Coaching Kristy

OMG, my butt hurts...

Haha, seriously, I don't think I've ever played online for that long before! No, I'm not really complaining, because let's be real, I have $31,000 to spend on someone to massage my butt for me!

Too much butt talk? Yeah, you're right. AHHHH I'm just so excited right now! Last night I shipped the $50 Heads Up MiniFTOPS event. It feels so good to WIN outright. Last blog I was a bit down about my lack of progress in 6max cash games, and said I was really going to grind this month and also play miniftops. Well, I started to play cash and tournaments at the same time, but couldn't focus on both, so I decided to just play the tournaments for now and I guess it worked out! 

I want to post more in depth about this, including hands and such, but I have a super busy day. I just wanted to say thanks again to Deuces and Balugawhale. I've never really felt like I knew what it meant to "be in the zone" until last night. Nothing fazed me. All I did was talk to myself in my head, and most all of it were things Baluga taught me. When I was three-betting oop, I was like "Ok, he's not calling me so I'm gonna polarize now, and flat with my good hands, ok he's start to flat me, I'm gonna go for value with wider ranges and depolarized, oh he's check-raising me on this flop? he's polarized... keep the pressure on, lean on him, lean on him, he's gonna crack soon. it's about making good players play bad etc..."  

The first 9 matches were grueling, and it was all about sticking to your plan and staying composed. And So yeah, I spiked a two-outer to get to the finals. The guy I played in the quarterfinal was good, and we were both playing superduper aggro. It was kind of a cooler. I had 10-8 and he had K-10 [EDIT: HE HAD K-8] on a Ks-10s-8x-3x board and got it in on the turn. BOOM 10! Then when I got to the finals, I asked the dude if he wanted to chop and play for $5K and the jersey. Obviously, it's a lot of money to me so I wasn't too proud to ask. He said, "sure, if you take $20K, I get the rest and we play for the jersey." I politely declined and said let's play. He got me down early in a pivotal hand but I grinded back. On the last hand he hero called me on the river and I was in SHOCK! My bro had to hit me and tell I won! Then I squealed and giggled like a girl obv. :)

BUT ANYWAY, moral of the story is, I was able to win a Heads Up tournament because I am 100percent a much, much better poker player/thinker because of Balugawhales coaching. 

THANKS!! Sorry this is quick and sloppy!! More later!

<3Kristy

BOOM! SHIP THE JERSEY!!!!  

Heyyyyyy....

So it's been awhile :) I've been working, traveling, and as of late... boozing and cruising. The last few months, I've been thinking/talking a lot about poker, and getting in mostly live hours. Since getting coaching with Andrew "Balugawhale" Seidman, I see poker in a completely different way. It's funny though, a lot of the tactics and things he taught me took a long time to start clicking. The more I played, analyzed, and just thought about the game, the more everything applied and made sense. Obviously, I'm not the smartest student he's ever taught, nor one with the most time to put in hands and let the new knowledge soak in.  Haha I'm getting there though, slowly...  

I watched the series Moneytrain to midstakesville with Tecmo and Jk3a (which was awesome) and there was so much emphasis on putting in the time and hands. I want to crush, but how do I expect to just immediately do so when I don't put in the time. I'm sure it's something that all players who have a full time job and commitments struggle with. Anyway, I'm trying. I've done really well playing live, and it's hard to force myself to grind online when the money is bigger and SO much easier live. But I know the only way I'm going to really improve is by playing online. When I started with Baluga, I had about $1,000 in my FT account and at it's highest, I built it to $4,500 which was supplemented by a MiniFTOPS tourney finish for $1,500. I started playing $0.50-$1.00. It's taken me about 4 or 5 months to play 11,000 hands (SHUT UP! I know you're sighing in disappointment) and over those hands I'm losing like $400. I've been up and down, but not by much. 

So that's an update on what's going on. Oh, also I final tabled a DeepStack I played at Venetian for $2,500. Finished 8th though after losing a race. It's funny, I've played six of those tournaments in the last two years and cashed in four of them. Haha but because I minish-cashed in three out of those four, it deflates me so much that I swear off tournaments for months at a time. But, I guess I have pretty good results in the tournaments I do play, so I should keep playing them.

