Hi Everyone!

This is going to be the ongoing study group thread for Polished Poker: Vol. I on cash games. The goals of this thread are going to be to systematically study each chapter of the book, post and answer questions, explore some of the theory of each topic in the book, and to offer a support group for those who are looking to take their game to the next level.

The book is primarily aimed at 200NL and below players. If you're playing above that level consistently, there's still a lot you'll learn if you join, but the way the book is written, it's designed to provide though processes for all skill levels, but practical and applicable advice for micro stake players, and small stake players. Static advice is limited in the book, but when it is offered, it presented at two different skill levels. One approach is offered if you are playing X stakes, and another set of advice if you are playing at Y stakes.

Benefits of participating in the study group:

• Set study plans and guides for NL cash games
• Meet and collaborate with some of your online peers
• Advanced notice of new volumes in the Polished Poker Series
• Free poker coaching from myself
• Advanced notice of workshops we'll be hosting by some of the top online pro's today
• Free popcorn!

About free coaching from me:

I'm going to be selecting active participants at random and setting up free database analysis and coaching. You'll receive a private PM from me informing you that you've been selected, and we'll work out a time to do the coaching. If you don't want the coaching for any reason, it is non-transferable. Either you take my bad advice or you leave it.

Little bit about me:

I don't profess by any means to be one of the best NL cash game players. If I was to hang my hat on some things about my poker career it would be that I've deposited only once, and I've never gone broke. I've always thought "outside" of the box, and I've played in a lot of ways that would not necessarily be considered "conventionally accepted wisdom" in the poker community. Not that there isn't a lot of good information available in the collective wisdom database on poker, I just always wanted to be one step ahead of how people were looking at the game. And I think for the most part I have been.
As a result of that, I've always maintained pretty high winrates, no matter what stakes I've played. I've played against most of the top cash game pro's over the years, and I've won several hundred thousand in cash games alone (not including tourneys) over my 9 year poker career. I've also coached over 150+ students, done over 100 training videos, and written quite a bit about poker in the last couple of years.

That being said, just like you, I'm still always learning. Some of you may even be much better than myself, but I still hope you'll join and we can learn from each other. I want to make this as conducive to everyone, including myself as possible. I think it will be a lot of fun!
Some past results. I actually lost my best database. The computer hard drive pretty much melted more or less. Regardless, you can see I've won at a good clip.


http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/198/5ebq.jpg/

This is over 17bb/100... yeah
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/534/j6n.gif/

I have one more database shot from 2/4NL+ I will look for too, but I think you get the point.



Win some free coaching from me

In order to kick this off properly, I'm going to pick the top 3 people who spread the word about this study group and/or Polished Poker book to other forums. We want others to know about it, and join the Cardschat community. I want to make it well worth my time and yours, and the more people we have involved, the better this is going to work for everyone.

Please make sure you follow any forum rules and codes of conduct though. Don't just blatantly spam anywhere. But you can let others know, and post links to this thread and/or the book:
http://www.acepokersolutions.com/free-poker-books/
PM me with the link to where you posted. I will announce a cutoff time for the "contest", and count up the top 3 posters. I'll take each of you aside and spend 1.5-2 hours with you in private coaching and also provide private hand history analysis while you apply some of the new concepts I teach you.

Begin date:
We will start the study group July 31st. We're going to begin with Chapter 9 and work our way a little out of order. So I will post what we'll focus on and how we'll proceed.

I'll update this thread with more information as we go. Here's a link to the original book thread as well:
https://www.cardschat.com/forum/learning-poker-57/polish...-poker-224449/

In!

John, you are providing a wonderful service to this forum. I'm really eager to get into a good discussion about the book.

Interested

In. Not read the book yet but this should provide ample motivation to do so.

Thanks for the opportunity John, always great to be at CC because of things like this.

I'm in. Do we need to do anything besides stay subbed to this thread and start reading? Is there a curriculum, weekly chapters or similar?

Thanks so much for doing this John. I'm really looking forward to this!

This will be great. Thanks!

Yes, definitely. This is going to be a lot of fun, and we'll all learn a ton, including myself.

Anywhere you can plug this or the book also, like I said, PM with the link and you'll be entered into my coaching que. Just don't go spam crazy, that's all I ask. But some legit posts letting others know on other forums, very cool.

IN! good stuff.

Definitely in!! Like above comments you are doing some excellent work on cc.

in

I'm Defo in sounds good

In, and in my case I fear it might be getting to the first level before I can think about a next level......

