Grindcore

Hello, I'm Grindcore, and I read souls for a living.

For information on Group Coaching click here

Here's my story.

I started playing poker in a pretty standard way. Late 2007 I won some playmoney and thought I was god, made a small deposit, luckboxed a decent win, lost a bunch, realized I'm bad at poker, learned bankrollmanagement and started studying the game and grinding $1 SNGs. After losing almost my entire micro bankroll in a tilted NL50 HU shot early summer 2008, I took a 3 month break from the game. In September 2008 I started over again at NL10 6max. Up till now it was mainly non-serious fun, but I felt that if I really put my mind to it I could crush this game, so I set as goal to become as good as possible. I got a staking deal with moving up as fast as possible in mind (please stop PMing me with questions about this, just look around in the 2+2 marketplace subforums if you want to know more about stakes). I watched alot of videos, was very active on 2+2 in the strategy forums, talked alot of poker with friends, thought of poker strategy in the shower, while waiting in line at the store, in bed when not able to sleep, even my dreams were often about poker. I never copied a style from any video or blindly applied any concept I heard of or read about. I only took away ideas that I agreed with after critically thinking about them myself, and applied them to my own game. I'd disagree with the vast majority of strategy advice on forums, thought many coaches in videos misplayed hands, thought many well respected forum posters were weaktight and unimaginative, and just build my own unique style based only on the things that I did agree with myself, and stuff I thought off myself while thinking about the game and analyzing situations. As a result, within 12 months I've moved up from NL10 to NL1000 6max in a post-UIEGA climate and play poker professionally, with as biggest strenght the thing that's everybody's weakness: the red line.

NL100 graph

NL200 graph

NL400+ graph

Before I joined the Deuces Cracked team I was a video instructor at PokerSavvy Plus under the name of EpicFoldGuy. If you wanna PTR me, my outed screennames are Eshez, TehPokeHerer and EpicFoldGuy. The rest I'd like to keep private. If you need more proof of my skill, just watch any of my videos, read any of my strategy posts or ask around.

There is a long waitinglist for my private coaching at the moment. Please contact me privately if you want me to put you on it. Because of the rate at which my game is still increasing and the high demand for my coaching, I can't guarantee future rates.

I'm offering coaching up to 3/6 at a flat rate of $250/hour. I'll do 5/10 aswell if you're taking shots or if your game style is vastly different from mine (ie you lose at non-showdown). I'm very aware of the way today's games play at all different stake levels, as I play 2/4-10/20 myself for a living, and coach alot of people at NL100 and NL200. I haven't lost my touch with the lower stakes, which is normally risk when getting a coach that plays alot higher than yourself.

My main strenght is having a strong creative read-based situation dependant post-flop game (watch episode 8 of my "The Thin Red Line" series if you haven't already). I can play from 15 to 50 vpip and have a different postflop plan for every opponent. I focus strongly on identifying leaks in my opponents games and exploiting them actively (even, if not in particular, against the tight/aggressive regulars). I can teach you how to build better reads on your opponents, and how to approach and think about every situation in a better way. You won't only become a better handreader, but you'll also learn how to play your hand better based on the reads you make. Weak-tight players ("standard TAGs / multitabling robots") that bleed at non-showdown pots will get most value out of my coaching. I can help LAG players finetune their game and take them to the next level aswell, or teach more fundamental things to players struggling at micro stakes or NL100. If you don't have all the fundamentals down yet you're probably better off getting coached by someone else though, as there are alot of cheaper coaches out there that are just as capable of teaching the basics.

What you can expect from my coaching:

First my general approach to teaching poker. Instead of telling you how you should play, I will teach you concepts that you can apply to your own game. For example, instead of telling you that you should be playing 28 vpip or 23 vpip as standard game, I'll teach you what table conditions are good to play looser than your standard game, and what table conditions are good to play tighter than you standard game, regardless of what your standard game is, and back everything up with logic (and I'm open for arguments ofcourse). A frequent phrase I'll use is "does that make sense?". I want you to understand why a play/adjustment is good, not just making the play because Grindcore said it was good. Copying a style will only get you so far, but understanding the inner workings of it will actually help you progress.

Now for the actual content of the sessions. Every student is different. That's why I always start with a HEM statistics review in the 1st session. During this first session I'll look for leaks in your game, ways you might be getting exploited etc, and we'll discuss general strategy. This is a very time effective way for me to get a good idea about your game and your weaknesses so we can immediately start addressing them. It also gives really good opportunity to discuss adjustment strategy in theoretical spots that you might not always run into during a sweat session. This is really good excercise and will prepare you to handle all sorts of other situations aswell. What we do in future sessions heavily depends on this first session. Based on my experience with other students and the found weaknesses in this first session, I will construct a lesson plan optimized for your needs. This can include sweat sessions, HH reviews, theory discussion, video reviews, running database filters for trouble spots, etc. Ofcourse if you had something in mind yourself, I'm open to anything (other than you watching me play, for security and privacy reasons).

This first session takes 2 hours (less is simply not enough, there is too much content in this session). For sessions after that I've found 90 minutes being optimal. 60 minutes just fly by and you're usually still very focussed in the end, so quitting then is a bit of a shame, especially during sweat sessions when we've just gotten good reads on everybody and now we have to quit before being able to make some sort of heroic play. Around 2 hours the attention span usually begins to drop, hence 90 minute sessions will get you most value out of your money.

I've found that the first 3 sessions (that's 5 hours total) have the highest impact on a student's game, so I'd highly recommend that you take a minimum of 5 hours when you're getting my coaching. After that we can assess your progress and discuss wether you want more sessions or not, or if you should take some time to let everything sink in before resuming.

All sessions usually go a bit overtime, for which you will not be charged. I'll take as much time as I feel we need and won't leave something unfinished. You're not entitled to getting free overtime though, as I'm sure you'll understand :)

In between sessions you're free to ask me questions. I can be reached through Skype, PM, or email.

I'll also be offering group coaching. This will be in packages and at a discounted hourly rate. The size, content and costs will vary. I'll post a thread in the coaching section of the DC forums whenever I have something going, and put a link to the thread in this coaching profile aswell. They will likely mostly be for lower stakes, so the hourly rate doesn't take too large of a chunk out of the smaller bankrolls.

If you want to book a session, PM me here or on 2+2 telling me a bit about yourself. Please include the stakes you're playing, how many tables you normally play, how your results have been etc, areas in your game you'd like to work on and other relevant information. Also feel free to ask any questions.

Thanks for the interest,

Bart