 ROAD TRIP |
WSOP Academy
Tournament Edition
February 21-22, 2009
Review
By David M. Flynn, Jr.
“We are like lions attacking the weakest, injured wildebeest. We don’t go after the big buck.” So ran Greg Raymer’s description of the 30 odd students at the World Series of Poker Academy’s two day Tournament Edition at the WinStar Casino in Thackerville, OK. Raymer and fellow pros Bernard Lee and Michael Gracz joined mindset coach Sam Chauhan at the Academy presenting their insights over two packed days of seminars.
Here’s what was astonishing, 36 students paid $1700 to get to spend two days with these three poker pros, whose total official winnings are nearly $11.5 million by the way, and get good advice, ask any question, tell jokes, and PLAY them in a tournament. There were nine women among the 36 entrants, which I found quite interesting and according to WSOPA Owner/President Brandon Rosen was not unusual. In any event, was the WSOPA worth $1700? More on that later.
As a mediocre tournament player, sitting through two days of poker poker poker because I had nothing to lose but time and the $1700 buy-in, I was a bit skeptical on the value of this program. I had a similar opportunity a few years ago when I went to a golf seminar to learn the short game from Tom Kite. That lesson only made things worse. Tom Kite can talk himself blue in the face and it wouldn’t do a thing for my hand-eye coordination. There’s no math to be learned in golf either.
The format of the Tournament Edition of the WSOPA was classic business seminar, but with a twist. You know the drill: breakfast, meet and greet, speaker introductions, a couple of hours of PowerPoint, videos, and then rubber chicken lunch.
The WSOPA even threw in the requisite motivational speaker.
But here’s the big difference between the WSOPA and other seminars you go to for work or to learn how to buy real estate: you get to sit down with the best players in the world and have them critique your individual style in extreme detail. This happened during the live hands seminars, where 10 “players” sat around a table with one of the pros dealing and analyzing hands, combinations, scenarios, probable outcomes, how to play in early position, how to play in late position, etc. The pros rotated so you got a chance to hear from each of them. Clearly, the live hand seminars were the highlights of the two day weekend academy.
The poker pros had a variety of presentation styles and mixed it up. In other words you didn’t get three full hours of any one speaker; they switched back and forth and jumped in when they felt it appropriate, most of that coming from Raymer. This kind of spontaneity made the whole session more entertaining and unrehearsed.
I learned some valuable lessons about good and bad habits in playing poker and about how to maintain a certain table cred. For example, did you know that “in poker, it doesn’t matter if you’re playing your mom or grandma, you’re out for blood?” Well now I know! The author of this bon-mot was the soft spoken Michael Gracz.
As far as presentation style, Bernard Lee was the best. He opened the session and established a more or less serious tone of the courses. He is a great presenter, by the way, very clear and expressive. I noted from his website that he has teaching experience at the college level, and it showed. He also has this impressive 2” notebook with handwritten notes of every hand he has ever played in live tournaments. This elicited great interest on the part of Greg Raymer and Michael Gracz who referred to Lee’s apparently illegible notes as Aramaic and Sanskrit, respectively. Good stuff. I didn’t know you could take notes. Something I might do in my next tournament just to rattle the wildebeests.
Don’t get the impression that Raymer or Gracz weren’t entertaining or instructive. They were. Raymer, the most charismatic and the biggest star of the three pros, was very good and very willing to share everything (or seemingly everything). He was tremendously entertaining as well. Raymer has training as a lawyer, according to his bio, which accounted for his intellectual approach and vocabulary. Great stories, great insight and well explained.
Gracz was good as well, although he was not as polished a presenter as the two other pros. He was great at bringing in some levity and anecdotes when appropriate. I have to say that I thought the meetings would be heavy on war stories and bad beats, but that was far from the case. The stories were infrequent, and did not get in the way of the instruction. Often they illustrated a point; often they were just funny and entertaining.