ANYWAY, the point of this blog is that I'm still alive, still kicking, and still trying to crush and make Baluga/DeucesCracked community proud. I'm studying along with Baluga's new series "Whaletales" and going to start participating in the forums. I've been a scared girl about that and just read everyone's posts (and obnoxiously make fun of the dumb ones behind the safety of my computer screen)   :)

I need to set some goals. For those of you who are also trying to balance a full-time job, what is a reasonable goal for number of hands per week? I'm also going to post here every Monday updates to keep me accountable and also hand histories... starting today :)

So IDK how to get the HH from my HM to copy paste into the hand converter, so I'll just type it out. Feel free to let me know how to do that if you know!

UTG opens to $3 and I'm on the button with KQ off. We both have full $100 stacks. He's a 18 13 but only over 78 hands which obv isn't the most reliable. I do think he's a reggy-ish player. He has a full stack and auto-top off on. I saw him play a few other hands, and doesn't seem to really get out of line. I don't think I can three-bet for value with my hand so I flat. 

We're heads up and the flop comes 88K rainbow. He c-bets $5 into $7.50. I call. The turn is an Q, completing rainbow. He bets $13 into $17.50. Here's what I'm thinking: I think he's betting for value. He's not double barrel bluffing on this board. So, what are his value hands? Aces, AK, KQ, KK, QQ, KJ maybe and random sevens he has. So, given that range, what's the best play here? It's hard for him to have KK, QQ. I think it's very unlikely he's opening UTG which many sevens in his hand. Maybe 67 87 or A7 suited. Though, if he did have a 7, would he have c-bet 2/3 pot? What's the best play here on the turn? 

In-game, I raised to $33. I was thinking I was raising for value against AK and KJ. In hindsight, I think it's a bad raise. My range obv looks super strong. I have an 8 in my range more often than he does. I'm giving him a chance to fold AK and KJ and if he does have AA, KK,QQ, or an 8, I'm super, hard-core, x-rated dominated. But my question is, if I call the turn, and he barrels river on a blank, what do I do? He's never bluffing. 

I pokerstoved the hand and if his range is AA, KK, QQ, KQ,AK, KJ suited, 78suited (I only gave him this combo of seven because of the unlikeliness give his UTG raise), our equity is exactly 50/50. haha AWESOME!

I'll post the result of the hand in the comments later. I think it's more interesting to see peoples' comments without the results affecting their judgement. 

Hope you all are AWESOME!! :)

<3 Kristy

Heyyyyyyy,

I hope you guys are doing well!!! I've been working soo hard at the WSOP and haven't had very much time to play. I put in three hours last night playing .50-1 and got to play with some people who recognized me. Haha there was a hand where I called a raise w/ 64suited hearts on the button. We were three ways to flop and it was 543 all diamonds. It checked to me, I bet, and got called by the original raiser. He called. The turn was an offsuit King. He checked, I bet again, thinking that he'd fold a draw with equity against me, or even fold a small pair now better than mine. He called though. The river was an offsuit six. He checked I checked. Hahah he had pocket 10s with a diamond. If he would have just c-bet, I probably would have folded, or even bet the turn. He was like "Standard. Ladies and Gentlemen, deucescracked.com , learn from the best!!" Was I really wrong there? Anyway... just thought it was funny.

SOOO! That's not why I am writing this post. I want to interview Krantz and put him on the spot in another edition of Calling the Clock for PokerNews. If you haven't seen it, basically we ask a player 60seconds worth of meaningless funny questions, and I want your help to come up with some good ones!!!

I want to do it possibly today or in the next week, so go ahead and post some good ones in the comment section! Like, "On a scale of 1-10, how much did you enjoy rollerblading in jorts (jean shorts)?"

Here's an example of a Calling the Clock with Kara Scott... http://www.pokernews.com/video/calling-the-clock-kara-scott-90147568001.htm

PEACE FOR NOW!!!!

Well, one thing is for damn sure… I’m a head over shoulders a much better playing than I used to be.

Of course, that’s obvious, and to be expected when getting coached by one of the best in the business, but I guess I just didn’t realize how bad I was before! When Baluga first met me, I had been playing live and winning consistently at $1-$2 and$1-$3, but I’d never really tried to conquer online or step up from my comfort zone live. Before we got started with the coaching, he warned me that I was going to realize that I knew nothing about poker. Oh boy, did I find that out quickly…

The first few coaching sessions, which we never aired, were absolutely brutal. The hardest question he asked me repeatedly was, “Why are you doing that?” Seemingly a simple question, but most of my answers sounded something like “I, umm, well, uhhh because, like…”

So needless to say, I was pretty happy none of that aired. When we got started again, and the new episodes of Coaching Kristy started airing on DeucesCracked, I was soo nervous. I had no idea how people would respond, but immediately my fears were dispelled by the overwhelming support from this community. After that, I was comfortable making mistakes and answering questions honestly without worrying about being judged.

