Two Plus Two Newer Archives - Poker Boot Camps, are they worth it?

Apparently there's a lot of advice in this thread from people who a) hasn't attended a boot camp, and b) hasn't received professional coaching.

Let me take this opportunity to share some of my experiences in a somewhat longish post.

Two years ago this time I actually paid for a 2-day WPT camp; btw, the WPT boot camps are not $3k ... they're $1.7k, and if you are smart you can get one for $1.5k. I signed up after reading a rave review by a woman, who's game had tanked following a severe medical procedure, and following that had seen her game strongly invigorated after a weekend with the WPT crew.

Anyway, in my case they replaced the announced name pro - Mark Seif - with T.J. Cloutier, and I decided to cancel.

It turned out to be quite a job getting my $1.5k back, I had to call like 6 time, and in the end go through a lengthy argument with Ron Rubens on the phone to get the refund (which the ToS said I was entitled to without any questions asked).

Instead I got a private coach, through the now defunct pokermentors.com. A guy with $200k+ online career winnings, one B&M mid-size tourney win, and btw. the sweetest guy in the world - for a VERY decent price; I paid him a low starting fee and then 20% of all winning above $500.

He coached me for 10 months, giving me approximately 30 two - three hour skype sessions, going over HH, single hands, ghosting me, allowing me to ghost his real time tournaments, playing HU and discussing poker issues in general. Personal issues forced my coach to terminate, but I still consider him a friend.

What did I learn from that?

No doubt my poker improved a lot.

When I started I'd played online NLHE tourneys for 3 years, net winning around $5k, but experiencing huge swings and long dry spells.

Afterwards I've racked up winnings of more than twice that amount, in less than a year. I still go through huge swings and prolonged dry spells.

Basically I think we all learn in our own pace. Mine is slooooow. I still make a ton of stupid mistakes. My hand reading skills have improved from almost non-existant, but they're still mediocre at best (but even that's still a major improvement).

You can learn the basic mechanics of the game by reading books, and by posting and reading threads here on 2+2. But there's a definite - and for poker tournament success pretty much fundamental - feel for the game, that I don't think very many can learn without personal contact/feedback. Unless you already have it, which I believe is the case for a number of very successful players, having developed it through playing backgammon, magic the gathering or what have you. If you pay attention you'll see that for a few exception all the most successful 2+2 MTT players have spent hours on end sweating/ghosting/discussing poker with each other on some online message system.

Watching pros play at PokerXFactor has since helped me get my game back on track, after I had developed some leaks, but I don't believe that watching videos in itself is going to propell anybody's game to very high levels.

If you'd paid your dues and learned the basic mechanics of the game by reading books and posting, I think the most important factor is what Bond18 brough up in one of his recent "Things it took me a while to learn": Confidence.

Huge tournaments are won by absolute amateurs getting lucky and developing extreme confidence. When I run good my confidence increases exponentially, and I play a strong and healthy game. When I run bad, it's a viscious spiral and I start making all the wrong moves for the wrong reasons.

I believe that a boot camp - the right boot camp - might help you with exactly that aspect.

I'm not sure 10 hours of coaching with Ansky or who have you will do the same - but again, we all learn in our own pace.