Recap: Tournament boot camp with David "The Maven" Chicotsky

Hey everybody - Scott here, but you can call me bringtheflop or BTF for short.  My new years resolution was to take poker a LOT more seriously in 2011 and so I'm going to be blogging, playing and training.  You can also follow me on twitter @bringtheflop.

This past weekend I traveled to vegas for a tournament poker boot camp held by David "The Maven" Chicotsky.  I had been considering a number of different boot camps (WSOP, WPT and David/Ari's)  for the past year or so and had hired a few different (inexpensive) coaches from the forums during that time, guys that were a couple of levels above me in terms of stakes, and while I wasn't bleeding money in tournaments anymore, I certainly wasn't winning it either.  I would make money in cash games and then go lose it playing tournaments.  After a bunch of false starts due to life and business circumstances (I'm involved in a software startup that takes up 150% of my time), I finally was able to make the time to book Maven's boot camp and get out to vegas for a few days.

As I write this, I'm on the plane back and I can say that the 3 very intense days that I spent there were really invaluable- there's no way that I can even express how much my game will be changed the next time I play compared to just a few days ago when I showed up at the training center and met David for the first time.  I realize as I'm writing this that it probably feels like like he's paying me to write this, but there is no compensation here, just a happy student.  Really I just can't say enough - these guys really know what they are doing -- the awards, personal results and student results speak for themselves with many millions in tournament earnings combined over the past few years.

Day One

Day one was theory... lots, and lots of theory.  Not basic poker theory, because you're expected to know how to play already, but advanced theory... theory that will make you money.  It was well organized and well presented- you could tell that they had done this many times because the flow, pace and depth was just right.  Ari Engel, who was David's mentor a few years ago was there to help go through some of the theory on day 1, which was very cool.  Ari is a real classy guy (and -very- winning player) and treats the poker table like the board room, even showing up for training in a nice suit and tie.  If even 10% of players were as professional as he was, poker in general would have a very different stigma in this country for sure.

Day Two

Anyway, after theory theory and more theory on day 1, day 2 was a lot of review of the theory in the morning and we started to apply it in the afternoon (my brain hurt by this point and I had taken tons of notes - like 30 pages, seriously).  David went through a ton of situations, examples and there was a lot of interaction- it's not just him standing up at the front of the room talking "at" us, he was talking "with" us, which really helped make sure we "got it".  By the end of the day I was reallllly wanting to go play some poker, but resisted because my brain was essentially mushy and I wanted to make sure I got a good nights sleep to get the most out of day 3.

Day Three

On Sunday (day 3), David played a full circuit of tournaments across the top sites while we all railed him... rebuys, $400k guaranteeds, sunday million, etc.  He talked through every decision he made- not just "I'm folding here" but "Let's look at these 10 considerations and then let me explain why I'm going to fold".  Watching him do that for thousands of hands is really fantastic and helped tremendously to reinforce what we learned the first two days.

David started playing at 10am and didn't finish on Sunday until maybe 10pm, talking through every major decision and answering questions from "the rail" (his students).  He ended up going really deep in the double deuce ($22) on fulltilt, coming in 23rd out of over 27,000(ish) runners.  He also cashed in a bunch of other tournaments including the sunday million on pokerstars, overall a nice profitable session for him but wayyy more valuable for his students.

Next Steps

In a few minutes I'll land at ice-cold newark airport and for me really the biggest challenge will be to carve out the time needed to play.  The best way to describe how I feel right now is to relate it to like a race car driver. David and Ari are like championship drivers and they just took me out for a bunch of laps and taught me what it takes to win a race.  Now I need to get in my racecar and do the thousands of laps and races it takes to convert the knowledge in to the experience it takes to actually win.  I said to Zac, David's business manager at the training center that they've equipped me well to make money in tournaments and if I don't then the only person I can blame is myself, David did everything and more that I had hoped for, and now the ball is in my court.