There was obviously a point in the coaching where I reached a low point. I wasn’t confident and I fell back into my bad habits, and SPEWED. You all got to go through that with me in Episode 7. It’s hard for me to watch it because I can hear in my voice how discouraged I was.

Whenever I’m a little confused or lost, I always write. Baluga suggested the same. So, I laid in bed in my hotel room in Paris with steam still shooting out my ears, and wrote a blog. As I waded through all the bullcrap that was going through my mind, I came out with the answer. EF IT!

Screw what happened before, forget about the “haters” (I hate that word but don’t know what else to call them) and JUST PLAY! Play, learn, and keep doing that! I took the next couple of days off while I was in Paris and Belgium, and then came back home to Vegas and just played.

The World Series of Poker has just started, and I’ve been crazy busy covering it for PokerNews, but I’m sooo excited to get back into the cash games. I’m rolled for $0.50-$1.00 online, but I think I’m going to concentrate on live for the summer since the action is SOO good and play mostly the $2-$5 games.

For those of you who asked if I was going to continue sticking around DC and blogging and the answer is “DUH!” Of course I am. Honestly, I feel at home in this community, and I am now more excited than ever to keep learning!

I’ll update next after my first live session of the summer…

So in closing, I have a few questions:

1)      How many buy-ins should I have to move up to $1-$2? (Yes, I’m thinking ahead!)

2)     Baluga, after a lot of discussion in Ep 7, I’m still a little confused as to what our general bet sizing should be for a c-bet in a three-bet pot? In single-raised pots, I'd do 2/3 and then in 3 bet pots I was doing half pot bets like in Ep 7. Then people were saying I should do two-thirds pot. In Ep 8, I increased my c-bet size a little. What do you think?

3)      WHERE ARE YOU DC people? It’s day 5 at WSOP and I haven’t met anyone!!??

Ohhhh, and one more thing. I wanted to say that Andrew BalugaWhale is not only a great coach because he knows his shit, but he’s also one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. I know I mentioned this before, and I’m getting all sappy on you guys, but I’m a girl so it’s ok. I can talk about “my feelings.” LOL. Whenever I get stressed, I think about what someone said to Baluga at the table that has stuck with me… he said, “Hey, remember why you’re life’s so good.”

Ok! That’s it for now!

LOVE You FREAKIN PEOPLE!

-Kristy

BREATHE.... out with the bad air, in with the good :) <--- name that movie :)

SO!!! The latest episode of Coaching Kristy is a real doozy huh? Haha, I'm trying to bring myself to watch it again to learn from my mistakes, but it's torture. ICK!!! Now those of you who read my last blog can probably understand a bit better why I spazzed, right? 

Anyway! Like I said though, after I wrote that blog, I was really motivated, especially after all the supportive comments from you guys. So I finished my trip to Paris, went to Brussels for one day, got silly on some Belgium beer, then traveled for 24 hours home to Vegas, slept for 6 hours, went to work at the World Team Poker event which went for 20 frickin hours, got mad sick with a fever and shizer, slept for 24 hours (occasionally lifting my head to watch DC videos and obv check Facebook/Twitter)... and then when I could move again, I was like OK--- POKER TIME.

I got back into 25-50 cent and started slow. I don't have endurance yet, and can only focus for short 1 to 2 hour time periods. I played with confidence and focused on the processes. I need a WWBWD bracelet :) (for those of you who didn't get that, that would stand for What Would Baluga Whale Do) I did really well, and felt really good. I got in some good spots and also got unlucky a few times, so I know it wasn't just running good... but anyway, here's how it's been in the last few days... (I know it's a SUPER small sample, but hey, I can brag once in awhile)

 

Sweet. I have enough to start playing .50-1.00 now too! PROGRESS!

I also played a couple sessions live, and I played an interesting hand that I wanted some feedback on...

