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I woke up this morning to a bunch of emails from people who read my
little article about “Dale” and responded in various ways. It looks
like there were basically four kinds of responses:

 1) Some people decided they needed help with their poker game and
joined Royal Flush Club to learn more

 2) Some people responded to me and said they thought the story was
made up and some kind of marketing ploy

 3) Others unsubscribed from my mailing list

 4) Others wrote me with something funny or useful to say…

For those who chose door #1, congratulations. You’re on your way
to becoming a winning player.

For those who chose door #2, you’ll find my detailed thoughts
below on this.

For those who bolted through door #3 by unsubscribing, what more
can I say, other than “BYE!“.

You know, if people aren’t interested in help with their poker game,
what are they still doing on my list??  (one must truly wonder sometimes)

By unsubscribing, it actually reduces my monthly email list costs and
leaves me with only those who are TRULY SERIOUS about their poker
game – which frankly are the only people I actually want to converse
with and expend any energy on these days… (I have too many other,
more important things to do, like fishing and running my online
businesses).

For those who responded with more interesting and valuable
comments and inquiries, THANK YOU!

I was hoping that email would stimulate a real conversation about
the real issues…

We have OPEN conversations like this all the time on our Club forums
and it feels good to share our frustrations over losing, taking bad
beats, etc… our fears about the poker rooms and cheaters… and
to celebrate the emotional orgasms associated with winning. 

Am I trying to sell you on joining our Club?

Nope. You’re either already a winning player who’s on top of the
poker world or your not interested in improving (or you still
think playing more will help you learn to win).  Only you know
whether you need and want help… (not my call)

So, why do we play this game?  I think for a lot of us, it’s to feel
those emotions associated with winning (and losing), to learn
and most of all, to have fun and gain entertainment value.

P.S. Please post your comments on this blog instead of sending me
private emails or opening Support Tickets.  That way we can bring
this entire conversation out into the open.

————– So, let’s have this completed conversation now ——————

By the way… I’m going to invite our Royal Flush Club Members to join in this conversation
here with me, so you’ll realize THIS IS TRULY FOR REAL…

Here’s some snippets of comments I received overnight:

“thats a pretty good story even if it isnt true i see the meaning
ill try to bare that in mind i dont play alot of my poker online
because of bad beats and i find i have less…”

“Ok i understand possibilitys and bad beats…What about
superusing, like some people say that it happend at Ultimate
 bet (poker site). So one could see other peoples hands…what
about that?”

“Rick, I was waiting for you to say at the end of the story that
Dale started blaming the club because he could win no higher than
2nd place in your MTT’s.  lol“

“Hi Rick,  Hope you are well.  In regard to Dales problem below, I
have often wondered the same thing.  I continually have one bad
beat after another.  I also have terrible luck.  I mostly play on
pokerstars and have not had any luck.  Here is the way my game will
go.  Cards that I don’t play like 72.94.J6, keep hitting the nut
boat while the cards that I play from group one will continually
get bet.  I know one of the problem is because I play the lowest
cash games or sng’s and there is always some one willing to check a
large bet or an all in with any 2 cards and then they get lucky.

Like Dale I have thought about quitting poker because ot this bad
luck.  However I occasionally get into a freeroll and cash but
never number one.  Just some comments since Dales story mirrors
mine.  The only difference is that I am not much for making trouble
or calling people or poker sites names without real proof.  Thanks
for the opportunity to voice my opinion.   Take care.”

I’m sure there will be more (especially after this one , but
here are some replies from me, and I expect some of our Club
members will also weigh in here as well…

——————— DOESN’T BELIEVE ME ———————-

“thats a pretty good story even if it isnt true i see the meaning
ill try to bare that in mind i dont play alot of my poker online
because of bad beats and i find i have less…”

Reply: Dude, Why would you say “even if it isn’t true”?  Why don’t
you believe me?  Everything about the story is 100% true – except
“Dale’s” name, which I said was a proxy to protect his true
identity (and save him some potential embarassment in public).