There was one other presenter, mind coach Sam Chauhan, who was an expert in (and I quote) neuro-linguistic programming, subliminal persuasive linguistics, unconscious suggestions, ericksonian patterns, physiological readings, and muscle readings. Evidently he was pinch-hitting for Joe Navarro, former FBI guy and an expert on non verbal communication (tells) who is a popular fixture at most WSOPAs. There wasn’t a lot of talk among my fellow students about Chauhan’s presentation afterwards.
I should mention that another highlight of the academy was a tournament on Saturday night in which seats at an upcoming WSOP tournament, a free WSOP Academy, or Oakley sunglasses were up for grabs. Oh, and if you knocked out Raymer you got a pair of his signature glasses and the ability to say, for the rest of your life, “I played that guy once…. kicked his ass.” I didn’t think much of the tournament because I busted out early.
The academy was well run. Brandon Rosen, the WSOPA Owner/President, and his staff kept things moving along. Everything started on time. Even though the sessions ran a little long, we seemed to get everything in. They made the live hand “labs” a priority to make sure that if anything was cut from the program the live hand demonstrations remained intact.
Did I learn anything? Hell yes. Right from the opening slide which told me that the goal in poker (besides winning) is to control the decision and not the outcome. Basic, but brilliant nonetheless. Although this was the “Tournament Edition” the classes really helped me in my cash game that same Saturday night. Or maybe it was the fact that I was wearing a WSOPA hat, WSOPA name tag, WSOPA card protector, and kept mentioning that I was in the WSOP Academy with Greg Raymer. I don’t know. But I did take the local wildebeests for a few shekles at the $4-$8 table.
I also learned (from Raymer) that, in poker “the math is everything” and “worry about probabilities, not possibilities.” Again, very basic and very sound life advice that changed my outlook on the game. I need to be more serious and calculating rather than go by feel. Oh, and another tidbit from the very quotable Raymer, “Norman Chad doesn’t know shit about poker.” Good stuff.
So, the big question is this: given the current economy (or any economy), is it worth dumping a mortgage payment or rent check ($1700) into a two day seminar on poker? You have to consider what you are getting. Raymer, Gracz, and Lee have made more than $11,400,000 collectively playing live poker tournaments. Who knows how much they have banked playing online, cash games, and in private games. This is like getting golf lessons from Kite, Jim Furyk, and maybe Rocco Mediate but better because you can only do so much athletically, but you can always improve your mental skills. So there’s that.
Or consider the motivation of one woman I met at the Academy who had been recently laid off and it was her intention to invest some of her severance in poker tournaments. So she spent a couple of days learning about the game and herself. Why not?
I would have a hard time, personally, justifying $1700 at this time in my life but if I did I feel that I have an excellent chance of getting my money back over the short run in improvements to my cash game alone. It’s like calculating implied odds. I already recouped $300 this weekend. And who knows how I do in my next tournament.
Finally, you get to rub elbows with the likes of Lee, Raymer, and Gracz, three nice, knowledgeable, and entertaining people.
As a post script I would add that the Academy stands to improve in a few areas. Mid afternoon snacks would have been great. There is a lot of information to absorb, and I felt my mind flagging a bit. Also, a white board to help the pros sketch out situations, explain the math odds, etc. I was disappointed in the swag bag. Given that people pay around a month’s rent for the WSOPA, you would think there would be some swanky swag in the bag. The bag was okay: a WSOPA branded, zippered, black bag. The contents included a WSOPA hat (cool), a plastic WSOPA luggage tag (hmm), Official Commemorative Spinner Card Guard (cool), Courseware (copies of the PowerPoint slides), WinStar World Casino Pen (not actually in the bag, but lifted from the registration table). I think a book or two written by the pros would have been appropriate. I mean, $1,700 should get you a little something more right? Some people did get a “Final Table with Phil Gordon DVD” in lieu of the hat. I liked my hat.