I was playing $2-$5 at Bellagio, and I'd been playing for about an hour. There was a decent player two to my left. We'd been chatting a bit, and he asked me my opinion on some hand he played where he made a tough laydown, so I was thinking he had a bit of respect for me. Just before this hand came up, he was on a pretty big heater having flopped two sets and also winning two big pots with overpairs. So, after all that, he raised utg + 1 to $20 and got two callers. I called out of the BB with J9 of spades. The flop was As 8s 7h. I check, he bets $55, the two limpers fold and I call with my flush draw and gutter ball with about $530 behind. He had me well covered. The turn is an offsuit 9. I check and he bets $105. 

So at this point, I'm thinking, can I check raise him and get him to fold better? I think he has AK, AQ, AJ a ton of the time. I don't think he does this with big pairs like KK, QQ, JJ, 10 very often, but he could have that. It's hard for him to have A-8, A-9, A-7 with his early position raise. Of course he could have 88 or 77, but in Andrew's words, "It's really hard to flop sets" :) So I was thinking that a check call, check raise on the turn by me would look super strong. I think he would fold A TON of his range since I can rep a set or two-pair, or even a straight with 45s J10s, really easily. Plus, if I'm wrong and he doesn't fold, I have a lot of pot-equity obv. I made my decision to make the play, but do I just reraise? Or do I just shove?

I decided to make it $290, obviously planning on calling off the rest of it. He stood up, asked me if I had straight, and then shoved. I called, he showed 88's, I bricked and mucked. I still feel good about the play, but thought I'd check with you guys. Was the play ok? and If so, do you like shoving or just reraising? I think reraising "looks" stronger, but against a player who might think I want it to "look" stronger should I shove? Or should I just not even think about leveling in a $2-$5 live game? Hahha. 

Oh, and for all of you that have been waiting to see Baluga on a bull... don't be mad, but I can't find the video! Jay asked me to send it to him, but I'm so scared I accidentally deleted it, or Baluga sent some crazy ninjas over here to swipe it from me so it wouldn't see the light of day... There is one more place I can check for it. Hopefully it will make it into the last video or something. 

The WSOP is coming up, and I'm pretty excited. I'm going to be working a ton, but I know I want to play at least two events... the Ladies and a $1k. I think I'm going to sell some pieces too. Maybe I can make a sick cash and play in the Main Event. OMG, overheard a couple guys playing the $2-$5 talking about playing the main event, one of which who open raised to $80 and showed Aces when everyone folded and said he "hates" playing that hand. HAHA siiiiiiiick! These freaks are going to play the main event and I can't yet? BREATHE, Patience Kristy, I'll get there soon... and from this experience with DC, I can honestly say that with confidence.

ALSO, I got to interview Ivey this week at The Ivey Room opening at Aria! It was super nervous cuz pshhh it's Ivey!!! But I thought I'd share since, ummm well it's frickin IVEY I hope you all are well! :)

 Frickin LOVE YOU GUYS

 

WTF… seriously, WTF

So first of all, I’ve had the best coaching a person could ask for. I’m sooo lucky to have gotten this opportunity, and I know that. Balugawhale is an awesome freaking person/teacher, and I feel like I’m messing it all up… In the past month and a half, I’ve been to Mohegan Sun and to France and back to Vegas, and back to France where I’ll be for the next week. I haven’t put that many hands in, and when I do, I’m distracted or exhausted.

I’ve been winning at .25-.50, and put in a few sessions at .50-1.00… both had been going well, but I think slower that I’d hoped. Anyway, that’s not the point…

The point is, a ton of things have culminated to this blog post. I feel like I haven’t taken full advantage of this coaching. Yes, I’m handcuffed by my job, but I want to do more. I don’t know how to solve the problem. I have to work, and when I’m not working, I can play more, but is that more helpful than it is detrimental to play tired?

And what’s more is that I’m pissed at myself for my confidence being so easily wavered. I really hit a wall this week with that. A few days ago, after I’d written my last blog post, I was looking at my table ratings and read a few comments on it. A few people were laughing at me, especially about my folding AK in the last episode. (obv I know it was baaaad!!) I started realizing that people were watching, and some of them were probably hoping that I fail. So I went back to the tables, but I found myself overcompensating, and making looser calls and even looser raises… ugh, trying to prove something. Gross, I thought only boys puffed up against each other.

I started losing a bit, and then I really had my confidence shaken. What if I can’t be good? Shouldn’t I be winning faster? What if I’m the worst student Baluga ever had? I WANT HIM TO BE PROUD! Not ashamed that he’s coached me!