I guess since we offer our Club’s services for a fee, everyone just
assumes we’re only out for people’s money and so we just make stuff
up for marketing purposes. That’s understandable I suppose, as a
lot of sites online probably do that (we don’t).

Here’s a good one for you… I don’t need your money…
I’m retired with more money than I can spend on reasonable
things in this life, and everything I own is paid for due to me
being fortunate in my career (something I’m very thankful
for, and worked very hard to earn, I might add.)

Having said that, the fees the Club collects for its services goes
to a lot of good uses, like:

 - Attracting poker pros like Gank to our Club to teach us how to
    “swim with the sharks” and not get eaten alive at the tables

 - Pay our Club’s staff from time to time

 - Market and evangelize our Club to grow it and make it a better
place for everyone and to improve the game we love.

We have a mission at RFC… it’s really simple:

 1) Help poker players become winners who have more fun winning

 2) Support the movement for legalization and regulation of online poker

That’s it.  There’s no hidden agendas or smoking guns or anything…

Our Poker Club is basically a “hobby” for me, a little business
that helps others improve their game and all to have more fun
with  the game we love… because winning is a helluva lot more
fun than losing!  Maybe someday it’ll make me enough money
to pay for my fishing lures and cigars

I shared Dale’s story because it’s a pattern I’ve seen repeated and
play out time and time and again over the years.  I’ll sometimes
get people who unsubscribe from my email list, and tell me they’re
quiting poker… it happens all the time, where people get so
frustrated and there’s nobody who cares enough to help them, so
they just give up and abandon the game they actually love out of
frustration.

One of the things I’m very proud of at Royal Flush Club is we have
created a friendly, open environment where people actually do care
and help each other through some of the toughest times with their
poker games (and many of us have found some lifelong friends as
a result of it).

——————– SUPER-USING ——————–

“Ok i understand possibilitys and bad beats…What about
superusing, like some people say that it happend at Ultimate
 bet (poker site). So one could see other peoples hands…what
about that?”

Reply: Yep, unfortunately our worst fears are sometimes true.
There are isolated incidents of cheating by some. This is probably
less than 1/10th of 1% of the games being played online, but
there is definitely “dangerous stuff” out there in our world…
and sometimes a few people are running bots (oh my, let’s all
quit poker because we can’t beat a few stupid-ass bots)

Is anyone out there afraid to play a bot?  I know I’m not. Bring
it on!!  Where the hell are they?  I’ll go kick those bots butts.

You see, bots can’t really “think”.  That’s the beauty of human
beings. We’re still smarter than computers (fortunately).  Bots
can’t detect bluffs, they can’t “float in” to pots and steal them
effectively, and they can’t make “double continuation bets”
because the flop and turn look “drawy” (just a few of the
techniques we teach our members)

Human poker players who are properly trained can do all these
things, and a lot more.

Are there still a few evil people at some of the unsavory,
unregulated poker rooms out there?  Probably. But based
on the ass-kicking the ones who got caught recently
took in the market (do you still play at those places??),
I’ll bet most of the poker room owners and management
teams will kill (er, uh, “fire”) anyone who gets caught
cheating their players – because it WILL definitely
ruin their greatly profitable online poker business.

I for one am not going to stop playing poker because
I fear these noises in the night. Instead, I’ve learned
enough to recognize when I’m at a table with other
players who are better than me (for whatever the
reason – better skilled, better at cheating, etc.),
and I have the discipline to just stand up and walk
away and find another game somewhere else
(it’s not like there aren’t plenty to choose from).

————— FUNNY, BUT PERHAPS TRUE —————-

“Rick, I was waiting for you to say at the end of the story that
Dale started blaming the club because he could win no higher than
2nd place in your MTT’s.  lol“

Reply: Very funny!  Yes, that would’ve been par for the course… like
I said, he still whines a little from time to time… (LMAO)

Well, that would’ve been a nice ending to our story… hey this story
isn’t over yet. Dale is still with us and we’re expecting big things
from him as he continues to mature as a poker player. 

