What about getting together sooner for some Team Coaching events?

In thinking about how long it’ll take to develop the club site (4 to 6 months), I really don’t want to wait.  I’m still basically like a kid soemtimes, I guess – wanting instant gratification or something 🙂

What about a group of us getting together and doing some team coaching events ahead of the club infrastructure being ready?  This could have a number of advantages:

  1) It’s free

  2) It’s fun

  3) We don’t have to wait

  4) We can record the sessions and those can be added to the site once it’s ready to go

Here’s how it would work.  A group of us will join up in an online meeting (we’ll probably use GoToMeeting and a conference call line that includes Skype) which will enable us to collaborate and record what we’re doing.  Let me explain…

GoToMeeting is a simple, powerful web-based conferencing tool that’s used by hundreds of thousands of businesses today to host online meetings.  Skype is a free Internet telephone service (basically).  Skype will enable everyone from across the planet to connect into the conference call without incurring any long-distance charges.  I’ll bridge our Skype session in with a teleconferencing service (once the club has revenue coming in, we can look at higher-end conferencing if needed).

So, GoToMeeting will enable everyone to see my PC screen.  I’ll fire up Poker Stars, Full Tilt, etc. and we’ll use a special Royal Flush Club “house account” to do everything together like this.  For example, we’ll jump into a Sit & Go Tournament.  Then, each of the members who have signed up to be on the “hot seat” for this session will be given control of the meeting session and will play poker for the group.

Another group of us will be selected as the “coaches” for this session (we’ll need to limit the number of people speaking and commenting so it doesn’t become too confusing – I’m thinking perhaps 3 coaches per session). Every time the blinds go up, we’ll switch to the next Hot Seat player in a predetermined “batting order” as determined by the “Event Coordinator” (a new role that will need to be staffed by someone, in addition to the coach roles).

So, everyone will get an opportunity to rotate into the hot seat, and will get coaching from the coaches.  The rest of you will be listening in and we’ll occasionally open up the conference line to take questions/comments from the audience.  The point of this process is not to win this Sit and Go tournament – it’s to work as a team to learn from each other, pick up new skills in various situations, and navigate our way through the game together.

While our intentions for doing this remain honorable, I am a little concerned about it being considered “collusion”.  In reality, it is not, since we’ll only have a single seat at the table as a team.  I hope this will be OK with everyone.  Thoughts?

So, this is the general process I’m referring to as “team coaching”.  These recorded team coaching sessions will be made available to the club’s general membership (for everyone to learn from).  In the proposed club structure, the Poker Underground members will be the ones participating in the live team coaching sessions, but the recorded sessions will be helpful to everyone.

I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun, learn some new things together and raise our poker IQ in the process.

I am a little concerned about the technology issues we’ll encounter – for example, delays over the Internet could make it a little difficult to control the game remotely, but we’ll just work our way through it.

So, how will we get started?  If you’re on the New Poker Club mailing list, then you’ll receive an email announcing when we’ll hold these events.  I’ll also post about it on the blog here.

I’m going to need some help to do this.  We’ll need people who want to play the roles of:

• Event Coordinator – work with me to organize and be the master of ceremonies at the event (I’ll have my hands full making sure the technology is all working well together).  The Event Coordinator will be in charge of the event.
• Coaches – we’ll need three intermediate to advanced poker players to act as coaches for each event.  In this setting, coaches will be a lot like “sports commentators” or the poker tournament commentators you see on TV – except the coaches will both discuss what’s happening at the table, as well as provide suggestions to the Hot Seat players.
• Hot Seat Players – we’ll need a lineup of poker players who want to receive the team coaching.  The player will be talking directly with the coaching panel, discussing options for play with the coaches, explaining what they are thinking about doing, why and discussing their own perspective on the game.  The player can ask questions, make jokes or do whatever they want (so long as it’s “clean language” :).  I’m thinking we’ll want to start out with 4 players who rotate in and out of the game.

One of the things I’m very sensitive to is the different timezones that everyone lives in around the world, as this is something we deal with every day in my day job (we have offices all over, in Australia, Tokyo, UK, etc.), so timezones are always a challenge.  It’s tough to get the European folks and Aussies together at the same time, due to the extreme time shifts.

