I got into poker in 2003 after watching Chris Moneymaker win the Main Event at the WSOP. I started off by playing in the occasionally live No Limit tournament at different LA area casinos and I also grinded Sit and Gos on Party Poker.

During the next year I concentrated on Limit Holdem and eventually was hired as a Prop Player at the Bicycle Casino. At that time the casino was developing a new project called “Live at the Bike”, a webcast of a live poker cash game. Being a broadcasting major from Syracuse I hopped on the opportunity to audition and I was hired as the lead commentator.

I commentated on live No Limit cash games for five days a week, three hours a day in 2005 and I began to learn what it took to be an excellent No Limit cash game player. I realized that the losers fell into common mistakes and the winners would exploit them with similar patterns. I took this knowledge and switched from playing Limit to exclusively No Limit at the end of 2005.

In 2006, I continued to commentate full time and played 35 hours a week at the Bike’s 5-10NL uncapped game. It was during this time that I also began playing Limit Omaha Hi-Lo.

In 2007, the show ended and I made final tables in a televised $1500 NL tournament and a 5k Omaha 8 event at the WSOP. I cashed again in the Heads up No Limit Championship and finished in 115th place at the Main Event.

Since then I have continued to play live No Limit full time and have been heavily involved with the poker media. Along with being the original host on Pokerroad Radio, I started a podcast specifically about cash game strategy called “Cash Plays”. At the end of 2008, I moved that podcast over to Deucescracked.com and renamed it “Deuce Plays”.

In 2009, I continued my media work by commentating on two shows for FSN, ClubWPT.com and Aussie Millions 2009. Aussie Millions was very exciting as it was the first time cash PLO was shown on television. I also had the unique opportunity to commentate on a heads up match between Patrick Antonious and Durrrr. Along with my broadcasting I continued to play 35 hours a week at 5-10 and 10-20NL at the Commerce Casino. Currently, I have recorded over 150 podcasts relating to poker strategy. I continue to play live No Limit Holdem full time in Los Angeles and you can find me grinding the 75-150 Omaha 8 games at the WSOP.

COACHING

Live No Limit Holdem is vastly different from today’s game played online. Normally, live poker is much less aggressive and the stack sizes are deeper. The optimal lines to exploit bad players are much different than the approach to beating typical, taggy, 24-tabling fish online. I have played over 7000 hours of live poker and will fully share my experience with students. Live players are generally much worse than their online counter parts and most of the time they fall into easily exploitable patterns.

I offer two forms of coaching:

1) Live Assessment-- I sit down behind a student and quietly observe their holecards. I record every interesting situation into my PDA. After the session we discuss these situations. I identify possible leaks in the students’ game and give experienced hand analysis. The assessment is broken into two hours of observation and two hours of session discussion.

2) General Coaching--Either done via Skype or in person. Students can forward me hands ahead of time or we can discuss general strategy or poker theory relating to live No Limit, Omaha 8, or Stud 8.

I recommend for all prospective students to listen to Deuce Plays episodes 34, 35, 89 and 90. In these episodes I break down individual sessions that I played within the last two years. These shows give a taste as to what a live assessment would be like and also gives the prospective student a look into how I approach live No Limit cash games. For split pot prospective students check out episode 111.

Rate-$250 per hour for assessment lessons (four hour minimum)

$200 per hour for general lessons