Learning From the Pros (Real Pros): The World Poker Tour Boot Camp

Mike Sexton, WPT's television host, opened the Saturday session at the WPT Boot Camp.

It's Sunday morning at The Mirage, and I'm sitting at a poker table with nine people. The game is no-limit Texas hold'em, the blinds are $25-$50, and I'm one off the button. I'm paying particular attention to the players as they react to their cards, for this one time, anyway, resisting the impulse to take a look at my own before the action gets to me. Fold … fold … fold … fold … fold. My turn. I look down and find an incredibly modest Q-8 offsuit. I raise, making it $150 to go. Button folds. Small blind folds. Big blind calls, and I am nervous.



I'm not nervous because a lot of money is at stake – as these aren't real chips, and this isn't a real game. I'm nervous because of the legendary figure dealing the cards: T.J. Cloutier, sporting a white baseball jersey with a giant pair of aces embroidered on the back. The wily old veteran, as those of us here on a weekend right before Christmas at the World Poker Tour Boot Camp "Champions Event" have learned, is very approachable and very friendly – but he does not suffer fools lightly. He was more than just a dealer for this hand; he was a teacher, one of several pros manning about 10 tables in a large conference room at the hotel, and he was critiquing our play. That's why I'm nervous. I don't want to look stupid in front of Cloutier or my fellow students. We'd spent most of the previous 36 hours learning about tournament poker from every conceivable angle, and now we were getting a chance to put it to work.



The pot is right, and Cloutier deals the flop: ace, rag, rag, rainbow. I make a standard continuation bet, and the big blind folds. No comment from Cloutier (I was hoping for something on the order of "nice play"), but later he reminded the room of more than 100 eager students that one of his standard rules was never, ever play a three-holer, and added, "I'm going to remember the guy who did when we play for real."



Later that day, the paying students – I was there gratis to cover the Boot Camp for Card Player – did get to play against Cloutier and the other instructors: Mike Sexton, Linda Johnson, Clonie Gowen, Mark Seif, Alex Outhred, Jules Leyser, and Crispin Leyser. And the prize was substantial: a $10,000 seat in a WPT main event (May's Mirage Poker Showdown), along with $1,000 for travel and spending. I didn't play that tournament, so Cloutier didn't get the chance to use my rather obvious position raise and continuation bet against me. But listening to him talk, I know he could have – and I know he certainly would have if the opportunity arose.



Learn, Learn, Learn – and Learn Some More

The weekend-long Boot Camp kicked off on a Friday afternoon with a short refresher course, but the fun really began on Friday evening at Bellagio. Over drinks and a light buffet, we watched the final table of the Five-Diamond World Poker Classic through a video feed. Even better, we were shuttled in and out of Bellagio's Fontana Room to see the action live.



I was curious about what had drawn people to the Boot Camp (which is not cheap: $2,895 for the Champions Event, which includes the tournament; the regular Boot Camp is $1,495; travel and accommodations are extra, although the fee does include several meals and a bunch of WPT goodies), and I started chatting with Robert Mitelhaus, from Southern California. A big guy, around 50, Mitelhaus plays regularly at the Bicycle and Commerce casinos in midlimit and no-limit games; he's been playing for about three years. "I went to the first Boot Camp not long ago," he said. "It made me look at my game in a totally different way. I'm no longer predictable. I understand position better. And I learned that you can't be afraid to make that bet. Selective aggression – that's the number-one thing."



His positive endorsement was echoed by a number of people I interviewed throughout the weekend; indeed, about 90 percent of the players had attended the earlier Boot Camp event, and they got their money's worth at this one. While the quality of the players was clearly all over the map, many I talked to struck me as very knowledgeable; one guy, in fact, told me he'd placed ninth in a Legends of Poker event at The Bicycle Casino. "I'm a lifelong learner," he added when I asked why he was there.