As a result, I’m thinking it’ll be best to alternate these events.  For example, having one on Friday night (US Central time) would be way too late for Europe (unless you’re a serious nightowl as this would be in the wee hours of the morning in the UK, for example), yet it would be mid-morning on Saturday in Sydney and New Zealand. 

Alternatively, holding an event early Saturday afternoon would be early Saturday evening in the UK (and wee hours for Australia/New Zealand).

For those in Europe and down under, please let me know your thoughts about the best times and whether the above generally meets with your approval.

So, that’s a quick overview of what I’ve been thinking about for the team coaching events.  I’m sure we’ll learn a lot and adapt the event structure, etc. as we go, but that should get us into the ballpark and help us get a jump on having the actual club website available.

Here’s what I need for you to do.  Give some thought to the above and then:

  1) Post a “Comment” on this blog entry if you’re interested in any of the roles discussed above (Event Coordinator, Coach/Commentator, Player)

  2) Post your Feedback on this proposed Team Coaching event concept, structure, etc. and let me know what you think about what, other considations, other ideas or whatever’s on your mind.

I’m thinking we should target getting together in a couple of weeks (when I’m back in Texas) to have our first team coaching event.  I’d propose that we do it on the weekend to accomodate more timezones.

Looking forward to it.  Going to pack now for my trip to the UK.

Rick

Fishing Pics from the Florida Everglades

I forgot to include these in the earlier post… 

Picture of me (in the Ranger boat hat) and my good friend Adam (holding the catch) bass fishing in the Florida everglades.  We caught a lot of bass that day, and many other days fishing in the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee.  We encountered lots of curious alligators, seeing dozens of them on most trips.

Creekside Cottage & Caribbean Daydream

Just remembered to upload some of my painting images I spoke of earlier…

I

This is my most recently painting, which was inspired by Sergon and Thomas Kinkade (famous painters)

 

I painted this shortly after a cruise we took to St. Thomas, St. Martin and Grand Cayman islands.

The New Poker Club Concept

First and foremost, the new poker site is going to be a “social networking” site for poker players.  It’s all about the player…and members helping each other achieve their poker goals together.  Yes, there will be plenty of content, tools, video and value provided for the members by the site iteself, but the really good stuff will ultimately come from the membership itself.

That’s my new vision of Royal Flush Club – the place poker players come to hook up with each other, learn from each other, find poker mentors, find the poker coach who’s best for your unique needs and to learn the state-of-the-art in poker.  It’s also going to be a place to have more fun with your poker game.

Surprisingly, my poker customers and subscribers are for the most part very serious about their poker.  The vast majority of you want to: 1) make some extra spending money at poker, 2) make a living at poker someday, or 3) go on the poker tour and experience the life of a poker pro someday.  Some of you are more interested in socializing with other poker players with similar interests than making money at poker, and others just want to have more fun with poker.

These are all tremendous goals – goals that I am certain I can help you achieve.  I learned a long time ago that the best way to create value in any kind of product or service is to do one simple thing:  ASK your customers what they want, LISTEN carefully to what they tell you, and then DELIVER exactly what they want most.  No matter what business you’re in, this is a surefire formula for success.

So that’s exactly what we’re doing here.  We’re going to give you what you asked for in the recent Peak Poker Results survey.

Another thing you asked for was for the site to be somewhat “exclusive” but also “affordable”.  So you’re going to see that, once again, we’re listening and responding with a range of memberships that deliver what you want most. 

My promise for the new Royal Flush Club is this – you’ll always get at least 10 times the value out of this site than what it costs you.  If we ever fail to do this, please let me know so I can fix it – fast.  I’m a big believer in over-delivering on value, so that’s what we’re aiming to do from the onset.

As I said in my earlier post, I’m planning on investing $25,000 or more in the initial site and its content.  The montly membership fee will start as low as $10 per month.  High-value services will also be offered, ranging up to $50 at the high-end. 

Our objective is to always deliver at 10 times as much real value vs. the membership fee; for example, a $10 / month membership must deliver at least $100 per month in real value (your actual poker winnings), plus the learning value, social value and enjoyment value. 

I must confess that I don’t have everything completely figured out, but I’m confident in my ability to figure it out and find others who can help (some things simply require “faith”). 

Speaking of faith, I’ve already been contacted by many of you who want to help.  All I can say is “God Bless You!” and thank you!