In this sort of beaten down state I was in, I decided to record a session of $1-$2 for Episode 7 of Coaching Kristy. In 20 minutes, I hit a Royal, then got fourbet 5 times and value owned myself soo hard that I had to quit. I wasn’t feelin it.

And then yesterday, I read an NVG thread about an interview I did with Tom Dwan. Bad idea… A few people decided to have a convo about my “cuteness” or lack-there-of, which didn’t help with the nearly diminished “I can take on the world” attitude I had a month ago. I wrote a blog post about Forums before, and I need to remember the parts of it that seemed so clear at the time, but so difficult to remember now.

Ohh, and then, in an effort to try and to learn more about the stats part of playing cash games, I somehow reaaally effed up my Hold’em Manager. So I was like Ef it… I’m going to try again and record that $1-$2 session… I got crushed so hard! Well, 3 buy ins worth, but I felt totally lost in every decision. I wasn’t confident in any read I made, and to top it off, the hotel internet timed out, and I was trying to get it back, my computer froze!= worthless

So my frustration is a combination recent technical malfunctions and the fact that I’ve let myself become this fragile little girl, who cares too much what other people think, and lets haters affect her success. It’s funny, when I write things out, it all becomes so much clearer.

My plan is to get as much out of I can from the next three sessions with Baluga (the next one starts in a few hours) and somehow find away to keep perspective. And that perspective should be that I’m one of the luckiest people ever. I travel the world covering poker tournaments and have people as awesome as Krantz and Baluga who genuinely want me to reach my potential in poker. I shouldn’t care what people think, say, or do better than me at this point, and that I’ll get there… soon.

Wow, I’m really sorry this post is so long, so disjointed, and not proofread. Ef that… at least it’s honest. Now, I have a fire lit under my ass (that means I’m MOTIVATED)

If no one reads this, that’s probably for the better. :) I just wanted to get it off my chest. DeucesCracked members have been the most supportive/awesome/coolest/bootylicoius people ever. Love that you guys say HI at the tables.

Peace for now…

Kristy

Hey guys!

Sheesh, I just got back from Monaco for EPT Grand Final, and I’m heading to Paris this Thursday for WPT Grand Prix de Paris. It’s like 6 a.m. here in Las Vegas, and I’m trying to stay on Europe time so I’m not so jet lagged. Jet lag is a biatch.

Anyway, I’ll get right into the poker stuff… In my last blog, I talked about an awesome message that DeucesCracked member QuadDeuces sent me. He was coached in a series with WiltOnTilt and wanted to share some advice that he’d acquired in this process. Here is what he wrote:

1. Other Players Pick on the video star. After each vid was posted on DC, players at the tables would play back at me a lot. 3B’ing and chk/Raising flops constantly. This would die down after a few days. You’ll probably get a lot more of this than I did because you are so well known in the poker community and now people know your signon.

2. Ignore the Haters. Some of the forum posters can be harsh telling you how bad you played a hand and that they want you sacked and replaced in the series. Never mind. I agreed to do the series because I wanted free coaching so I could improve. I never wanted to be well known. Criticism hurts. Just ignore the haters as you have lots of fans on your side.

3. Focus on identifying and correcting leaks not quick $ results. Maybe I’m a slow learner but I lost money (about 20 buy-ins) over the next 3 months (Nov-Jan). I felt I had improved a lot but I was still making big mistakes in areas too straightforward to have been discussed. Focus on playing each hand better not $ results. Analyze your big hands after each session for how you can improve. View mistakes as a learning experience not as a sign you can’t play. At first I found myself misapplying the things I’d been taught. Just like soccer you don’t always score!

4. Long term $ results will follow. Feb+ massive heater at 10+BB/100 for over 2 months now as I corrected the basic mistakes and Sean’s teachings kicked in big time. I’m now feeling really confident. I’m a bankroll Nit so I want to continue crushing for 100K+ hands before I move up. Ironically my play is both more aggressive and tighter than I was before. That is, when I think I’m ahead I’m more aggressive (value betting/raising) and when I think I’m behind (no value/no fold equity)I’m folding more. Before I called too much and too deep into the hand in spots where I was uncertain. This cost me a lot of money.

