So far I´ve been doing good, but not great with 25NL. I´m winning, but not by much. Over about 40k hands I´m only hitting a win rate of about 1 BB/100 hands.
I understand that most of the trouble I´m having with the win rate is because I´m stuck in my nitty ways which worked so well at 5 and 10NL. At 25NL, it keeps me from getting paid. It´s too easy to tell when I´ve got the nuts, because I´ve always got the nuts.
In an effort to break myself out of my nit shell, I have signed on for at least a few coaching sessions with El Nino 1. I ¨discovered¨ El Nino through his ¨well¨post at twoplustwo.com. I had never heard of him before, but after reading through the thread, I became very interested in figuring out how he does what he does…which is earning a good living playing 50NL full time.
I asked a few questions, and got a few good answers. Slowly I read the entire thread and found that I really liked a lot of the answers he gave to the poker related questions he received. I could see that we share a lot of the same thoughts about the game of poker, and what it means to make a living out of it without trying to prove you´re some kind of superstar. He came off as very smart, and very humble. I liked both of those qualities.
Lucky for me, he also announced in that thread that he was willing to take on some coaching students for a very good price. I sent him a private message on twoplustwo with a few questions and a little info about me to see if he thought I was the type of player he could help. A little while later I had a response with more answers that I liked, and his name on AIM. A couple of hours ago I spoke with him for a while through skype, and in the end we agreed on setting up a few coaching and sweat sessions. I´ll have my first two hour session with him tomorrow afternoon.
I was amazed with how observant he was about everything I was telling him. He was basically able to tell me exactly how I play just by hearing 2 or 3 of my stats. He even guessed some of my other stats within 1% accuracy, based on what he´d assume I´d do because of my more primary stats. I was impressed. The conversation went well, and I think we got along well and will have a good working relationship together. I´m both excited to see what he can teach me, and afraid of embarrassing myself as he watches me play for the first time tomorrow.
I´m looking forward to hopefully posting some really sexy graphs, and some really good reviews of my coaching experience. I feel like I´m sitting right on the edge of everything. Behind me is what I know, what I was. In front of me is the unknown, what I want to become. I´m hoping El Nino 1 can give me the last little push I need to finally discover what it´s like on the other side.
At the least, I´ll be back at the end of March to post my monthly graph, but I´ll probably try to post one or more updates before then as the coaching progesses. I really think it´s going to be an interesting experience.
May the fish be with you…