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News AllVegasPoker.com Goes to Poker School: A Weekend with Howard Lederer & Co. I spent the weekend learning from and playing poker with some of the top professional poker players in the world at Howard Lederer's Poker Camp. Date: 04/03/05 Room: General News Summary: I spent the weekend learning from and playing poker with some of the top professional poker players in the world at Howard Lederer's Poker Camp. Content: Operating a popular poker website does have its perks. This week I received an invitation to attend Howard Lederer's Poker Camp, which was held right here in Las Vegas over the weekend. The poker training camp is one of a kind. It is a combination of small poker training sessions, followed by live action tournaments. Participants receive instruction from some of the world's most respected professional poker players. The formal poker training is held in the mornings. These sessions are taught through lectures followed by live question and answer. Most of the presenters incorporated PowerPoint slides into their presentations. Each presenter spoke for approximately 30 to 40 minutes, then left a generous 20 minutes for audience questions. In general, the presentations were good. I consider myself an intermediate poker player, but my experience and education is mostly in limit Texas Hold'em. By contrast, most of the presenters focused on tournament and No Limit Texas Hold'em strategy. Because I am not extremely experienced in NL tournament poker play, I can honestly say that I learned quite a bit from the presentations. Although the presentations were very informative, I particularly enjoyed the audience participation component. All of the formal presentations were scripted -- meaning that the pro's basically followed their outlines. However, during the audience participation the presenters REALLY opened up. Camp participants were able to learn a lot about professional poker player psychology. This was the sort of information that can't really be communicated effectively in books (or information that a pro player may not want to publish). Personally, this information was the most valuable part of the camp. Where else can you ask somebody like Howard Lederer which pro player he most fears at poker tournaments and why? (Answer: Gus Hanson). In addition to Howard Lederer, I also met and heard from many professional poker players, including: Annie Duke, Erik Seidel, Andy Bloch, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Phil Gordon, Amir Vahedi, and Layne Flack. After the morning presentations at the MGM Grand conference center, camp participants boarded chartered buses to go to Binion's for lunch and then live poker tournaments. Lunch was at Binion's buffet. Unfortunately, Binion's isn't exactly known for its delicious buffet food, and there really wasn't enough space to accommodate all 400 participants (some of whom had to wait in line for nearly an hour before they could eat). Despite the mediocre food and long lines, camp participants seemed really excited to be at Binion's, home of the famous World Series of Poker championships. After lunch, the action began. The camp attendees participated in a live No Limit Hold'em tournament at “Benny's Bullpen”. This is the exact same room where the WSOP final table is located. $50,000 in cash was at stake, and the top 18 players each received a piece of the cash prize. Unfortunately, after being super-shortstacked practically the entire poker tournament, I busted out in the middle of the 10th round (near 45th place out of over 300). The second day of the camp was more of the same. Presentations in the morning, followed by lunch at Binion's, and another poker tournament in the afternoon. The poker tournament on day two offered the winner a free seat to the main event of the World Series of Poker. Sadly, I busted out in the 7th round when I made a failed attempt to steal the blinds. The live poker tournaments were really exciting because the professional players joined the game. I had Chris “Jesus” Ferguson at my table for a few rounds on day one. You can read about my Jesus experience here. There were parts of the camp that I didn't have a chance to attend. There were banquets in the evenings, and a group trip to the Penn and Teller show at the Rio. I heard these were great. There were a few minor issues that should be resolved by next time. For starters, it was very confusing which room each presenter was in. You see, the presentations took place in several small rooms that each seated about 75 people. The pro's rotated through the small rooms, and camp participants were supposed to stay in the same room the entire time and wait for the pro's to rotate in. Unfortunately, this was never really made clear, and a lot of the participants seemed to be confused about which room to go to. Also, the buffet lunches at Binion's were pretty bad. Perhaps in the future camp participants could eat lunch at the hotel where the conference is, and then board the buses. Despite the small problems, everyone I spoke with seemed to really be enjoying themselves. I overheard a lot of positive comments from the camp participants. I would definitely call the camp a success. Most of the people I met at the poker camp were professionals. No, not professional poker players. More like doctors, lawyers, and other business professionals. The types of people that can afford to pay $3,499 for a hell of a weekend in Vegas, playing a little poker with the pros. So, is the Howard Lederer Poker Camp worth $3,499? To the right person – YES! Absolutely! A good analogy is this – If you were a golfer, how much would you pay to spend a weekend learning from and playing golf with Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, and Ernie Els? I don't know if these golf pro's offer training camps, but if they do then I guarantee the camps are not cheap. The poker pro's at this poker training camp are among the best in the world, and attending this camp is one of the most affordable ways to learn from them in person. In summary, the Howard Lederer Poker Camp is recommended by AllVegasPoker.com! If you're interested in attending, check out allincamp.com. I also want to send out a special thank you to Jon Bierman from All-in Productions. Jon helps organize Howard Lederer's poker camp and he was responsible for graciously extending the invitation and taking care of me at the poker camp. Thanks Jon! |
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