I can’t express enough how helpful this was for me, and how appreciative I am that he took the time to write out this message. I’ve actually been pretty lucky in that I haven’t had anything but positive support. It was kind of weird to play against some other DeucesCracked members who told me in chat that they recognized my screen name… haha I’m like, “So if they know that I know what I know, but they know that I know that, then what should I do?” Haha!

But the point that hit home the most, is that I need to focus on continuously plugging leaks and not focus on the money for now. It’s funny. Right after my first few coaching sessions, I started winning tons pretty quickly. Then, like I said in episode 5, I didn’t have brakes! I started steadily losing the money I’d made, and had to make a few adjustments. Since then, I’ve been gradually winning more but started to get frustrated that I was just crushing the games right off the bat.

I just recorded another session of .50-1.00 and it went pretty well. There were a few spots that I’m really excited about hearing what Baluga has to say about, even if he’s like “WRONG!” Haha.

I’m not a hold’em manager expert by any means, but if anyone wouldn’t mind, could you tell me some things that might help, such as, what is a good winrate for .25-.50 or .50-1.00? Or does anyone know of a good reference to find this stuff?

So, I’m off again to Paris! Anyone else going?

Good luck!
-Kris

P.S. Oh I forgot to mention I played the Scoop $5 six-max rebuy for a bagillion hours and got 240th out of like 24,000 for about $100 and wanted to freak punch someone. Sighhhh. But someone from Deuces Cracked railed for a bit and said hi! HELLO to you again!

Oh yeah… and here is a picture of Dallas :)

So…

I went to NAPT Mohegan Sun to cover the action for PokerNews and on Day2, my computer took a big dookie on me. It wouldn’t turn on and Dell told me I’d lost my files— tough luck. I FLIPPPPPPED out. Yes, I know you’re always supposed to “back that ass up” but my computer was only a month and a half old. I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I wasn’t worried about my songs, files, or pictures. I was only worried about Episodes 3 and 4 that Andrew and I had shot for DeucesCracked. Thankfully, my friend was able to bring my computer back to life after a week.

I apologize for not posting last week and failing to responding to any of the awesome comments on the videos. I was in a complete panic for awhile, but it’s all good now, and yes, I’m backing up. Because of having no computer and taking a short trip home to Kalamazoo, MI to see my family (no online gambling in the house allowed— my mom is a 100pound, five-foot, strict as hell, Korean woman who won’t hesitate to whoop my booty), I haven’t been able to play much.

**Sidenote— it would have been nice to grind while I spent an unnecessary 7 hours in the Laguardia Airport after missing my flight because I fell asleep 20 ft away from the gate. Ahh worst/embarrassing moment ever! Anyone else every done that?

The great news from that trip was that I got to interview Vanessa Selbst twice after winning the event! I interviewed her for PokerNews and Poker2Nite! WHOOOT go home team!

Vanessa Selbst Winner Interview

Ok, back to my favorite topic… ME! Hahaha just kidding… no but seriously.

In Episode 3, I got four-bet a ton, and I started to tilt. Andrew reminded me that it was from different opponents, and that I still had to assume passivity until proven otherwise. Lots of viewers suggested that opponents were starting to adjust to my three-betting frequency and probably my frequency to fold against a four-bet since it’s likely that they are also using huds. I thought about this a lot, and I think it’s safe to say that there a few more decent regs who use huds than I previously thought. I kept playing, kept three-betting like a monkey, and kept losing. The money I initially won right after the first few coaching took a nose dive, so I’m trying to make a couple adjustments for .25-.50

At the second sign of a player being someone who is playing with a similar plan/strategy as me, ie. the second fourbet or the second three-bet against my late position raise, I start looking to test the waters to make sure they are player I should polarize against. I decided that I’d try putting a four-bet in or three-bet five-bet shoving pairs against players who are beginning to hint being a player I should polarize against… It’s been working pretty well, or I’ve been lucky not to have run into AA, KK, QQ or AK. Haha. Also, against a player who has four-bet my in position three-bet, I’ll start flatting with more of my hands that I would normally reraise passive players with. I’ve also slowed down a bit on my three-betting. I’m not doing it with all my aces from the blinds as I was doing before.

