EMOTIVATOR : I have had a little money and a lot of money.

My name is Derek.  I am 42 years old and live in the Northern suburbs of Chicago with my wife and three children.  I own a financial consulting company, a poker coaching business, and another small business.  In my spare time ,I am involved in several Christ following ministries such as Feed My Starving Children and Love INC.  I also enjoy playing 12 inch softball, working out, and traveling.

You are USA player. Tell us your black friday story?  

On Black Friday, I was taking a nap with my five year old son.  I was awakened by the sound of my Skype chat pinging me over and over.  It sounded like the constant popping of popcorn.  I woke up the laptop and found out from one of my students/players what had happened.  

I immediately started shipping investor funds back because I figured the window of being able to do so would close quickly.  The next thing I did was try and withdraw my funds.  To this day I have no idea when we will get our thousands of dollars.  I had several people playing with my money, mtt investor money, and my own money on FTP.  The US government claims we will begin seeing our money in March 2014.  I will believe that when I see it.
Now, when most sites are down in USA, what games you play and how you are involved in games?  I still play on Bovada and True in mtts, sngs, and cash games although I wouldn't be surprised if the government shut them down soon.  So, I keep very little of my own money on there.  


I also play live.  I prefer mixed cash games because there is almost always a much greater edge.

PTP history?

My PTP story is like a roller coaster...Up and down and screaming (others at me because of my outspoken Christian faith) all the time.  Unfortunately, I cannot remember who referred me to PTP.  I tried several times to find them so I could give them a reward.  But, I never tracked them down.

I came to PTP via referral from another poker website that went out of business.  I started out trying to coach.  But, I was laughed at because I had no reputation, points, etc.  At the time, I was the #1 ranked Sharkscope $12 turbo 180 player in ROI on Pokerstars.  Nobody on PTP cared. 

I had to earn my way on PTP although I was close to signing a turbo 180 coaching deal with PokerXFactor.  I respected the PTP community for making me earn my way.

I started coaching some people from the site with success.  In June of 2009, I resigned from my $150k+/year job thinking I would find another job quickly.  I was wrong.  After struggling for a few weeks to find a job in a tough economy I talked to my wife to see if she was okay with me trying to play poker full time.  After some convincing she agreed and I raised $5000 on PTP via a BAP to play MTTS.  At the time, I had very limited success in mtts because I had a full time job/no time/no energy to commit to the 6-10+ hours/day in mtts.

Three weeks later in late July, I binked a $55 buy in on a Sunday for $34k.  My mtt career officially launched.

Your biggest cashes, where, when??

My biggest cashes are $52k, $34k, $20k, $20k, and $17k.  My favorite back to back sessions were a December to remember in 2009.  I won the $55/PS again on a Sunday for $17k...it finished on Mon morning.  I took Monday and Tuesday off.  Then, I played a session on Wed. and took down the Wed. $320 for 52k.  It finished at 5:30AM.  I quickly left for a bible study and did not get to sleep until later that day.  I was exhausted and excited all at the same time!

Most important things to be good poker player?

Passion!!!  If you LOVE the game and are hungry to learn it...you will learn and become good...even great!!!  The key is to learn from someone that knows how to teach you properly.  The greatest coaches in life are rarely superstars.  It takes five to ten times as long to unlearn something and relearn it correctly than it does to learn it correctly the first time.  Find the people that are qualified and willing to teach you because they want to.  You don't know what you don't know.  That is why you do not have.  To know and not to have is not to know.

To the losing player - Learn the fundamentals (folding, bet sizing, learning the game)  first.  Get fancy after you are profitable.  Start slow and build.  Stay humble and hungry.  I started out selling play money from PS on Ebay for $20 per million chips because I refused to put my own money on.  Then, I finally decided to play with my own money...and proceeded to lose $7000+.  Then, I decided I better learn how to play this game from somebody that has already had success.  I learned from the best before they were well known players making millions/year.  I am so thankful!

To the minimally profitable player - Once you have learned the fundamentals of the game (NLHE, mixed games, etc) of your choice it is time to step up by engaging a coach and finding a group of 1-4 people that you can bounce ideas off of that have a similar skill set but are committed to getting better.

To the profitable pro - Know your leaks and have people holding you accountable for them.  I have coached many brilliant players that have no idea how to manage a BR or other gaping holes in their life.  They are rich one month/year and broke the next.  Surround yourself with people that will not only help you become a better player...but they will help protect you from yourself.

Your favorite PTP and PRO players??

My favorite PTP player is none other than Chris "Indariva" Tryba.  He has a BIG heart and tells it like it is.  My favorite PRO (other than Tryba) that I have played with multiple times is Daniel Negreanu (DN).  DN is hilarious, humble, and a brilliant overall (not just NLHE) player.

What your wife think about your playing??  

My wife did not become okay with my playing until I started making a significant income from poker.  At that point she was fine with it.  Our children loved that I was now home and available more often versus traveling for work.  The emotional, physical, and mental health of my family is very important to me.  This is a HUGE reason why I did not become a poker refugee or travel the world playing live after BF.

Message to friends and players on PTP?

My parting words to friends, players, and enemies on PTP is...............I have had a little money and a lot of money.  When the dust settles in poker or in life, what matters most are the relationships that we are left with.  This includes the most important relationship of all...the eternal relationship with The One who will decide our eternal fate after we breath our last.  Seek to know Him and all other things will work themselves out within time.