I know some folks will be turned off by the site not being free.  All I can say to that is, there are plenty of other free sites out there already… and when you’ve visited them, you’ll certainly realize that the old adage “you get what you pay for” holds true as ever.  If you’re interested in a free site, this aint’t going to be it . . .  instead, this is going to be the “high value” site.

In order to provide a quality club that truly delivers on the results everyone says they are seeking, a lot must be invested (right now, all my own money) to make that possible for us all. 

Once the club is up and running, it’ll take even more to keep bringing increasingly better content of increasing value to the table – which all costs money. 

So, think of it this way… you’ll be getting access to $10,000’s worth of top-shelf poker content for a small monthly service fee (a lot of value for your money, especially considering that you should be able to make a multiple of that money back).

The monthly access fee will be more than worth it, and if it’s not for any reason, members can cancel their subscription at any time.  This site will be for those who are truly serious about: 

• Having more fun at poker
• Meeting quality poker players and having a safe place to socialize with like-minded players
• Making some extra spending money using the latest proven techniques that have been discovered by players from all around the world (our subscribers are everyone across the Internet today)
• Learning to become a top-notch poker player through 1-1 coaching and mentoring (by other members and coaches)
• Learning what others are doing to get top-notch poker results, so you can replicate their successes
• Step-by-step money-making systems that really work; e.g., a cash game system for making $30 / hour at $1/$2 limit poker tables, bankroll management system for keeping it profitable, etc.
• Preparing yourself to make a living at poker (higher stakes games) and enjoying the poker tour life (for some of you who are more adventuresome)

So, that’s all for now.  Please post your comments and let me know what you think.

Am I on the right track here?

Did I hear what you wanted correctly?  Is it reflected in what’s being planned?

What else am I missing?

Obviously, the paint is still wet on this poker club’s design and definition, and it’s certainly not too late to address any of its shortcomings before it’s finalized – if I’ve missed anything really important from what you told me in the survey, please let us know what it is.

Finally, I’m leaving tomorrow for the UK.  I’ll be in Cambridge briefly then London area next week, then back in the saddle here in Texas the week after.  At that time, I’ll be putting together another suvey – a brief questionairre to see what your interests are in helping get the site up and running and launched as quickly as possible.

I’m sure many are wondering – OK, this sounds all well and good, but WHEN’s it going to be available?

That’s a great question… the only answer I can give right now is: As Soon As Possible!

However, please realize that I’m unwilling to sacrifice quality in order to launch this site before it’s really ready.  Based upon experience, I’d say it’ll take 3 to 4 months to get the basic site developed and up and running with enough initial content to be considered “worthy” of making it available to the general public and within 6 months we should be fully operational.  This is longer than I’d like, but it’s the reality of what it takes to do this right.

During that period of time, if you’re interested in early access, you came to the right place; however, to gain early access we need you to CONTRIBUTE to helping us get the site up and lots of high-value content posted on it.  I’ll post more entries on that over the coming weeks, so please stay tuned and this blog again from time to time (I’ll try to update it regularly now that we’re underway).

Be sure to join the Early Access list at:  http://www.RoyalFlushClub.com/NewPokerClub.html to stay abreast of what’s going on and ensure you get notified of anything significant that’s going on.

Thank you for your interest and assistance.   This is going to be a lot of fun…

I’m looking forward to finally getting to know you.

Until then, best of luck! 

Rick

P.S.  Please post your comments and recommendations based upon what you’ve learned so far here on this blog so we can have a discussion about it.  Thanks!

How to gain early access to the new poker club site

In case you’re interested in the new poker club site that’s under development, here’s a link where you can register to be notified about what’s coming and going on:

 http://www.royalflushclub.com/NewPokerClub.html

You can register here to learn more about what’s coming.

Rick

A little about me and my poker habits – Rick Braddy

Hello there.  My name is Rick Braddy.  In case you don’t know me, let me introduce myself briefly…

Texas Hold’em poker is a hobby and pasttime that has continued to hold my interest for many years now.  I’m a software developer by background.  More recently, I’ve been employed by some of the largest software companies around, including BMC Software (in the systems management market) and Citrix Systems (in the application delivery market).  At the time of this writing, my day job is as Chief Technology Officer of a $1 billion software division of Citrix Systems (the original Citrix group that develops Citrix Presentation Server and Citrix Desktop Server products).

