Coaches / Gman

Garrett is a 24 year old living in Scottsdale, Arizona. He has been a professional poker player for over 5 years, but after graduating Summa Cum Laude from the University of Arizona in May 2008 with a dual degree in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, he now dedicates himself to the game full time. Like many successful players, Garrett started by depositing the minimum $50 on PartyPoker. Throughout 2005-06, Garrett absolutely crushed 3/6 and 5/10NL 6-max with an extremely aggressive postflop game that few players could adjust to correctly at the time.

After the internet gambling legislation was passed, Garrett started playing on PokerStars under the screenname Alcohol4Life. Noticing the 6-max games were toughening up, he began focusing his game on Heads-up play. By the summer of 2007, Garrett was a 25/50NL heads up regular on Stars and has never looked back since. Because he was unable to get any HU action after a short time, Garrett was known to play and beat many of the best HU players on Stars.

Garrett has been coaching students for over 3 years now, almost entirely through word of mouth and personal recommendations. After becoming a DC Producer in September 2008, Garrett has coached more than 50 students, virtually all of them working w/ Garrett for at least 10 hours. He truly enjoys teaching and sharing his knowledge of the game with his students and is able to articulate his thoughts just as well as he implements them while playing, a rare skill amongst poker players. Although well-versed in all forms of NLHE, most of his coaching revolves around helping players improve their heads-up game. He occasionally makes strategy posts under the name Gman06 on 2+2.

Heads up NL poker is the most difficult to teach because it is so non-technical in nature. Given that, Garrett strives to get his students to think like HU specialists as opposed to a memorizing a playbook which won't get you very far in tough HU matches.

Logistically, Garrett is open to helping his students through the medium of their choice, but he generally focuses his sessions on 4 main areas:

1) Having a discussion or lecture about a particular topic: Here is where making the theoretically optimal play in every situation will be analyzed and then compared to making the most deceptive or most balanced play. A few examples: 3-betting, getting into the mind of your opponent aka leveling, betsizing, image considerations, river checkraising, etc.

2) Reviewing hands: This and the first approach are often related, and often reviewing hands leads to deeper discussion about important HU concepts. When reviewing hands, Garrett is very meticulous and helps his students to analyze every street so his pupils completely understand not only why a particular play is best, but the pros and cons associated with taking a particular action.

3) Sweating: Although he personally doesn't think sweating is always the most cost-effective use of a student's time, it is nevertheless important to sweat occasionally. This is partly true as gameflow is so important in HU matches, and cannot always be correctly articulated by the student later on in a hand history. And clearly, a lot else can be learned through sweating.

4) Videos: Assuming an interest, much can also be learned by the student making a video multitabling HU. Because the video can be stopped at any time, the student is often able to get into deeper discussion than he would during a typical sweat session. Video reviews are by far the most popular option for most of his students, particularly in the first few lessons.

"Hiring Garrett was easily one of the best things I have ever done for my poker game. While I was already a successful high stakes 6-max player who dabbled in HU, he really took my HU game to the next level. After working with him for 30+ hours of excellent coaching and discussion, I am now confident playing all types of players up to the 50/100 level. I was able to beat fish before, but Garrett taught me how to beat regulars of all kinds while improving the edge I have on the fish. From the theory to the psychology, Garrett is an excellent poker player and coach." --PBJaxx, High Stakes NL Winner

-packages available at a discount