January 1, 2011 update:

I am not taking on new clients for the next couple years because I am working on two new books. If you would like an occasional career update from me, please join my mailing list.

T I L T L E S S

"T i l t l e s s" is the name of my comprehensive, customized, in-person poker-coaching program. This page tells all about it.

The fees are:

• One day: $3,000 in Palo Alto, $3,300 in Las Vegas
• Two days: $6,000 in Palo Alto, $6,600 in Las Vegas
• Three days: $9,000 in Palo Alto, $9,900 in Vegas

The five steps are:

• Questionnaire - You tell me about you, using this questionnaire.
• Consultation - I write to you and we arrange a free consultation to discuss our future. We can talk on the phone, or in person. (My favorite place to meet is Zibibbo Restaurant at 430 Kipling St. in Palo Alto, CA 94301. I like it because they have good food, good booths, and I can walk there. Or we could meet during one of my trips to Las Vegas.) (During the consultation, I will, if you like, give you free advice on if I think you should hire me.)
• Commitment - If we decide to move forward, you can pay the entire fee up front, using paypal, credit card, or check, or you can send a $1000 deposit after we schedule our time together, and then pay the balance in full in cash when we meet to do the work.
• Coaching - We spend one, two, or three full days together, either in a rented office space in downtown Palo Alto, or in a suite at The Venetian in Las Vegas, going over all sorts of things. Details below.
• Follow-up Coaching - I will remain indefinitely available for ongoing coaching. Details below.

All T i l t l e s s programs include:

• Audio recordings of our sessions
• A customized curriculum
• The client version of the master outline
• Action items and reminders
• Follow-up coaching
• A diploma (see image below)

Overview:

I take all decisions you make that have any impact on your poker score, and I break them into two groups: betting decisions, and non-betting decisions. By "betting decisions," I mean raise, bet, call, check, and fold.

To improve your betting decisions, we will look at what you do now and why. We will use my framework of betting concepts, along with examples of common betting situations, to discover changes you could make in your A-game that would rate to improve your score.

When it comes to non-betting topics, this is where some of my clients have been able to make changes that have improved their scores dramatically. They have written or called to tell me about the long-range, lasting improvements they continue to make.

Variables:

The difference between a one day program, a two day program, and a three day program. The value I deliver during the program is proportional to two amounts: 1) The amount of time we spend together, and 2) The amount I know about you. Both of those amounts mount with the passage of time, which makes the two day program twice as good as the one day program. In the three day program, we will plan from the outset to revisit key topics on the third day, and to go deeper into them.

Table-Poker Coaching: It's an option. Something I have done with many of my clients is play in the same game with them on two consecutive days, for an hour or two each day. After the first playing session, we discuss the particulars of our observations of each other. Then I make suggestions. During the second playing session, the client might test drive some of them. Then, away from the table, we talk some more about the client's desired changes in behavior, attitude, image, and mechanical skills, and about how to bring them about. I call this "table-poker coaching." It can resemble a doctor checkup. I might diagnose you with maladies you didn't even know existed, that I happen to have remedies for. I might tell you about strengths you didn't know you had, so that you can utilize them on purpose.

Table-poker coaching is a series of five short sessions that can be done in one day, or spread over two or three days.

We talk about some of the table-poker topics from the master outline. * We play in the same game for an hour or two. * We talk some more in the room about table-poker. * We play in the same game again. * We finish up by talking some more.

I think of table-poker coaching as a T i l t l e s s subsystem that is modular and optional. A skeletal list of table-poker topics is in the master outline. If table-poker coaching is part of a one-day program, it will not be the only material we cover. We would have a couple hours to spend on other topics.

Follow-up coaching. A one-day program includes one hour of follow-up coaching. A two-day program includes two hours of follow-up, and a three-day program, three. After that, my fee structure is:

• For time that we schedule to work on stuff and delve into your poker situation, with me at my computer with your file open, or in a face-to-face meeting, my fee is $200 per hour. Scheduled follow-up can be done in large time units or small, by phone, email, and in person.
• For on-the-fly hey-what's-up phone calls and emails, the fee is $0.

A Walk-Through of the Entire T i l t l e s s Program:

Your curriculum will be devised using the master outline. A skeleton version of the master outline is here. After I receive your deposit, I will send you the client version of the master outline, which is just like the skeleton version, but with lots of flesh on it. The client version is 50 pages long on 8.5 x 11 paper. I will have a bound copy of it for you when we meet. It's our workbook. In it are many bullets and sub-bullets, some informational, some conversational. It has bits of writing from my clients, and it has lots of text by me that is not in Elements of Poker. The way we use the outline is, on each topic, I will lecture and/or ask questions and/or answer questions and/or advise. Along the way, we will make notes of the changes you hope to make, and we will keep track of the action items and reminders that would cause those changes to happen.

You will have some homework to do before we meet:

• Familiarize yourself with the master outline.
• Compile a list of hot topics and questions that you want to be sure we cover. You can also gather discussion topics from anywhere inside "Elements of Poker."

