Coaching a November 9 Player

I think we did a fairly good job keeping it quite that myself and Ylon Schwartz had been coaching November 9er, Steve Begleiter. I guess I will start this 3 month journey together when we first got in contact. Steve played in a poker league in his home town and won his seat through that. One of the members just happened to be a 2+2er and knew me from doing well in sngs as well as big mtts.

Steve knew he wanted to hire a coach, as he didn�t see how it could hurt and he would hate himself if he simply did nothing then showed up at the final table then busted early. Anyways, Steve interviewed around 20 people and it came down to me and Ylon. I didn�t know Ylon at all but after talking to him, he seems to have a solid grasp of the game. He also happened to live in the same area as Steve whereas I live in Vegas.

I thiiiink he was going to go on Ylon (I guess only Steve know this) but I did some hard bargaining at the end to get the job split between the two of us.

I ended up flying out to New York 3 times, once for an initial interview and two other times to have weekend long coaching sessions where we talked about and played poker constantly. Steve is a super busy guy with a very full life. Despite that, he always worked hard and took in everything I said very quickly. Most people, especially when it comes to poker, are simply stuck in their ways and refuse to believe they might be bad. Steve was basically the opposite, realizing I am one of the best mtt players in the game and that he could learn a lot.

After our first meeting in NY, we decided it would be good for him to fly to Vegas and then drive together to play the WPT event in LA. I ended up basically bubbling the event but Steve took 9th, which was really good, considering it was a tough field and we were still working hard on his game. He claimed the advice I gave him prevented him from getting broke twice in the tournament, so that�s good. I feel a lot of my game is simply controlling the pot and letting my opponents stack off to me in spots where the only way to maximize value is to bluff catch.

I also learned that most amateur players simply do not pay attention to stack sizes. You have to play hands totally different if a guy has 10, 20, 30, 50, or 100bbs. We worked hard on these things and many more and I think he became a better player because of it. He was sad to take 9th but at the same time, realized it was a great accomplishment.

We worked hard in NY, running numerous simulation games where we would set up the same chip stacks as the final table and try to fit players that had similar playing styles as the actual November 9 guys to the correct stacks. Steve did fairly well in most of these, so that was good. Steve later went on to play WSOP Europe and was one of the chip leaders early in the day before getting cold decked twice to bust.

I think Steve was already taking care of this, but I wanted to make sure he was in good shape. There is nothing worse than being technically good at the game but crashing late because you are simply out of shape. He worked out much harder than I ever hope to, so I was happy with that. I also made sure he got on a good sleeping schedule so he could go late into the night if it came to it. Enough with the preparation. On to the final table.

Steve had one of the worst seats at the table, having Eric Buchman, the only other good deepstacked player on his left, followed by Cada, who we assumed would push well. We assumed Saout, Schulman, Schaffel, and Moon would play tight. We assumed Akenhead, Ivey, and Cada would look to mix it up and try to double their short stacks. We assume Buchman would try to go after Steve with numerous calls and reraises. We were right about all of these except Saout wasn�t too tight and Ivey was super tight.

Early in the day, it looked like Schaffel was going to double through Buchman, which would have made the table much better for us but sadly, his AA couldn�t beat KK. That was the first crushing blow to our day that no one seemed to even realize. It really is bad when a spewtard on your left gets chips that he will use to constantly try to outplay you, unless of course, you make a hand, which is tough to do sometimes.


As for the hands at the final table, I liked every play Steve made except two that came near the end of his day. On one hand, he raised with 87c and Saout, who was for sure playing the best out of anyone else at the table reraised from the big blind. Saout had been going after Steve a little, although not too much. I don�t remember the exact stacks but I think Steve had 50M and Saout had 25M. The blinds must have been 250/500, so it probably went 1.25M, 4M preflop. The flop came 9h8h3c. Saout checked and Steve bet 7M. I reeeallly hated this bet, as if you get pushed on, you are getting decent odds to call. The only problem is the only thing you are happy for him to turn over is a flush draw and even then, you are usually a small dog.

That�s just what happened. Steve bet, Saout pushed and Steve made the crying call with the middle pair. The turn was another heart. If you watched the WSOP, you know Steve loves calling reraises with hands like 87s. I worked hard on cutting this out of his game, especially against good players that won�t stack off when you hit but he still decided to do it against Saout here. We talked the hand over a bit and both agreed it was bad on many levels.

Even though he got it in �good� here, it was still bad. However, if he holds here, he would have been up to 70M, which would have been a pretty large chip lead. This was the 2nd bad thing that happened.

The next hand Steve lost was fairly minor, although still a leak that he didn�t learn from me. Cada raised to around 2.5bbs out of his 20bb stack utg and Steve called from the sb with A3s. It came AJ5 and Steve lead into him, which I hate. I would have much rather seen a checkpush. Cada just called. The turn and river were blanks and they checked it down, giving Steve the pot.

The final bad thing that happened to him was actually a pretty standard hand. Steve raised with QQ to 2.5bbs out of his 35bb stack and Moon pushed from the big blind with AQ. Steve snap called and it came xxxxA to bust him and end our pretty cool trip together.

Steve was an absolute joy to work with. I don�t think anyone else at the final table could have been a better student. Even though he made a few mistakes, I firmly believe he made many less than he would have. I also think he is a much better poker player now than when I first started working with him. If I had to rate him 1-10, 1 being the same as when we started and 10 playing like I would play, I would give him an 8, simply because he still likes to splash around a bit too much with semiweak hands. I am sure he will see this leak and plug it in the future. If Steve chooses, I am confident he could make it on the poker circuit, not that he would need or want to, as he has a great life at home.

To sum it up, I was happy at first to just get the job but now I am happy to know I have a friend for life.

As for the rest of the final table, I will tell you how I think everyone played. I think Moon played awful up until Steve busted. There was one hand where Saout raised J2 from the button into Moons big blind, which was fine, considering how tight Moon had been. Moon called and it came KJ2. Moon checked and Saout bet around 2/5 (I think) of his stack. Moon instapushed with A4. Wow..that is all.

Akenhead got it in a few times, once with KQ against AK and peeled, and if he didn�t run KK into AA, he would have had a decent shot to win.

Ivey�s play shocked me the most. Simply put, he played like a super nit and I have no clue why. It was clear most of the table feared him, as they folded to basically all of his raises. He ended up blinding off before getting 3 outered by Moon.
Schaffel got beat around a quite a bit, raisefolding a ton. He eventually got AA vs KK back to back bout couldn�t fade the 2nd one.

Buchman played well up until Steve busted, I thought. He raised basically every hand that was folded to him and reraised quite a bit too. All in all, I thought he played well, although he did hit a 2 outer early for most of his chips.

Cada played pretty well I thought too. He got down to 3bbs at one point then pushbotted the table to death. Currently he is 2nd in chips with 5 people left. I was shocked at how Schulman and Moon simply let him get back in the game and if he wins, it is because these guys gave it to him.

Saout shocked me the most, but in a good way. I assumed he would play tight and eventually get it in with a decent hand and lose. He actually mixed it up very well and I think he played the best of anyone at the table, at least while I was there. It would not surprise me at all if he won, which is why he is my pick to win at this point.

Schulman was apparently coached by Hellmuth and it showed, in very bad ways. He was raising to 3.5x-5x preflop, which is awful. He also reraised to 1/3 his stack then folded a few times, which is never really good. All in all, he seemed to play as if he was trying to give it away. I would be a bit surprised if he won unless he totally changes his game.

Well, that�s it. It has been a great 3 months. Hopefully someone decides they want my help next year and I can take the ride again. Better yet, I will just final table it myself.