The format was simple and familiar to anyone who has ever been to any kind of corporate seminar: breakout sessions. After a brief introduction by the instructors (led by Mike Sexton) on Saturday morning, each led a class, about an hour long, on his or her (or in the case of Jules and Crispin, their) particular topic.



The first one I attended was "Reading People," taught by Mark Seif (who won two bracelets at the 2005 World Series of Poker back-to-back!). "Toss those earphones, hats, and sunglasses," he told us, "and pay attention to everything that's going on at the table. If you are superobservant, you are way ahead of the game." What was unusual about his presentation on the topic – and the most valuable – was that he was not looking for tells in the classic Mike Caro sense, but in the patterns of how people play. What size bets does someone make? When does he alter that size – and can you decipher why? How can you tell if a player is on tilt? (Insulting comments, an angry demeanor, and muttering to himself are good signs.) How can you tell if a player is getting defensive? "The person who understands the most, wins the most," he told us.

As a hands-on "live lab" session, T. J. Cloutier gets the cards in the air and critiques participants' play.

From there I walked over to the workshop "Advanced Online Strategy," led by the husband-and-wife team of Jules and Crispin Leyser, a British couple who relocated to Los Angeles and have become superb Internet players – and they were particularly accomplished speakers and teachers. (Both come from a TV/film background. Crispin is a producer, and his lovely wife is an actress/writer, and their communication skills are excellent.) Like Seif, they were particularly keen on gathering data, which is obviously much easier to do online than in a live event (using paper or the note-taking capabilities provided by most poker sites), like hands you've seen shown down, weak raises, and big overbets. They also counseled patience. "Online tournaments really start to get serious around level four in a sit-and-go, or after 50 percent of the field is gone in a multitable," Jules said. "Stick to basic starting hands and position requirements early, but be prepared to change gears."



The genial, well-spoken Mike Sexton led my third seminar, "Advanced Heads-Up Play." "Fame and fortune go only to the winner," he told us. "Runners-up become answers to trivia questions. When the game is shorthanded or heads up, you must become more aggressive. The guy doing the most betting will win the most chips." Almost as an aside, he acknowledged that aggressive play throughout a tournament is central to winning in today's world. "We used to believe that the right strategy was to survive until the end and then play to win," he said. "But the people winning today are in there mixing it up. Tight players don't win poker tournaments." This idea is at the heart of lots of players' strategy today; in fact, it's the theme of Erick Lindgren's recent book, Making the Final Table.



Most serious amateurs already know that hand values change dramatically in shorthanded situations, but Sexton pointed out that almost all hands are battles between unpaired cards, and, probably most important, "Most of the time, you will have the pot odds you need to play when you're down to two or three players. And even when you're dominated – like ace-king versus ace-four – you're not that big an underdog."



Linda Johnson, a highly regarded poker player and the studio announcer for the World Poker Tour, discussed "Cash Games" – a particularly welcome addition because, as the tag line for the event suggests ("The fast track to the final table"), most of the Boot Camp is geared toward tournament play. The advice was sound and basic, but she did say one thing that is worth repeating here: "Be respectful of the game and of the players." (She also said, "I would – and have – check-raised my own mother.")



After a buffet lunch, I decided to sit in on T.J. Cloutier's talk, "Tips for Winning," and he started by saying, "Never get in a hurry in a tournament. The only table you can beat now is your table." Unlike Sexton's newfound religion on the benefits of aggressive play, Cloutier advocated more of a tight-aggressive approach. He reviewed the basic starting hands (and how to bet them) and offered lots of good tips: "Don't bluff an idiot." "Remember that money saved is money won." "Never, ever play a three-holer" – advice I failed to take to heart!



