Great news! http://www.dragthebar.com has been gracious enough to offer a free 30 day membership (no strings attached) to anyone who buys my book, Treat Your Poker Like A Business at http://www.dustyschmidt.net starting today! That means for $40 not only do you get my book, you will get 30 days of free access to poker instruction from a roster of some of some of the best online poker players in the world including last weekends FTP $750k winner Jeremy Menard, mental game genius Jared Tendler, HU cash game stud Hunter Bick, rising star Ross Hartung, high stakes NL cash expert Matt Bolt and many. many more studs. I have been making videos there all year as well, so for those who enjoy my book, you will now have free access to watching my instructional videos.

Watching instructional videos is how I took my game from a low stakes grinder to where I am today, so I can vouch for the impact having a training tool like Dragthebar.com can have on your game. I hope you guys enjoy this exciting offer and I want to personally thank Dragthebar.com for making this very generous offer as a way to compliment Treat Your Poker Like A Business.

Hey everybody,

Here’s my latest column for Card Player Magazine. It explains why I stay away from the nosebleed games. Appropriately it’s titled “Avoid The Nosebleed Bloodbath — Slow and Steady Wins The Race.”

Hope you like it.

I have no idea if this means the worst run of my career is over or if it is just an isolated stretch of good cards, but I had some excellent results at the cash game tables this weekend! I am really excited about it because poker really means a lot to me. I pour a lot of energy into this game and when you have subpar results for a 40 day stretch, it feels like you’re never going to win again.

If it was just 40 days and I only played a little here and there it would be one thing. But over the past 40 days I have been glued to the computer screen and it has been difficult to have it go bad for such a long period of time. Such is poker though, none of us are immune to it. No matter who you are or how well you play, sometimes it just goes poorly for a VERY, VERY long time. In fact, I’m sure there are tons of people who would’ve been great poker players but they happened to have a terrible run during their introduction to poker and may have simply felt they had no talent for the game only to became frustrated and walk away from the game. I was fortunate in that I ran pretty well the first few months of my career and had that not happened, I am sure I wouldn’t be posting this blog on Cardplayer.com right now.

Anyway, enough babbling. For the 3 day grindathon I had for myself Friday-Monday, I played something in the neighborhood of 25,000 hands and won around $35,000. It is the best 3 day stretch I have had in a little while and it really felt good.

The crack up was I used a big chunk of my luck at the wrong time today actually. I played in the Poker Stars Sunday 1/4 Million today which is a great tourney for the small stakes player. It only costs $11 to get in and over 36,000 people turned out making the purse more than 50% greater than the guarantee! I got some chips early in the event and I just got on the run if a lifetime. I mean I ran so good it was insane. I was running so hot in that particular event that if I hadn’t known any better, I probably would have just shoved all in preflop every hand because no one could beat me. No matter what I did I won. No matter how bad or good I got the money in, I would just win. It was amazing.

If you are going to win tournaments, you have to get lucky at the final few tables. Unfortunately with 16 people left I got $6,000,000 chips in the middle with AK vs. my opponent’s 99. The flop was a queen, a ten and a rag, so I had some pretty good equity. Unfortunately the turn and river bricked which left me crippled and I went broke on the next hand. Even so, I got $650 on an $11 entry so how about that for some ROI?

This week I am going to be starting to play some poker in my new office. I’m very excited about that. I will be in Eugene, OR for a few days this week as I will be watching the Oregon Ducks golf team try and take the annual Duck Invitational and then assuming the role of head golf coach (sorta) for a whole 2 days as the head coach has a commitment so I will be with the team for the OSU JV tournament this Friday and Saturday. Hopefully I can win another $35,000 this week and the Ducks can take a few titles home, not to be greedy or anything.

I am proud to announce that I have been given the great privilege of becoming a Poker Stars Team Online Pro.  I consider myself very lucky to be the newest member of Poker Stars Team Online and am really excited to play exclusively on Poker Stars, which I have long felt is the best poker room in the world.

Because of my commitment to Poker Stars, I am excited to begin my quest for Super Nova Elite.  Back in 2007, I was one of the original Super Nova Elites when I announced a challenge in mid April that I could make Super Nova Elite status starting in the middle of April with 0 VPPs, playing cash games exclusively.  Most people didn’t think I could pull it off, but on New Year’s eve, <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHfwYP6arzo”>SNE video</a> I pulled it off and recorded it for Youtube.  If you listen closely I played Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd because I had been in my house so much playing so much poker (I could only 8 table at most back then) that I literally felt “free” from the grind that was Supernova Elite.<a href=”http://url.com”>description</a>
This year I should make it quite comfortably assuming health wise everything is OK.  I have about 150,000 VPP’s already and now that I am going to play exclusively on Poker Stars, I am sure making SNE won’t be much of an issue given that I now play 16 tables at once quite often.

I will have to admit it does feel pretty sweet to be bestowed the honor of representing Poker Stars.  I have long wanted to progress my poker career to the point that this may some day happen, and I can honestly say that I got their through a ton of hard work.  That makes me feel really good because I have always believed that hard work is paramount and perseverance counts for a whole heck of a lot.  With nearly 8 million hands played over my 5 + year career, I have dedicated over 10,000 hours to poker and it has been a big part of my life.  And like anything you spend 10,000 hours at, you work hard so you can achieve goals for yourself.  Getting the opportunity to represent the largest poker room in the world is definitely something that makes all of the hard work feel worth it right there.

The rest of the month I am going to play a ton of poker.  I am struggling a little the last 35 days with poker and need to get some momentum in my direction as well as address any potential issues I may be having with my game.  So far throughout this rough patch my EV adjusted win rate is still pretty solid, so I am inclined to not feel to worried about my results at the moment, but it is better to be safe than sorry so I will be doing a thorough review of my game in the near future.