I don’t know if this is good to start assuming a bit sooner… but it seems to be working better. I’m really interested to see what Andrew thinks, and also what you guys think. Tonight, Andrew and I are filming Ep. 5 and I’m playing .50-1.00 Ohhhhhh snap. :) It’s kind of funny trying to coordinate good times to talk while he’s in Thailand. This week we said Monday, but his Monday his my Sunday. Whoops :)

I’m soo excited that this series is getting such positive response. Let me know if your game has improved and the results you’ve shown. As for me, I’ve been successful in grinding my BR back up from the downswing, and hopefully that will continue. I’d like to post more numbers, but there isn’t much to show since all my Hold’em Manager files were lost… I will for the next post though, promise!

Also, I have to give a shout out to QuadDeuces. He wrote me a long, and thoughtful message about what it was like to be coached, and what to expect. All I can say is that he is dead on. I’d like to share some of that with you guys, but first I have to write him back (I know, I’m a slacker) and ask his permission.

I hope you guys are well!!!

PEACE!

<3 Kristy

Poker players are obviously good at reading people, but often, it doesn’t transfer from the poker table to real life. For Jay Rosenkrantz, I believe it does.

First, he saw a real desire in me to change and improve my game. He knew I wasn’t bullshizering, and that I was willing to put in the work. I have always had a passion for poker but have honestly been too scared to really take advantage of opportunities that have presented themselves along the way as a poker hostess. But, when the chance to get coaching from DeucesCracked came along, I knew I had to push that fear aside because offers like this are almost too good to be true.

Now the second reason I think Jay is amazing at reading people is because he undoubtedly paired me up with the best coach for me… Andrew “Balugawhale” Seidman. I know that there are so many incredible coaches here at Deuces, but I’m positive that Andrew’s personality and coaching style are perfectly compatible with me and my learning style. Obviously, Andrew could coach a monkey to be successful because he’s so good at it, but I definitely wanted to thank Jay for pairing me up with him. NICE READ.

Before I met my coach though, I was pretty effing nervous. I had no idea what to expect. I was soo excited that he turned out to be super friendly, outgoing, honest, and a great listener. That last trait I mentioned might seem like an odd one to point out, but in my opinion, it’s one of the most consistent characteristics of genuine people. People who have something to prove, are too into themselves, or only have ulterior motives for everything nice they do are generally terrible listeners. Anyway, sorry for the quick rant, but long story short, Andrew is GOOD PEOPLE.

The original plan was that Andrew would stay in Vegas for a few days and do a pretty intense eight sessions of coaching me for a series on DC. We worked really hard, but we also had an awesome time off the virtual felt too. He played on my coed soccer team and scored a goal (Brag: I scored 3 though, OHH one-upper!!!), we went to a country bar with Poker News people and rode mechanical bulls (I have video of it… thinking about submitting it to be spliced into one of these Coaching Kristy videos— what’ya think?), and we popped bottles in the club one night too.

Needless to say, the few days he was here were both super informative and FUN! When he left, I felt really confident about my game and was excited to start putting into place everything that I’d learned. Then, I got even better news!

We couldn’t use the videos and I was going to get eight more sessions of coaching with Andrew! YIPPEEEE!

So, the first video was posted today, and I’ve been really nervous for this. Basically, I’m making myself super vulnerable, but hey, whatever. It’s worth it, and I hope other people can learn with me. It’s tough sometimes to admit that you need help to improve your game, but not many people can be their best without it. I know a lot of people will be able to relate, so that’s why I’m ok with viewers watching me struggle and completely misplay hands and embarrass myself! It’s all a learning process!

And speaking of processes, I want to repost what Andrew wrote in the comments, which are the processes we referred to in the first video that I learned in our previous unseen coaching sessions…

process when facing a bet or raise
1) passive or aggressive?
2) value betting or bluffing?
3) value hands worse vs value hands better, count up total bluff hands

process when deciding whether or not to bet or raise:
1) am I value betting or bluffing?
2) if value betting, which worse hands call or raise?
3) if bluffing, do I have PE + FE?

I’m going to be posting at least every week about the latest video, and also about my progress. Right now I’m at NAPT Mohegan Sun doing video coverage for Poker News, so I won’t be able to put in a lot of hands, but I definitely will once the tournament is over.

I hope you all are well and enjoyed the first video. If you have any constructive criticism, questions, or suggestions feel free to message me!

PEACE HOMIEDOGGIES

<3 Kristy aka Guess16 aka Ninja Dolphin (if that doesn’t make sense, wait until next week :)

P.S. If any of you get bored of just reading about poker, I also keep my personal blog at Snaptress.com Thanks!