————– HAND ANALYSIS REQUEST —————

“Hi Rick,  Hope you are well.  In regard to Dales problem below, I
have often wondered the same thing.  I continually have one bad
beat after another.  I also have terrible luck.  I mostly play on
pokerstars and have not had any luck.  Here is the way my game will
go.  Cards that I don’t play like 72.94.J6, keep hitting the nut
boat while the cards that I play from group one will continually
get bet.  I know one of the problem is because I play the lowest
cash games or sng’s and there is always some one willing to check a
large bet or an all in with any 2 cards and then they get lucky.”

One of the things you’ll find in our forums are entries exactly like
the one above. A player is struggling and taking “bad beats”,
having “terrible luck”, etc. (sounds like our “Dale” doesn’t it?)

Here’s my reply… RFC Members… please reply to this player
as you would on our RFC Forums, and please introduce yourself
as an RFC Member…

Sounds exactly right. You get a lot of looser players at lower
limit tables; however, do you realize what the odds are of
these “fish” actually winning with these inferior starting
hands, which they are probably playing out of position
often?

Here’s a quick analysis of the odds of each of
those hands you mentioned against a random
hand:

Here’s another one, but where you hold AK offsuit:

Notice that in all of the above cases, the “donk hand” has
the probability to win that’s far from non-zero. But let me
ask you this.  Would you bet on a hand that’s guaranteed
to lose between 51% and 67% of the time?  Hopefully you
answered No.

But that’s the beauty of this game. There are PLENTY of
people who will!!  And because they win that minority
of the time, they keep on with their “negative EV” play!

If it weren’t for the “fish” and “donks” at our tables, this
game wouldn’t be worth playing…

Another quick point. Once you get a sense for the hand
range of your opponents, you can almost always end up
ahead by simply playing hands that are better than their
range.  Sure, you’ll occasionally take bad beats, but not
more than 51% of the time.

The typical response you’d probably get on our forums
to the above question is “please provide us with some
specific examples with a hand history so we can discuss
things in more detail with you”, which is how we are
then able to really help players make more progress.

Incidentally, in case you’re interested in what tool I
used for those hand stats above, you’ll find it here:

http://www.propokertools.com/simulator/simulationEditor.jsp

———————————

So, like I said, please post your Comments here on the blog
and DO NOT email them to me. If you email them to me, I’m
going to post them, along with your email address here in
this blog (then all the Internet SPAM spiders will find your
email address and you’ll have lots of fun… so please do
as I’ve asked and respect my request, as I’m serious about
this).

We need this conversation to be in public, not hidden or
buried, because this is the REAL conversation that many
poker players need to get past their fears and get on the
road to becoming winners at the game they love.

Wishing you all the best!

Rick

www.RoyalFlushClubMembers.com
Creating Winners Every Day… One At A Time
 

Here’s an email I sent to my subscribers last night:

I just have to share this story with you…

I get a lot of emails and see a ton of allegations that the
poker rooms must be cheating, especially from folks who
are taking bad beats. So, are they cheating?

Let me try to answer this with a true story that recently
took place in our poker club…

To maintain his privacy, I’ll just call our poker player
Dale. Dale joined our Club in January, and it wasn’t long
before we started seeing a bunch of forum posts about the
bad beats he was taking.

He posted hand history information, proving his case. As
usual, we took this seriously and analyzed the hands
and provided our feedback as a mentoring team.

The very next week, Dale posts more bad beat stories. A
few days later, Dale accuses Poker Stars of being rigged.
He provided a bunch of “evidence” and made numerous
accusations, but we could not find enough compelling facts
to really support his point of view.

We made a special effort to spend even more 1-1 time with
Dale, as we felt bad for him and his continued losses. We
urged Dale to take the time to study the instructional
videos on SNG and MTT tourneys.

Then the accusations and bad beat posts subsided for a
few weeks. Then all of a sudden, Dale reported doing well
at Poker Stars, but he was now convinced that Full Tilt must
be rigged, as he was once again taking an improbable number
of bad beats there.