Earlier in 2003, I had taken a keen interest in Texas Hold’em, as a member of a local poker club there in south Florida where I lived at the time.  A group of Citrix employees had banded together to form the Citrix Poker Club, a group of around 50 of us.  This poker club later became known as the South Florida Poker Club and its membership grew even more.

As a member, I somehow managed to rise to the top (for a brief period) at our poker club, becoming the annual poker champion at our club (not the most popular thing to be, as you quickly become everyone’s top target).

By early 2004, I was hopelessly hooked on Texas Hold’em, and the game was in full swing everywhere – on TV, in local home games and casinos, even on cruise ships – everywhere anyone could get a game going with a few people.  At the same time, I decided that I really needed to do something to keep my programming skills sharp (I hadn’t worked on any programming projects since the 1990’s, when I invented some products related to Internet load balancing of Web requests… but that’s another story).

At the time, I played primarily on Poker Stars (still do today).  I wanted a software program that would monitor my online play, calculating all of the possible hands that I could draw, along with all the hands my opponents could potentially draw at a given point in time.  So I set to work prototyping what later became known as “Poker Sidekick”.

In August 2004, I published the first prototype version of Poker Sidekick.  By October, I was beginning to sell Poker Sidekick under the company I had formed, Royal Flush Club, Inc.  I originally formed the corporation as a way to limit any potential liability that might arise from selling Poker Sidekick to gamblers (which seemed a bit risky in those days).

As of today (3 years later), many thousands of poker players from all over the world are using my Poker Sidekick program.  I originally wrote it for me… and used it to both sharpen my programming skills a bit, and to really hone my poker skills (both of which were achieved).  What I didn’t count on was what happened next… I needed to figure out how to sell it online (something I did not yet know how to do very well back then).

In late 2004, another interesting event took place.  I was starting to make money with Poker Sidekick and my little online business (hobby, really) was making a profit – several thousand dollars a month.  I started buying every poker product I could get my hands on.  What the heck – it was all legitimately tax deductable!

Since I played mostly at Poker Stars, I was more interested in having a system that would work well at Poker Stars.  I started experimenting with this system, and pretty soon found other similar systems that were available at the time.  I began taking notes about what I was learning and what worked (avoiding what didn’t).  I was winning sit and go tournaments on a regular basis using what I had learned from a number of different products, along with my own experience from the poker club I’d been in for around 18 months at that time.

Over the 2004 Holidays, I bought a little e-book product called “How to Beat Party Poker” (I think that’s what it was called).  It was a poorly-written, but interesting little e-book, that discussed a fledgling system for winning sit and go tournaments at Party Poker.  It was fairly specific to Party Poker.  It’s author provided the absolutely worst support (basically non-existant) I’d ever experienced.  This turned out to be a “defining moment” for me… (more than I knew at the time)

I was so aggravated by the bad support that this author provided me and my Royal Flush Club customers (who I had introduced to his product), that I decided enough was enough.  Right there, right then, I decided that I would always do my absolute best to ensure my customers were taken excellent care of, and got personal attention from me on anything they needed.

I also decided to compete with his product!  I remember it very clearly.  I woke up on New Year’s Eve day with the idea of creating a new Sit and Go e-book product.  By 9:30 I had my 2nd cup of coffee, and was on my PC in front of the TV in my easy chair, creating an outline of my new e-book.

By around 2:30 that afternoon, I had compiled a number of articles that I’d been sending to my subscribers (via email autoresponder), along with documenting everything I was doing regularly to profit at sit and go tournaments.  By around 6:30 that evening, I had located an e-book reader product that would allow me to publish my new e-book and protect it from piracy (a huge problem on the Internet).  By around 8:30, I had created a draft sales letter and had it posted.  By 10:00 p.m., I had the first version of my e-book published on the Internet!

By 11:30, it was growing close to New Year, 2005 and I had completed writing, publishing and selling my first poker e-book!  You know, when I look back on that day, I’m still somewhat amazed at what can be done when someone is highly-motivated and capable of executing.  In around 14 hours, I had gone from zero to selling a new poker product…

Of course, that was version 1 of what today is known as “The Secrets of Winning Sit and Go Tournaments”.  If you’re interested, you can find it here.