To accelerate my understanding of how you play and think, there are two things I would like you to do. (If it's not your nature to do these kinds of things, don't sweat it.)

• Email seven to ten hands to me that you played, with your comments and/or questions included.
• Read the instructions that come with the Universal Starting-Hand Chart, fill in some of the squares using the Excel version of the USHC and send me whatever you do. If you fill out the whole chart, all the better. If you do your work on a hard-copy Word document version and bring it with you, that's fine too. The main things are that you be familiar with the conceptual layout of the chart and its various purposes, and to give me a taste of how you play now in some common preflop situations.

Our time together goes like this:

In Las Vegas, we start at 11 a.m. in my hotel room at The Venetian. (T i l t l e s s proudly brews Peet's coffee.) You pay the balance of the fee. We talk about you. We talk about me. We talk about what we are going to talk about. Then we start talking. We go through your curriculum, in the room. Voice recorders are okay.

For food, we might order room service, or we might go to a restaurant, in which case a list of talking points goes with us. Then we resume in the room. We might go for a walk. We might play poker. We finish the day no sooner than 7 p.m. After a full day of immersion in poker, I like to unwind by (what else?) playing poker for a couple hours, which I often do on my own time in the evening, so we might cross paths then as well.

In Palo Alto, we do the program in a rented office.

At the end of the final day, we review your action items and reminders, we make plans for follow-up coaching, and I give you your diploma.

T i l t l e s s can be fun, inspirational, even adventurous, for both of us.

But in the end, what T i l t l e s s is all about is candidness from me and great results for you.

Who and What I Teach:

Q: How much time will we spend on betting topics and how much on non-betting topics?

We might go deep and long into betting strategy, or we might barely talk about it. That depends on you and your needs and expectations. As to one-day programs, if you say, "I want to do a one-day program where we talk about nothing but how to reduce my tilt and insanity," that would be fine. If you say, "I want a one-day program where we talk about nothing but betting strategy all day," that would be fine too. Or anywhere in between. That is, if we are doing a one-day program. If we do two days or three days, betting strategy will occupy 50% of our time at most. That's because I know I can't hold off on talking about non-betting topics for more than one day per person.

Another variable is who decides these things. I can be in charge of curriculum decisions and steer your course to whatever I think is best for you, or we can decide to make those decisions together, or you can just tell me what you want to cover. It all works.

Q: How do you coach betting strategy?

We will work from my checklist of betting topics. We will discuss hands you've played, hands I've played, hands somebody else played. We'll talk about general betting concepts as they apply to you. We'll talk about specific betting strategies and specific betting situations. As we zoom in and out from microscopic to macroscopic, we will have our eyes and minds open, and our pens at the ready, to capture changes that you want to make and can make.

To scrutinize your preflop play, we would use the Universal Starting-Hand Chart.

Q: How long have you been doing poker coaching and how many clients do you have?

I opened for business on March 6, 2004. As of June 2006, I had 50 clients. My clients range from retired millionaires to college students. They play high stakes, low stakes, cash games, tournaments, limit, no-limit, on the internet, and at brick-and-mortar casinos.

In the summer of 2006, I decided to take a one-year or longer sabbatical from taking on new clients so that I could write "Elements of Poker." My book came out in December of 2007, and I have been taking on two new clients per month since then. (Today is May 12, 2008, and I am booked through July.)

Q: I want to be a professional poker player. Why should I retain you as my poker coach?

• I will demonstrate behaviors, attitudes, and playing styles proven through time to command respect and get the money.
• I know dozens of effective and lasting ways to improve your score.
• I have been where you are going and I know the shortcuts.

Q: I already play poker for a living. Why should I have a poker coach?

For all the reasons Tiger Woods has a golf coach.

Q: When I do my best, I have the best of it. But I do not perform optimally all the time, and it costs me a lot. Can you help me to increase significantly the amount of time I spend playing my A-game?

Yes.

Q: I have quite a bit of poker experience, and I want to accelerate all learning curves at once, but I am not looking to quit my job. Am I Tiltless material?

Yes.

Q: I have played a lot of poker on the internet but hardly any in a real casino. I want to transition to live play, quickly and profitably. Will you help?

Yes. I have done much work in this area with many of my clients and I have developed a curriculum under the heading "Table Poker Coaching" that covers a wide range of topics that only exist at table-poker cash-games and table-poker tournaments.

Q: I play almost entirely online. Your book has 40 pages in the Table Poker section, and two pages in the Internet Poker section. Should I hire you?

Depending on the games and stakes you play on the internet, and on how you play now, I may or may not feel that I can make suggestions that would significantly improve your A-game. If you want to learn how to play your A-game more often, then I think I can help with that, no matter what form of poker you play.

Q: Can you really cure my tilt?

No. But you can. I can show you how.

To get started, reply to this questionnaire.