There must have been a collective sigh from all of us who
were deperately trying to help Dale improve his poker game -
I know I for one was growing weary of this…

But, instead of deriding him and shewing Dale away (he’d
have been blasted out of existence on any other poker forum
on the planet right after his original, first post), we
redoubled our efforts and started mentoring him along as
best we could. He was somewhat argumentative, so this
wasn’t easy.

Dale’s next post shocked us all. He said he was quiting
poker – he’d had enough of the bad beats and just didn’t
think he could take it any more.

Man, I’ve never seen so many people step up to help someone
before in my life. It was as if Dale had fallen overboard
into a raging sea full of sharks.

Everyone jumped in and offered about every form of persuasion
and advice I’ve seen. In that one instance, we all pulled
together to save Dale’s poker life.

As painful as it had been dealing with his continual whining,
crying, bitching and moaning and accusing everyone except
the real cause of his poker woes (himself and his bad decisions),
none of us could bear admiting defeat and seeing him fail.
It would be like someone dying and being gone that we knew
so well.

And that was the turning point. From that point forward,
Dale never accused another poker room of being at fault.
He started listening and learning what we were teaching him.
He started seeing improved results. He actually started
posting positive results for a change.

About a month ago, Dale came in 2nd place in our Club’s
weekly MTT tournament. A couple weeks later, he came in
2nd place again. He’s also reported a positive ROI at his
Sit and Go’s for a change.

Best of all, we don’t have to defend the poker rooms anymore,
since they were never at fault in the first place.

So why am I sharing this story with you? Because Dale’s is
not a story of going from nearly broke to being a WSOP multi-
millionaire like Chris Moneymaker. It’s not a story of increasing
his bankroll by 50X like some of our other members.

Dale’s is a story of survival to fight another day, and realization
that the real enemy is within when it comes to poker. We must
first master our own demons, accept the responsibility for our
own actions and decisions…

Then and only then, is it possible to become a winning poker
player. Dale still whines a little and talks too much at
times, but that’s just Dale. We’ve come to understand and respect
him.

And we’re glad he’s still with us – fighting to win another
pot along with everyone else at the final table.

Rick
www.RoyalFlushClubMembers.com

It’s just about time for the Poker Clinics with Gank – two bonus sessions for our Poker Underground members…

The first session will be on March 15th at 1 p.m. EST.  You will receive email instructions for connecting to this event, if you’re a Poker Underground member.  The session will be live with Gank.  We’ll take audience questions in advance via this blog entry.

Please post your questions for Gank here on this blog entry as “Comments” (use the link below to reply to this blog entry).

The topics for the first session will include:

 - Reading Your Opponents More Effectively

 - Determining Hand Ranges

 - Effective Shoving Strategies

 We will be taking questions here on the blog up to and during the event, so be sure to get yours queued up first!

Thanks.

Rick

Late last week we launched the Royal Flush Club new poker club.  You can see all the details here:

 http://www.RoyalFlushClubMembers.com/info/

Thanks to all who helped us get things off the ground.  We’re off to a fantastic start!

This weekend we’ll be trying something new – the “Vote-O-Meter”

On Saturday, we’re going to introduce the new “Vote-O-Meter” into the team poker coaching session (yet another Royal Flush Club 1st).  Here’s how it works:

The audience will go to this web page to see the votes and cast their own vote for how they would like to see each hand played:

  http://www.royalflushclub.com/vote-o-meter/

One person (designated by our Coaching Director) will operate the “Reset” button, which resets the results after each hand action is completed (pre-flop, flop, turn, etc.).

The Vote-O-Meter will provide the coach and player with direct audience input on each hand, and give the audience another way to participate.

Should be fun!

Rick

You are cordially invited to attend and participate in Saturday’s
Team Poker Coaching event, hosted by Royal Flush Club:

  www.RoyalFlushClubMembers.com

In this weekend’s event, Jim will take the hot seat in a Sit and
Go tournament in front of our live audience, and we’re introducing
something brand new…

The audience “Vote-O-Meter” – the ability for our audience members
to cast their votes on what they believe the player/coach team
should do (fold, check, call, bet, raise, all-in, etc)

These things are always fun and full of surprises and some kind of
interesting learning experiences.