At this point, I was beginning to learn a little more about Internet Marketing.  As it turned out, I had a whole lot more to learn (as is often the case, I didn’t know what I didn’t know yet about selling over the Internet).  I spent most of 2005 learning how to market my two products better, adding support for more poker rooms to Poker Sidekick, enhancing Poker Sidekick greatly to include “expert advice” and other unique capabilities to it, and refining my sit and go e-book product.

By the time New Year’s 2006 rolled around, I had become somewhat of an expert at Internet Marketing, having invested all of my poker product revenues into every kind of marketing course and e-book I could get my hands on (and just about every waking moment experimeting with everything I was learning – deciding for myself what really worked and what didn’t).

So, why am I telling you all of this?  Well, I want you to know me, how I got started in this whole poker thing, and how it’s changed my life.  Once you understand this, I think you’ll be a step closer to knowing me and understanding how I think and operate…

At this same time, I was in a couple of different roles at Citrix.  I was Vice-President of Product Management back in those days – responsible for all of our products – products that were generating something north of $600 million in revenues as I recall (today it’s closer to $1 billion for those same products).  There was a brief period where I also took on the role of VP, Product Marketing – what a blast that was!  (again, a great story for another day)

So, poker continued to be my hobby (still is today) – the only hobby I’ve ever had that actually paid for itself.

I’m also an oil painter and avid fisherman.  I’m attaching pics of a couple of my paintings, in case those are of any interest.  I haven’t painted in a few years, but I do love it (it’s very time-consuming, and my time has been consumed lately by my poker activities). 

While I lived in Florida, I routinly fished in the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee for my favorite prey – largemouth bass (I catch and release them, it’s just for sport).

Back to the poker story… I began to realize that making money on the Internet was easier when you had a larger base of subscribers.  So, I decided to create a new kind of poker site – one that’s free and that people would WANT to subscribe to – and one that they would get a lot of value out of.

I figured that many people really didn’t have an objective way to gauge their own poker skills.  Judging your poker skills by winning and losing against a wide range of players makes it tough really understand your skill level across the range of most important skills in the game:  betting, bluffing, trapping, reading players, etc.

So I went to work defining something that never before existed – a “poker skills testing” site.  I call it the “Poker Tester” (not very creative, but it gets the point across).  You can find it at www.PokerTester.com .  This site serves a number of purposes:  1) it provides people with a free tool for testing their own poker skills objectively, 2) it shows a player their areas of strength and weakness on a skill-by-skill basis, and 3) it offers players “skills training courses” for each poker skill they may need help with.

www.PokerTester.com was quickly a big hit.  Hundreds of people a day visit PokerTester.com for a poker skills checkup.  As a result, I also now have access to many thousands of poker players who are interested in improving their game.

This leads us closer to today.  I recently decided to survey my customers and subscribers (around 22,000 of them) to truly understand what they want most in their poker lives.  I organized a drawing and contest as an incentive to get people to tell me what was on their mind.  I offered to give away my Poker Sidekick software and SNG tournament e-book products to the first 300 people who responded to my survey.

In less than 24 hours, I had 540 responses to my survey and shut the survey down.  I was very happy to give away my products for free, because I got so much value in return – everyone told me what was on their mind and what they wanted most to help them achieve their poker goals.

And that leads us up to now.  I’m now in the process of doing the following:

  1) Having the survey results professionally analyzed and prioritized

  2) I have defined a brand new poker club site (actually, three of them in one)

  3) I have defined several new poker products, in addition to the club site

  4) I have hired people to develop content for the poker club and products (I’m estimating the initial site content will cost around $10,000 to $15,000 to develop, and we’ll be adding $5,000 to $10,000 worth of new content to it each quarter).

  5) I am in the process of getting bids on developing the new club site (I’m estimating this new site will cost around $10,000 to develop initially)

So, I hope you stay tuned in for what’s coming next…. all I can say for sure at this point is that “it’s what you asked for”, as it’s based on what the survey respondents said they wanted most…

• 1-on-1 poker coaching
• Poker mentoring
• Focused poker training
• Videos
• Unique articles and tips
• A safe place to meet other poker players

Guess what I’ve decided to call the new poker club?

Royal Flush Club

This blog is dedicated to the development and launch of my member’s new poker club site.