About Me

I began playing poker in 2005 after my 21st birthday. I started studying by reading many books and posting regularly on the forums at 2+2. During the my first several years I spent a majority of my poker time studying the game, as compared to grinding. Poker didn't come very easily to me, but I wanted to be great at it so I put in the hard work. Consequently, I feel that I have a very in depth mathematical and theoretical foundation. I began my poker career playing Limit Hold 'Em for the first few years before moving exclusively to No Limit Hold'em in March 2007, shortly after graduating from Indiana State University with a Bachelor's in Computer Science. I then invested in private lessons with Sunny Mehta (co-author of Professional No Limit Hold'em. Volume 1 and Small Stakes No Limit Hold'em) and spent some time getting my head wrapped around No Limit.

In the spring of 2008, I quit my job to pursue a career in music in Florida. While in Florida I would often play in the $1/2 games at the Melbourne Greyhound Park as a side income. At the time the max buy in for those games was $100 and I wasn't making any money playing music. Consequently, after a few months I decided to play online poker for a living. By this time, NLHE had finally began to click. My first month, September 2008, I made nearly $4000 at $.5/1 and I haven't looked back since. Unfortunately, I didn't have much of a bankroll because I had been living out of it for 5 months, but I decided to take a gamble because if I lost my roll playing poker, I was going to have get a job. If I didn't try I to play poker for a living I was going to have to get a job. There really wasn't much of a gamble! Because of this it has taken me a little longer to move up the stakes because I had to get a roll together and also because I am typically not a player who will log 100k+ hands a month.

I currently play $.5/1 and $1/2, and should be again moving up to $2/4 soon. I play about 50% FR and 50% 6-max. I typically play in about 20,000 to 40,000 hands a month. Here is a sample of results

PokerTableRatings links:Stars and FullTilt

I have been published in both the 2+2 internet magazine and in Bluff Magazine. You can find other articles I have written archived at my blog and also in the articles section here. I joined the Deuces Cracked team in the Spring of 2009. I have been producing videos for DeucesCracked for nearly two years now. Be sure to check out my popular series "Tolerance".

About my coaching program

I'm a good teacher. I taught guitar for 5 years while I was in college, so I have plenty of teaching experience. I have been told many times that I am very good at explaining difficult concepts. I have experience coaching and playing in online micro/small stakes No Limit Hold 'Em games.

Most of my coaching is done through the use of filters to analyze a group of hands where the student is in a common situation. I don't spend many hours sweating my students as I feel it's not the most efficient use of our time. Sweating is mostly used as a checkup and to work on table dynamics. Using a filter, we can really dig in on a specific hand and talk about how to play our range, what our villain's range is, how to plan our hand for our entire range, and how to adjust our plans and range to different villains, etc. I suggest that a new student sign up for at least 3 hours to start, and I run a discounted rate for signing up for 5 sessions (Email to me ask about rates. My email is below.). It is difficult to get a lot done in only an hour or two, but after 4 or 5 hours my students typically notice huge changes in their game.

Program Outline

1st hour: This is spent doing thirty to forty minutes of video review (or a sweat session if need be, or requested). This just helps me get a good overview for where the student is at in his or her game. I use this to spot common leaks that can be quickly fixed. The last twenty to thirty minutes is spent looking at the student's stats in his or her poker database. These two things can help get us to the low hanging fruit and can also help us set the course for future sessions.

2nd hour:This is often spent taking a look at a filter for when the student has lost more than 25bb in a pot. The purpose of this is to find and eliminate big mistakes. This is a session I sometimes skip for a more advanced student.

3rd hour: This is spent using a filter to take a look at hands raised in early position that see a flop. This will help the student get a good solid aggression strategy when his or her range is the strongest.

4th hour: Another filter, this time we take a look at hands played in late position. This is the bread and butter of playing NLHE, so it's important that we take a look at this filter. It is something we will come back to, as well.

5th hour: I spend this hour looking at hands that were raised in late position, c-bet, and we see the turn. The focus of this session is to work on the student's turn betting strategy.

Further Studying

I like to run filters to analyze hands where we look at the following:

- Face a 3-bet

- 3-betting

- Facing the aggressor

- Playing the button

- Playing from the blinds

I also suggest that a student mark trouble hands and we can take a session to look at some hands he or she has had trouble with. Students do have access to me via email and Skype to ask questions they may have in between sessions.