Here’s the details…

  Team Poker Coaching Event

Join us for a Webinar on February 9 

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/189127127

Team Poker Coaching Event

Title:   Team Poker Coaching Event

Date:  Saturday, February 9, 2008

Time:  10:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.3.9 (Panther®) or newer

AUDIO:

You have two options to get the audio – 1) connect using your
regular telephone or 2) use Skype. 

For the best audio reception, connecting with your phone to any of
the numbers below is recommended.

Calling from the US call # 1-605-475-8590  Conference Room Number:
5672971#
(long distance costs apply).

To access the audio in real-time anywhere in the world for free,
use the Skype number:  +990008275672971

In Europe, dial:
  Austria 0820 4000 1574
  Belgium 070 35 9989
  France 0826 100 277
  Germany 01805 00 7649
  Ireland 0818 270 034
  Italy 0848 390 175
  Netherlands 0870 001 932
  Spain 0902 886 051
  Switzerland 0848 560 195
  UK 0870 738 0763
The conference is free but national rate charges will apply to
these calls.

Your Conference Room Number is : 5672971

From Skype: call  to be a participant
  Skype number:+990008275672971

(to enter the above number in Skype, choose the “Contacts” tab,
“Add” button and the link labeled “Add an ordinary phone number as
a SkypeOut contact”)

Hope to see you there!

Rick

By far the biggest concerns seem to be the cost of membership vs. the value that’s being delivered.

This is something I’ve thought long and hard about in structuring the membership levels and what’s included at each level.  I also took into careful consideration the other alternatives available in the market, to ensure we’re really delivering the value.

First, we established two membership levels for players at different skill levels:

  1) Standard Membership – this is the base membership area, which is for new and existing poker players at the beginner to intermediate levels, playing in $10 and under buy-in SNG tournaments and lower stakes cash games ($1/$2 and under).

  2) Poker Underground – this is an advanced area of the site, for more advanced and expert players who already have a well-rounded game, are interested in higher-stakes MTT, SNG ($20 to $100 entry fees) and cash games ($2/4 and higher).

Standard Membership

The Standard Membership is $29.95 to join and $9.95 / month (or $97 per year prepaid).  When you look at everything that’s included, and then compare it to all the other products and sites out there, it’s clear there’s no better value for:

 - Sit and Go Secrets E-book ($30 value)
 - 8 Skills Training Manuals ($80 value)
 - 8 Situational Training Videos ($97 value)
 - 6 Sit and Go Videos ($97 value)
 - 6 Cash Game Videos ($97 value)
 - Library of assorted poker videos ($97 value)
 - Access to personal poker mentoring & tools ($97 value)
 - Club Tournaments w/ Poker Pro monthly ($97 value)

That’s $692 of value that you get instant access to for only $29.95, and $9.95 per month (or $97 total for a full year).  Additionally, we add new videos and content weekly, so there’s always something new and fresh to learn.   Also, it’s really hard to put a value on everything the Club members are sharing with each other – a lot of stuff I’d never even heard of comes up constantly… cool tools, other poker sites, advice on poker rooms, techniques like “Kill Phil”, and too much stuff to really cover here (advice you won’t find shared openly in public anywhere else).

So, where did all those $97 value items come from, you might be wondering… easy, that’s what most ClickBank-based poker products sell for today (if you’ve ever bought a poker product, you already know this).

That’s a comparative way to look at the value vs. other products; however, what really matters most to us is the RESULTS that our members achieve from our Club.  We’ll be posting a bunch of results interviews soon, where Club members talk about the results they’re seeing, but summarizing it here they’re experiencing:

 - Growing bankrolls and better bankroll management, game selection that matches their bankroll and proper money management.