Life wise things have been going well.  I get the keys to my new house today which is pretty cool.  I bought a home that has a 2 story guest house where I am going to share an office with a great friend of mine.  We are going to create a “war room” where we will be grinding like crazy, especially on Sundays with all of the Poker Stars tournies.  So the timing really couldn’t be better.  I get to move into my new place where I can grind like crazy the same week where I will also begin chasing SNE.  It’s like it’s all meant to be!

Imagine Media has a new job opportunity for a 30-hr. per week marketing assistant. PLEASE NOTE: This is a different listing than we posted a few weeks ago. This time, we are seeking an experienced marketing professional seeking more advanced compensation. Please send a cover letter and resume to the address below:

Imagine Media is reviewing applicants for a MARKETING ASSISTANT position. Our goal is to find someone who is driven, team-oriented, can work independently, and is interested in being part of an upwardly mobile company. Qualified applicants will have a degree in marketing or a related field and/or 2+ years related experience. Applicants must demonstrate an advanced understanding of social media, blogging, Internet forums and electronic marketing. Our hire will ultimately work in these spaces, as well as oversee the company’s quickly growing database. Applicants must also demonstrate a strong ability to communicate, both verbally and in writing. Knowledge of the online poker world is a major plus, as this is one of the niche markets we work hard to reach.

This is a 30-plus hrs/wk., off-site position, and may become full time in the not-too-distant future. Pay is $17.50 per hour. Applicants must have the ability to work remotely, and in fact thrive in such a setting.

Imagine Media, LLC, is a fast-growing mixed-media firm based out of Portland, Ore. We participate in mediums both new and traditional, with a focus on telling great stories, plain and simple, as well as building devoted audiences for talented authors. Our primary focus is on the publishing of books on individuals, institutions or topics with devoted followings. These books primarily revolve around sports at this time, but will soon expand to cover social sciences, health and education. The vast majority of our purchases are direct and the result of readers being driven to our website. After telling great stories, the attracting and organizing of these readers is our priority. We also put together creative teams to develop and market books on behalf of Silicon Valley thought leaders. Our team is tight-knit, dedicated, entrepreneurial and driven by the prospect of doing work that matters.

Please submit resume and cover letter to info@imagine-books.net. Applications without these two items will not be considered. We look forward to hearing from you.

Hey everyone,

I hope you’ll check out my latest column for Card Player Magazine. In the vein of “Treat Your Poker Like A Business,” this one is about assigning a value to your time.

Click here to give it a read. Thanks!

Many thanks to Matt Perry of Bluff Europe for writing this great review of “Treat Your Poker Like A Business.” It made me very proud to read it.

I haven’t really talked much about this, but I decided to take on one student this year as my 2010 project.  Some of you may remember in 2008 I took on Matt Bolt (mbolt1) as a student and I started with him as a micro stakes grinder and by year end he had a 6 figure month and has made about a million dollars since I began working with him.  I have worked with a few others as well who have done well, but Mbolt1 was the only person I have really spent a lot of time working with.

While I don’t expect everyone I work with to necessarily go on to crush the games the way Mbolt1 has, I decided to take on one more student this year and hopefully we can have some success together.  His name is Michael Skelton and he holds the distinction of watching more training videos than anyone alive, I would be willing to wager.  Michael produced virtually every single Stoxpoker.com video and was as loyal of an employee as you could find.  His tremendous work ethic and unprecedented level of understanding of the “away from the table” stuff like rakeback, which software programs to use etc. is what made me decide to take him on as my 2010 protége.’

I have some high hopes for Michael or skelm as he is known to the community and skelmr on FullTilT.  He is developing a tremendous understanding of the game of poker and already has shown some tremendous progress over our time working together.  Here is a before and after shot:

Before:   <a href=”http://rolledontheriver.com/images/Coaching/PreCoaching.png”>Pre-Coaching</a>

After:    <a href=”http://rolledontheriver.com/images/Coaching/PostCoaching.png”>Post-Coaching</a>

As you can see, Michael lost a lot of money when the pot did not go to showdown before we began working together.  Our work together took care of his falling red line and turned him into a winner when the pot does not go to showdown. While I don’t think it is as essential as most people think to have a positive red line, it is always nice to improve your red line when your showdown line remains relatively unaffected.

I look forward to seeing if I can continue to have some success coaching Michael.  Ultimately, even if he goes onto great success, Michael is going to be the one primarily responsible for his own success, as was Mbolt1, but I suppose I would be lying if I didn’t say it feels good to know your coaching may have played a role in that.

I feel Michael has a ton of potential and seems to grasp concepts quickly and effectively put them into action.  He is not afraid to make changes to his game the moment he realizes he will be better off for them.  That is actually a big thing he has going for him because many people will try things, but if they don’t have success with them they abandon the changes right away, when in reality it was probably just bad luck that kept the changes from working.  It is huge in this game not to let some bad luck deter you from making the correct adjustments in your game.  That is one of the biggest problems amongst amateurs in my opinion.  They are too quick to abandon winning plays just because they don’t have success with them right away.

My company has been working closely with an awesome group called The App Well, helping them get the word out about their iPhone apps. There’s one I’m partial to, because for a pro poker player, I have very little gamble in me. I’ve bet on exactly one football game in my life, and it was the longest three hours of my life. This new app called Set The Spread Basketball is for fantasy betting on NBA and NCAA games. Essentially, you get all the thrills of having action on the game without using a bookie or getting kneecapped.

Give it a look here. Hope you like it.