Always learning

Since I started playing professionally, I’ve been playing mostly sit-n-gos, making Supernova Elite five times, and playing tournaments during my $100k charity challenge for a year.

Tournaments are very exciting but require huge sessions that can be very tiring. Sit-n-gos on the other hand are great to grind a steady income, but they got a bit repetitive after so many years, and I feel like it’s time for a new challenge!

The Goal

As you might be guessing at this point, I will be playing cash-games in 2015, to be more precise Pot Limit Omaha cash games. I feel like this format will provide me with a great challenge and has more potential in the long term since you can make bigger wagers in cash games than you can in the other formats.

My main goal for the year will be to get a bit better every day, and the way to do that is to keep learning and improving. This way I can keep the game fresh and exciting!

You can also think about the brain as a muscle that you can either try to build up by constant learning or let it grow weak by being lazy. Poker is a game of inifinite depth, so there is always room for learning and it can be a great tool to keep the brain in shape!

I’ve also hired Jared Tendler as my mental game coach and I’m looking forward to working in the mental game arena as well. I believe that even a small change in that area can make a big difference in the results and I expect to be able to improve a lot!

The Plan

I’ve never played cash-games seriously, so I will start by slowly playing micro-stakes, but hopefully I´ll steadily move up in the stakes as I improve my understanding of the game.
Regarding studying, I will start by watching some videos where professionals explain their plays and try to takes notes of everything I find interesting. Then, I will use my playing sessions as a way of trying out the stuff I learned during the videos and test myself. If I come up with any questions or doubts while playing, I will mark the hand for review and either try to figure out the solution by myself while away from the tables, or ask other players what they think is the best play.

This is my plan for this year! I will write a monthly blog post for pokerstarsblog describing how things are going, tweet the most interesting hands and stream some sessions on twitch.

See you at the (cash games) tables!

Andre Coimbra is a member of Team PokerStars Pro Online