 - Profiting bigger and more consistently at cash games, doubling and even tripling their money at No Limit cash games at times; using cash game profits to fund their SNG and MTT tournament entry-fees

- Achieving Sit & Go tournament ROI’s between 35% and 45%; ITM successfully in higher-stakes SNG’s (up to $20)

- In the money more consistently and final tabling occasionally in multi-table tournaments (MTT), including multi-table SNG’s

And you’ll find a wealth of information in the forums on poker tools other Club players find useful, friendly answers to your questions or particular situations and open discussions about every kind of poker-related topic you can imagine.  Even better, you can ask whatever you want and get quick, reliable answers you need.

So, that’s what’s included in the Standard Membership – and we’re adding new stuff all the time.  As a Standard Member, you’ll learn everything you need to know to become an Advanced player, generate a consistent profit at low-stakes cash games, where you can make up to several hundred dollars an hour at times, and place in the money in Sit and Go tournaments regularly.

Poker Underground

The Poker Underground membership is $49.95 to join and $19.95 per month ($197 / year prepaid).  The Underground is for intermediate to advanced players who want become Expert and Pros someday.  You get access to our WSOP Champion pro, Brett “Gank” Jungblut, via his instructional videos, teleconferences and our Underground Forum, where you can connect with Gank on a regular basis.

I’m not aware of any other place on the Net you can get direct access to a poker pro like this. Here’s what you get in the
Poker Underground (in addition to all the Standard Member stuff):

 - Multi-table Masters videos ($297 value)
 - Making Money, Advanced Cash Games ($297 value)
 - High-stakes SNG Tournaments ($297 value)
 - THE Video Library ($297 value)
 - Poker Underground Forum ($297 value)

That’s $1,485 of Poker Underground unique value, plus everything in the Standard Membership area ($692) for a total value of $2,177 … for only $197 / year, and you can get your hands on ALL of it for only $49.95!

So, where did I come up with $297 you might be wondering?  Hmm – what do you suppose it costs to attract a WSOP champion and pro poker player like Gank to our Club? 

I can’t disclose the exact deal we struck, as it’s confidential and private information; however, I can say generally that you can’t touch top poker pro talent to do anything for less than $500 an hour, so that should help you do the math and understand the value of this kind of poker pro access…

I think I’ve answered the COST vs. VALUE question now.  You absolutely will not find this kind of value anywhere else…and we’re just getting started, so you can expect the value delivered to only increase from here every month you’re a member of Royal Flush Club’s Poker Underground.

For more details on what’s included in each membership level, this detailed comparison chart may be helpful:

  http://www.royalflushclubmembers.com/public/97.cfm

So, in closing I’d just like to explain why we’re providing everything at such a reasonable price, as it probably sounds too good to be true…

Last year I realized that poker players were being sold a bunch of different, disparate products that didn’t work together to fill all the gaps in a player’s skills, and so they weren’t getting as much value from these products as they really needed. 

The reason is simple.  You can’t just download a product, watch a few videos and go out and conquer the poker world.  If it was that easy, everyone would be successful and doing it.

In addition to training materials, you need interactive feedback and a way to make adjustments, as it’s hard to be truly objective about yourself and your own game.  So that’s why we wanted to create a safe, cool community. 

People need a place to belong – a place where like-minded people hang out who CARE and who are trying to accomplish the same thing.  By getting together as a Club, we’re helping each other as a big team, and that’s extremely powerful when you have hundres or thousands of minds all working together to accomplish a common goal.

I know this is true from being an executive at companies with 4,500 to 7,500 employees.  When you set out to achieve something together, you become a force to be reckoned with, which is what you’ll experience if you join us. 

We’re in the process of creating a new “poker collective” that’s destined to become an industry powerhouse – something you won’t want to miss and will benefit from greatly.

I hope this has answered your questions about the Club’s cost and value.  If not, just email me or reply to this blog entry and I’ll be happy to answer any further questions or concerns you may have.

Rick

P.S.  In case you missed it, be sure to check these out:

http://www.royalflushclubmembers.com/FreeVideos.html  
Free Videos

http://royalflushclubmembers.com/sngvideo1.html               
Free Sit and Go Video Preview

http://www.royalflushclubmembers.com/public/177.cfm      
1 Hour Interview with Brett “Gank” Jungblut