Joint strategy sessions

[Chipless Wonder]

A few months ago I sat down with Greg Brown and we played a few SNG tournaments together.

It didn't take long at all to figure out that I played much better having Greg there with me. For starters, I wouldn't be prone to going on tilt and pushing all in with any two cards. I found that I was making better decisions than normal since I had an audience. I would also take more time with each decision since I wanted to be able to explain it to my cohort. And after key hands it was convenient to pull up the hand history and discuss mistakes we or someone else made, and try to figure out what we might have done better. All in all, we finished our little session with a much higher ROI than I would normally have achieved by myself. And more importantly, I felt like we had both learned a lot about tournament strategy, etc.

A month or so later I had one of these sessions with Mike Murphy. Then another month or two later Chad Weese and I did one. Again and again each of these sessions proved to be very profitable.

Then over the last ten days or so, Dave Nutini and I played three different sessions together. I think we played for a total of 20 hours, and we made more than $4,000 profit (playing $26 to $75 buy-in MTT's). More than anything, we were each able to benefit from the excellent discussions that would surface whenever we would disagree on the best way to play a particular hand, or any time we were surprised by an opponent's hand.

For anyone who takes their online game seriously but hasn't yet tried a joint strategy session, I strongly recommend it.

[dravenm]

Scott,

Sounds like a great idea. I am fairly new to NLHE and am looking to pic the brains of many of the good players in the area when I am around. I don't know alot about positions(other than what I have read in the few books that I have read). So please tell me this. How would I go about setting one of these "pic your brain" sessions up and what is your availability like. I travel alot for work so my schedule is iffy at best......thanks

Chad.

[CW Buckeye]

I really enjoyed this strategy session and hope to do it again in the future. It allows you to see that there are other ways to play certain hands in multiple situations. This can do nothing but help both games.

[MJ21]

I think that is a sound idea. How about next time I come over I give you my money, I drink beer and play with the birds while you win a few bucks for me!

[TurboGP]

Yes this does sound like a good learning experience for all of us. I need this a great deal!

If this has made you play better than that is terrific.

[Tha Animal]

I was actually thinking about this a few weeks ago... get a few people together and have a great discussion group. all of us play in a tournament so we all can profit from each others knowledge and dominate the poker world! <evil laugh>

[Chipless Wonder]

One other advantage to this style of play is that we were able to effectively combine our bankrolls, and play higher than we would have been 'allowed' to on our own.

[rpavlov]

Sorry, I have a completely unrelated question about this hand. (Maybe this should be a new thread, but I wasn't sure where to put it)

Am I understanding correctly that you guys play a tourney online and discuss hand decisions, strategy, etc. together as the hands are going on? Maybe I misinterpreted some of the "we" comments from Dave and Scott, but now I am curious.

[D-Nut]

Yes, Scott and I have played a few sessions sitting on front of the same monitor and discuss hand plays as the tourney progresses. We have now brought Pat into our circle of discussion.