Originally Posted by dj11

In, and in my case I fear it might be getting to the first level before I can think about a next level......

Doubt that... but we'll push through to the next level together.

Interested. Is this for full ring guys or is the focus gonna be on 6 max?

Originally Posted by themosthigh

Interested. Is this for full ring guys or is the focus gonna be on 6 max?

It's going to be on both. If you read the book you'll see I address full ring and 6-max.

John
Is there a time planned for the group on the 31st?
Im in ireland and i want to make sure i can make it

in

Interested and in, will read chapter 9 before the date set!

Originally Posted by Dom1

John
Is there a time planned for the group on the 31st?
Im in ireland and i want to make sure i can make it

It's going to begin on that date, and not at a specific time because it will be ongoing. I'll put out a topic, we can discuss it, ask questions, rinse and repeat basically.

Wow, well free coaching is up for grabs. Not one PM yet, so if you want to get some just read my original post. Easy peasy...

Originally Posted by dj11

In, and in my case I fear it might be getting to the first level before I can think about a next level......

Originally Posted by John A

Doubt that... but we'll push through to the next level together.

I'm a tourney guy, have been for 10 years of OLP. If I would have never taken my tourney winnings and sat at ring games, I might be driving a newer car.......

In recent years I have only managed an occasional ring NLHE winning session, but do fine with the other HORSE games, admittedly they being limit are fairly easy for me to look good in. I am better at LIMIT HE, but that has it's limits, and harder to find good tables in the US these days. Bodog hates me BTW.

Ring NLHE has always eluded me. It is the chink in my armor. There seems to be a psychology going on that I am just missing. And that is what I am most interested in fixing.

Does it matter what limit we play at for the coaching?

Originally Posted by Dom1

Does it matter what limit we play at for the coaching?

Well, I've coached up to 1kNL in the past, but I don't currently play those stakes. I'd coach 400NL and below comfortably. So down into micros I know how to adjust and approach the game.

Peeps, I love you, but read my OP before you PM me asking for free coaching. You're not reading my post. I have 4 PM's today asking for free coaching because that's not what I'm doing. You can get free coaching now by spreading the word about this thread and getting others to join CC, and PM me the link info that you used. That will get you guaranteed coaching. I will be selecting some people as we go through the book, but I will be selecting those based on participation. Asking me now won't help that cause.

Originally Posted by John A

Peeps, I love you, but read my OP before you PM me asking for free coaching. You're not reading my post. I have 4 PM's today asking for free coaching because that's not what I'm doing. You can get free coaching now by spreading the word about this thread and getting others to join CC, and PM me the link info that you used. That will get you guaranteed coaching. I will be selecting some people as we go through the book, but I will be selecting those based on participation. Asking me now won't help that cause.

I'll try to post on a few forums later today.

Great offer John, I will be following this thread.

Your profits are ridiculous by the way...only in my dreams do I dominate 1$/2$ like that


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I fear I have no time for the coaching aspect of it, but would love to follow along with the discussion. I like DJ am primarily MTT player and would have many more monies if I would have never learned how to join NLHE cash games.

IN!

Originally Posted by triplesyxx

Your profits are ridiculous by the way...only in my dreams do I dominate 1$/2$ like that


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm a luckbox.

Originally Posted by HomeBrewer

I fear I have no time for the coaching aspect of it, but would love to follow along with the discussion. I like DJ am primarily MTT player and would have many more monies if I would have never learned how to join NLHE cash games.

IN!

Yeah, just jump in. I mean what do you have to lose? No joke though, this study group is going to be one of the most invaluable tools you'll come across. Yeah, I said it.

We're going to have a live Polished Poker Workshop coming soon as well. Some big names and some of the best cash game players will be instructing. So if you ever wanted to learn cash games, this would be the time and place.

I've really enjoyed your posts in the past & am looking forward to following along in this thread.

Posted a thread for your ebook in another forum I will PM you the link. Not sure if I will have the time for any free coaching, although, I truly need it. I will keep an eye here and if I am afforded the time I would graciously accept any and all coaching.

Originally Posted by Poker Orifice

I've really enjoyed your posts in the past & am looking forward to following along in this thread.

Thanks, enjoyed yours as well. Ya, it's going to be a lot of fun. I think if it goes half as good as I envision then we'll all become mini Ivey's, become big balla's, and we can all look back and laugh at how it all began from a free book on CC.... or something like that.

