10 I finished 1st out of 10 players and took home the cash.

On 9/14/10 I finished 142nd out of 10,000 in the Lambo Freeroll...ahead for 6 cards and a guy sucked out a straight on the river to finish me off.

Bottom line: if you have the cash, are serious about improving your game, and will make the effort to go to a seminar of this caliber, do it !! Everyone can benefit from an outstanding game plan, having the confidence to do the right thing at the right time, and a little luck !

Be safe,

John B  

[pauld22]

Seems like a reasonable investment if one is serious about trying to advance their tournament play.  Who were some of the instructors beside TJ? 

[kevinanchi1]

Hi John does your seminar covers all the poker related information, can you specify the topics in brief.......

[holdemholmes]

Hi John does your seminar covers all the poker related information, can you specify the topics in brief.......

It's not his seminar, it's a WPT seminar that he attended...there is info on the web about the specifics.

[johnbaker3]

Thanks for the replies:

Pauld22- The other 2 instructors were Nicky Brancato and Crispin Leyser. Both are active internet and tournament players and had their own stuff to add to the discussion.

Be safe,

John B 

[Killingbird]

sounds like a good time, glad you enjoyed it!

[johnbaker3]

Kevin:

To answer your questions, the package covered a complete list of topics from basic strategy to special situations.

One section covered was just about Internet tournaments which have some things that are different from live play.

The section I got the most from was about hand ranges and position. It is important to be able to lay down 77 in early position but raise with them in late position in an unraised pot....

I was also impressed with TJ's credentials. Not only did he travel all over Texas with Doyle, but he has won over 60 major tournaments in his career. His worst beat was also a lot worse than mine....cost him $1.9 million on a river suckout....

Be safe,

John B  

[johnbaker3]

Hi all:

I remember a story that TJ told during the class.....

He said that he had never folded KK preflop until a tournament a couple of years ago. He was up against a guy he knew that was a tight as they came. TJ bet 3x BB in early position with KK and everyone folded to "the guy". He reraised 6x BB. TJ folded and "the guy" showed him AA.

Two hours later at a different table, but the same situation; he raised 3x BB early with KK and "the guy" reraised 6x BB....TJ folded the KK and was shown AA again....he folded because of the player, not the raise itself....

Be safe,

John B  

[pauld22]

Did he tell the story of a horrible bad beat he was involved with?

One of the baddest of the bad beats I've ever seen happened several years ago at the Bicycle Club. I was playing in a no-limit hold'em side game with Al Krux, a very fine player who has made several appearances at the final table of the Big One at the World Series of Poker. But Al wasn't doing very well in this game, and he was losing most of his money. He brought in the hand for his case chips, $435. Two seats away, a player was holding his hand up in the air so that he could see it while a masseuse was giving him a rub down. His opponent to his left could see the cards, too. This player decided not to call and threw his hand away.

It got around to me sitting on the button right next to the casino dealer, and I called the $435 with two tens. "This might be the best hand here, and Al's all in so I can't lose any more than $435," I thought. But the dealer didn't see that I had called and so she dropped the deck on the muck. She asked for a ruling. The floorman said that she had to reshuffle all of the cards except the two hands that Al and I were holding.

The flop came K-10-4. We turned our cards over and Al had pocket kings against my pocket tens. We both had flopped a set. On fourth street came another ten, giving me four tens and winning the money. But the kicker to this story is that the guy who had held his hand up before the flop had been dealt the two tens that came out on the flop after the reshuffle! The only way I could possibly have won against Al's hand was for the dealer to make a mistake, reshuffle those two tens back into the deck, and bring them back out again on the flop and fourth street. That ended Al's day, and I never won another pot that session.

http://news.pokerpages.com/index.php?option=com_simpleblog&task=view&id=2801

[johnbaker3]

Paul:

Great link to TJ's bad beat stories....didn't hear either one of those, only the $1.9 Million he lost on the river.

Be safe,

John B 

[johnbaker3]

Hi All:

Today I entered a bigger than normal tournament for me on PS....$27.50 Buy-in and a $32K prize pool. I usually just play 6 and 9 man tables to keep the time frame to an hour or so...

There were 1314 players and I lasted 5 hours and 10 minutes; I went out in 26th place and collected $131....

This is my biggest payout ever on PS and I want to thank TJ for all his help; very little stress, just followed the game plan.

You have to be able to take several bad beats to go deep, but I now know that the WPT Boot Camp was definitely worth it !

Be safe,

John B  

[johnbaker3]

Dear Friends:

The past 2 months I have played the daily 10 FPP Freeroll on Poker Stars. The purpose was to hone the skills that I learned at the Boot Camp for not much risk (i.e. zero cash).

This tournament usually has 4000+ entrants and it's a shove fest from the get go. Not uncommon to watch somebody quadruple up on the first pot....

It takes patience and table smarts to stay out of trouble early. Today I was dead even at the first break and then the fun began.

Caught AA 3 times in the next hour and got paid off nicely all 3 times. Then I went card dead for 45 minutes, but kept my cool.

After the second break, most of the crazies were gone and people played like they knew how....I added to my stack and when we hit the cash point, I had 3 times the average stack.

Over the next 30 minutes I continued to play well and got all the way to the 160K stack when the average was about 50K....at one time I was #2 in chips....

Last hand I had A K o in the small blind; everyone folded to me and I raised 2x BB; the BB shoved and I called; he had me covered. He turned over T 7 o....the flop came K 9 8....I was ahead for 6 cards...of course the river was a Jack and I was gone.

Placed 57th and with a little better luck, I had a shot at really going deep.

The point again is that going to WPT school has really helped my game; I really recommend it to anyone that would like to take it up a notch.

John B  

PS: It a lot more fun to win than lose !!

[johnbaker3]

OK....

I promise that this will be my last comment on this thread.....

Attached is the spreadsheet that shows my progress in our home game over the past year; remember that I went to Boot Camp in July.....

My scores are at the top of the sheet because I have the highest (10) out of (12) scores for the year. Unless the upset of all upsets happen, I should get the bracelet after the December Tournament. (Updated 12.4.10).....

Going to a good poker class taught by a good instructor can only help your game; how bad do YOU want to get better ??

Be safe,

John B   : )

PS: Feel free to use this worksheet for your own tournament master points list !

[johnbaker3]

OK, so I "bluffed".....

I got to play in the first HPT Home Game for the Jan 2011 game; 34 players and I made it to the final table.

I was the short stack but somebody went out ahead of me.

I caught pocket KINGS and raised 3X BB; somebody reraised and I shoved. He called and showed 87 of spades.

He caught and 8 on the flop and a 7 on the river. I finished 8th after getting my KINGS cracked.

I can hardly wait till next month and hope the "River Monster" leaves me alone !

Be safe,

John B

[holdemholmes]

I don't think that was me....although I did dish out a few beats... 

[johnbaker3]

 

[johnbaker3]

PokerStars Tournament #369771514, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: 10 FPP
5060 players
$500.00 USD added to the prize pool by PokerStars Total Prize Pool: $500.00 USD Tournament started 2011/03/28 11:40:00 CT [2011/03/28 12:40:00 ET]


Dear EYTC,

You finished the tournament in 46th place. A USD 0.80 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 64.38 tournament leader points in this tournament. For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/leader-board/



Congratulations!

Thank you for participating.

Not much money, but it sure is fun going deep...

John B