SNGMENTORS BOSS Manhat10ite - Michael Lehr

Introduce your self…

Michael Lehr, I am an antique dealer specializing in early photography and early 20th century American decorative arts.  The poker is just an accidental sideline to the boredom of my other businesses.

Ptp History....

I came to PTP in 2008 looking to stake players, I had been part of another poker forum which was very small.  50 members at most but we all knew each other from playing on Pokerroom and I learned a lot from players there.  I was starting to stake a little so one day I probably just googled staking and found PTP.  I never liked the strategy on 2p2 much, mostly the way they posted the HHs drove me nuts so I liked PTP for the more active strategy section back then.  I pretty much just bought action in the BAP section.  Since Black Friday that has become much more difficult for me to do transfers so I pretty much stopped.  

SNGMENTORS - You are part of great sngo grouop.

Tel me more about Sngomentors??

When I won my platinum star on Sharkscope for most profit in 18 mans I was contacted by Draqq if I wanted to do coaching and be part of a new site for staking and training.  So I bought into it for a few thousand dollars at the time.  I think there were about 7 investors, all great SNG grinders.  The only problem was our leader, Draqq was kind of lazy making it very difficult to grow the site.  Of the 7 initial investors only Vers and I were actively committed, coaching, posting in the forum, making videos etc.  Even before BF we were slowly buying out all the partners.  I think we finally bought Draqq out shortly after BF.  Now I think we probably have the best video library of any online staking site about 2,000 videos.  About a year ago we decided to sell a subscription service since we had built so much content.

How PTP members can be part of SNGMentors?

This is something I have talked with Joeker about on and off.  There are some possible plans to start posting a video a week on PTP and possibly starting a sub forum for the site so we would use the PTP system more for players we found on the site.  I do have a MAD posting looking for stakes, but the players who have applied are really starting out.  The costs of coaching them are too great.  It really is a volume game, we spend about $2-400 a month on coaching each player.  It makes it so we can’t take on a player only able to play 300 games a month.  

Investing in coaching?

One way or another every player serious about learning the game should take on coaching in one form or another. For starters players should really be self reviewing every day using a replayer like Universal Replayer.  Then they can get some excellent coaching just posting hands they aren’t sure of in the strategy sections on PTP, something players just don’t do enough.  Players should really be self reviewing every day using a replayer like Universal Replayer.   The next level up I think is joining a site like SNGmentors and watching the videos.  From there I would suggest having videos made of your HHs is a great cost effective way of getting coaching.  It is about the same cost as one on one coaching, but you can watch and review it again.  You can also question the coach who made the video on individual hands.  Finally on a more advanced level one on one coaching is great, our head coach ChronicATM is just great, our players love him.   

  

You are great staker and player, on site u mostly stake, how to pick good horse?? Did you ever had problems with players who steal your money?

At this point I try to pick horses that have been on the site a while and play a game I understand.  I will often ask to see HHs even of players selling BAPs.  I will almost always sharkscope a player to see if the action they are selling is in an area that they can beat.  Often a player will post a BAP to play higher than they should be playing, it is very important to invest in a horse that is playing within their limitations.  Sometimes I will also take shots on players, I used to love to look for a quick hitter where the player had huge volume of 30 or so games and the total bap investment was $2-300.  I have done very well in this sort of Sunday bap.  This is a great example and a decent player.  http://forum.parttimepoker.com/buy-piece/962582-daniel72-s-pokerstars-thursday-grind.html

We have players steal from us from time to time, it is part of the cost of doing business.  PTP is probably the best at protecting investors which is why I also chose to stake on the site initially.  Now when someone steals we will post a quick webpage http://marisbirausisathief.com/ for example.  We have recovered a little bit of money this way and I think it also has deterred others from stealing from us.  

Which games you play now?

There are very few sites I can play on, almost none that run games often enough to keep me interested.  When I play I will play Limit games like Horse or RAZZ whatever is running at a high level.  I will sometimes play SNGs just to stay sharp.  I did set my Pokerstars account up in Canada and will try to get there for a week every 3-4 months.

How much is optional SNgo volume?

I would say 60-100 games a day, at my height and when I was thinking of going for SNE I would sometimes play 300 in a day.  With that many games at the end of the day, your eyes can barely focus so I wouldn’t really recommend it.

Your poker plans?

Going to Canada for the TCoop, since turbos are my specialty.  Play the seniors event at the WSOP this year since I am eligible.  

Your favorite PTP players?

Probably Acid I think he is the perfect horse on PTP, loyal, wants coaching, strives hard improve, and plays a lot of volume.  

Tell us your HM configuration!

I think in the strategy section I spent quite a lot of time in a thread talking about my set up.  It was a while ago so it may have changed since then.  

number of hands/Voluntarily put in preflop or VPIP/Preflop raise or PFR/ Aggression factor

Fold verse steal/Steals/3bet/Fold to 3bet

Anything after is just too much information.  I don’t even have the player’s name there since the stats are always aligned with where they are sitting.

I would say the most important and underused feature is autorating.  I tell players who don’t want to use the hud to just then use the autorate feature and nothing else.  It gives you so much instant information.  For example if you see someone with the dice icon for a gambler and they limp UTG there is a high probability they have a monster, but if you see a rock limp, they have a small PP.  

What is most important for Sngo Players…

Volume.  Play super tight passive early, gradually become loose aggressive, and finally become a maniac.  That is in an ideal situation.  Learn your calling and shipping ranges. Don’t let yourself get below 10bb.

Message to PTP players who want to grind Sngos!

Download a copy of SNG Wizard or some variation of the program and review review review.