At this point I have coached over 75 students from the range of $.02/.05 to $2/4. I am currently coaching about 25 students, and am able to take on a few more. I have several former students that now play small/mid-stakes professionally. Feel free to send me a message or email me at threads13@deucescracked.com if you have any questions.

Here is a blog post where students shared their results with me and allowed me to show you too.

"I have completed sessions with a number of well known coaches and I have to say that my sessions with Threads have been by far the most beneficial to my game. Most sessions with other coaches just do live sweats or video sessions and a lot of times it is hard to really get into a lot of interesting situations. A lot of times I would pay for a session and nothing complex ever came up so it was kind of like throwing money away. Threads asked me what I needed help with and we went in and using HEM filters looked at all kinds of different scenarios that showed me losing money. Every session we used different filters to look at all different kinds of ideas; SPR’S, commitment thresh holds, c-betting strategies, and using different lines for different player types. His knowledge of the game and his use of HEM is really top notch and his lessons are a bargain at any price. I have gone from a losing player to beating the game at 8bb/100 over a decent sample size in less than two months." - wingchunflush

"My game always feels sharper after I have had a strategy discussion with Jacob, nothing is ever "standard" and a reason is sought for everything. In my early days he steered me away from the group think mentality on certain forums and his approach to poker is open minded, hard working and refreshing." - Sounded Simple, Deuces Cracked Coach

"Threads13 is a great coach; he really helped me improve my game. He is a proven winner at $1/$2 (and $2/$4 now I think) and plays poker for a living, plus he has been through what I’ve been going through at 25c/50c and 50c/$1 reasonably recently, so he knows what level to pitch things at. His thought process is well reasoned and he does his best to help you understand why one line may be better than another. He is incredibly enthusiastic about poker and really puts all his focus into each lesson.

Our lessons often ran over for five or ten minutes and he will look at your problem hands during the week. A general lesson involves using Holdem Manager to isolate trouble spots and then look at hands that highlight that situation and break them down. We also did some math based lessons, some reviews and a sweat session. Like I said he has taught me a lot and I definitely recommend him as a coach." - Number 34

"Quite early I realized that coaching is an excellent tool to improve. Quite late I found a coach who could spot my leaks.

Threads13 did not waste our time with sweating. Especially since FR play is often too slowpaced for it. So, we got right into it, ran a lot of filters and looked at spots where I had difficulties. We talked a lot about 3-barreling, defending against 3-bets, and raising the overall aggression. He helped me work out strategies versus my main villains.

When he started coaching me in January, I was playing 0.5/0.1 and 1/2, mostly breaking even at the later. At the moment, 6months later, I am taking shots at 2/4, that have went well so far.

Threads13 is not only a good teacher, he has also a very professional working ethic. He is very flexible, accommodating and it is always fun to talk poker with him." -jacktheriva

"My first encounters with Threads13 was on 2+2, where he was the poster who challenged all the regulars to think outside of that standard 2+2. Since then, we have talked tons of poker, done some coaching, and he would even take the time out to explain just how sick variance can be when I was feeling down. What Threads13 provided me that no other coach ever really did, was enthusiasm for the game, he loves everything about it, especially talking theory. Being able to pick his brain for the last few years has improved my game ten fold." -Besthand17

"This guy is not just a professional NLHE player; he's a professional coach! He knows what most players have problems with (because he consciously exploits those problems in his games), he knows how to find out what your particular problems are, and he knows how to help you fix them. In my conversations with him today, we are constantly talking about game changes and how to tailor our strategies to exploit these newer tendencies. You'll always be ahead of the curve while getting lessons from threads13. When I started receiving coaching from him in May of 2009, I was winning around 1 to 2bb/100 at 50NL; by the end of the year, I was putting up 6bb/100 (FR) rates over a 150k hand sample, split between 50 and 100NL. He helped me learn how to manage my bankroll and figure out which stakes to play accordingly. He knows a lot about diet and lifestyle, too... Basically he's extremely well rounded and an excellent poker-mentor. If you're serious about improving and take even 3 lessons from this guy, I guarantee you won't regret it!" - Superchimp8

Here is a recent review of my coaching.