I needed some coffee by now – it has been a pretty long day already and there's a lot of learning still to be done – so I grabbed a cup and went to "Advanced Betting" by Alex "The Insider" Outhred, associate producer and analyst for the WPT. In lots of ways, his strategies echoed and complemented those of Mark Seif: He encouraged us to think about what has changed from the last hand to this one, to determine how that will affect the way people play. And he suggested a particularly useful tactic to help you work it through: "Try to put together a story about what a player might have, then try to figure out how he would bet if he actually had that hand." Another valuable piece of information he believed was worth noting was "table standards" – what is the standard opening raise? At the beginning of a tournament, it might be four times to six times the big blind; later, it might be two times to two and a half times; you should stay within the standards. And finally he talked about the critical value of changing gears: "No professional player has ever won a tournament without playing, at some point, wild, loose, tight, aggressive, and passive."

Poker pro Clonie Gowen makes a point in her breakout session, "Difficult Flops."

I saved Clonie Gowen – the impossibly thin beauty from Oklahoma and WPT Ladies Night champion – for the end of the day, and her presentation, "Difficult Flops," was excellent. Instead of lecturing, she conducted the session like a lab, with a real table, a real dealer, and a prearranged deck. Ten of us sat down and the cards went in the air; a woman in middle position was dealt A-K; the player to her left got 10-10. The flop came down Q-8-4 rainbow. It's a textbook situation, really; the A-K gets no help, so how do you play it post-flop? (In this case, the tens took the pot when big slick checked and he bet.)



The seminars finished up in the late afternoon; we chatted over a light buffet, and most of the participants felt like me: Our heads were teeming with new knowledge, but we really, really wanted to play some cards. And we got our chance, in the form of single-table tournaments, with the pros playing alongside of us. Of course, it was fun, and even exhilarating, to be playing after that long, poker-intensive day, but it was interesting to witness just how serious everyone, at least at my table, got – even though the prize was a set of poker chips, not cash! No one looked at his cards before the action got to him. Everyone had his poker face on tight. One guy even used the line I've come to hate (after seeing the ESPN coverage of the Rio's WSOP Circuit event with Jean-Robert Bellande): "I'm going to raise," followed by a long pause with an aggressive stare. (Please! We're playing for a set of chips and the chance to learn. And no, I didn't win that chip set, finishing fourth at my table. All of us, however, did get a very cool WPT chip protector.)



Theory Into Practice

Sunday morning: another buffet breakfast – another engaging set of conversations with my fellow seminar attendees – and we got back to work. The instructors did brief recaps of their presentations and took questions from the audience. Some of the questions were instructive ("How does your strategy change when you're the big stack?"), while others were a bit pointless ("What's your favorite hand?" Jules said, "Pocket aces. How could it be anything else?"). But then it was time to put theory into practice with the "live labs" I mentioned at the beginning of this piece. That took us to lunchtime, and then it was time to play for real stakes, indeed: The entire (paying) class played a tournament in The Mirage poker room, with one of the instructors at every table. Knock a pro out, and you got a $500 bounty. Win the whole thing, and you got a seat in the Mirage Poker Showdown.



It was exciting to watch (although, of course, I wish I'd been in there to try my skills – OK, luck), and in the end, Barry Soloway of Port Jeff Station, New York, took the big prize (Lester See of Gobles, Michigan, a very nice guy and an excellent player, finished second, and Michael Wood, from Conway, Arkansas, took third place).



You know the old line about teachers: "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." (I've always liked the Woody Allen version of that line: "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym.") But the WPT Boot Camp is quite different, because those who teach it are proven professionals – working experts in their field. In that sense, the Boot Camp is a singular opportunity. (Can you imagine, say, Derek Jeter taking the time to teach amateurs how to play shortstop?) Of course, for some people, it's also the poker version of a fantasy camp. ("Here's your chance to outplay Clonie Gowen.") But the students I spoke to loved the experience, and valued the chance to learn more about the game, firsthand, in an intensive weekend. It was also a helluva lot of fun … to play a hand with T.J. Cloutier … to chat about Stu Ungar with Mike Sexton … to live and breathe poker with other aficionados for two-plus days.

To find out more about WPT Boot Camps, go to http://www.wptbootcamp.com/.