Originally Posted by natsgrampy

Posted a thread for your ebook in another forum I will PM you the link. Not sure if I will have the time for any free coaching, although, I truly need it. I will keep an eye here and if I am afforded the time I would graciously accept any and all coaching.

Gracias amigo. Mucho appreciadio...

Originally Posted by John A

Thanks, enjoyed yours as well. Ya, it's going to be a lot of fun. I think if it goes half as good as I envision then we'll all become mini Ivey's, become big balla's, and we can all look back and laugh at how it all began from a free book on CC.... or something like that.

Sounds like a plan

Originally Posted by John A

Yeah, just jump in. I mean what do you have to lose? No joke though, this study group is going to be one of the most invaluable tools you'll come across. Yeah, I said it.

We're going to have a live Polished Poker Workshop coming soon as well. Some big names and some of the best cash game players will be instructing. So if you ever wanted to learn cash games, this would be the time and place.

BAH!!!! If only this had been 4 years ago and I was still a college student making a second income here. This is awesome thread and I highly encourage others to take full advantage. I will be around... Now to start reading the syllabus....

I am on other forums, but they are not poker forums and anything beyond the rules in a Hoyles book would baffle the shit out of them. For them I might suggest the Idiots guide to poker.

My old old friends have, at most, shown a minor curiosity about my hobby, and treat my big tourney wins like I won a lottery or something. They got their lives and let me have mine.... not all that close old old friends...they are old after all.

Sign me up. I don't have a copy of the book yet but I would love to follow along and pickup whatever I can get.

For the many players like me who currently play more live than online, will the ebook, study group and/or possible coaching be applicable to us? After PartyPoker did a lot of bad things to its VIP regulars such as segregating winning players, I have gone back to playing live cash games and tournaments.

Originally Posted by John A

It's going to be on both. If you read the book you'll see I address full ring and 6-max.

Originally Posted by SegregatedParty

For the many players like me who currently play more live than online, will the ebook, study group and/or possible coaching be applicable to us? After PartyPoker did a lot of bad things to its VIP regulars such as segregating winning players, I have gone back to playing live cash games and tournaments.

Why not play at another site? Like William Hill, or FT or something?

John I have some questions, answer please.


1)What winrate is good now (2013.07) and considered normal or bad (in cash game NL 6-max)?

3bb/100 - .........
5bb/100 - .........
10bb/100 - .........


2) How many hands as possible to play to zero due to the variance?

If you play for a long time and do not get any advantage - it is a great burden on the psyche and negatively affect the game.


Tnx and have a nice day!

Originally Posted by deusgamble

John I have some questions, answer please.


1)What winrate is good now (2013.07) and considered normal or bad (in cash game NL 6-max)?

3bb/100 - .........
5bb/100 - .........
10bb/100 - .........


2) How many hands as possible to play to zero due to the variance?

If you play for a long time and do not get any advantage - it is a great burden on the psyche and negatively affect the game.


Tnx and have a nice day!

Pretty sure that would be dependent on what stakes you are playing

Originally Posted by A9ofHearts

Pretty sure that would be dependent on what stakes you are playing

Oh, yes!

I play HU NL100-200

but i'm interested what winrates are very good/normal/weak in 6-max games

NL10-25 - ?
NL50-100 - ?
NL200 - ?

* 6-max

currently (2013.07)

Originally Posted by deusgamble

I play HU NL100-200

...and you don't know all this already?

Move down ASAP. Shit I don't even feel confident I can beat NL50, wtf is a noob doing at NL200.

As another MTT player, I'll be following with great interest.

I will follow this with interest. Unfortunately I can't send you a DM because I am a new user. I wrote about this study group an book on http://pokeratu.ro/carte-de-poker-oferita-gratuit-de-john-anhalt/ (it's in Romanian). I hope you consider this post as useful as a forum.

Bumpety bump

This group begins tomorrow so go-go-go!

I'm trying to pre-read Chapter 9 and noticed some errors/typos. For example, on page 97, shouldn't the pot be 6.5 BB, not 7.5? Villain open raised to 3BB, SB folded his 0.5BB, & hero called in BB. I also don't understand where the ".57" folding % and "42/58 equity dog" numbers came from.

Originally Posted by John A

Ya, it's going to be a lot of fun. I think if it goes half as good as I envision then we'll all become mini Ivey's, become big balla's, and we can all look back and laugh at how it all began from a free book on CC.... or something like that.

sounds like a great oppurtunity 2 learn from 1 of the best in the poker bussiness.. Thank you for taking time to teach us about becoming a better poker player...