The other day the author of No Limit Hold'em - Beating the Micro Stakes: Crushing Micro Stakes & Small Stakes Poker
started following me. I didn't really look into it much but I thought it was pretty cool. So far I have 2 poker authors following me and a poker pro Scotty Nguyen. (That's right baby!)This morning I got a pretty interesting email about the author. I wasn't going to say anything but with the recent controversies related to poker instruction (Jason Ho, Nick Grudzien aka StoxTrader, Cardrunners vs Isuldur1) I'm getting sick of people trying to take advantage of people trying to learn the game.
So let's see what type of poker player Thomas Mitchell really is. Lucky for us, PokerTableRatings exists and we can lookup player's cash game stats to see just how good they are.
Mitchell doesn't reveal his screen name. He even blocks it out on the videos he posts of his sessions but he did leave enough information to figure it out. So without further ado, here's his PTR Graph.
He's only been playing a short while and it's only the last few months that he's been winning. A 1.74 BB/100 winrate over 140,000 hands isn't exactly what I would consider crushing.
Below are his results broken down by stake:
Again, nothing to write home about. These aren't horrible stats, if you're playing much higher stakes that is. For these small stake NLHE games they should be much higher, especially from someone that you're going to pay money to learn from.
So you can verify it's him, these are some hands from one of his videos. here, here, here, here and here.
In my opinion he clearly doesn't have the experience or the results to be receiving money for his knowledge. I was wondering how he even managed to get published but then realized it's done through Amazon's self publishing system.
While I haven't read the book, I did check out a couple of the sample pages. It's probably not bad advice but it's not anything you can't get free from reading the internet and poker forums. Probably where he got that knowledge from himself.
I tried Googling his screen name, wolfmmiii, and found some interesting post of his on blackhatworld.com. With such a unique name, I can only assume it's the same person. BlackHatWorld is a forum where "internet marketers" share information on how to make money online by scamming people and finding holes in systems to make money. Trying to find some crafty way to get visitors to websites and click ad links or buy some garbage e-book.
One of the claims from that poster were that they managed to make a few grand a month by creating bogus eBay auctions, including a link to a webpage that contained eBay affiliate links and when users would click back on to eBay he would earn referral fees. Basically making money off of eBay's existing traffic. They have since closed this loophole.
This doesn't seem to be much different. With so many good books out there, and free resources available online, why put money in the hands of this scammer?
A good place to start learning how to beat micro stakes full ring no limit holdem games online is by reading this thread on twoplustwo forums A Complete Guide to Beating The Micros and kee up with the Concept of the Week threads there. They are very informative and best of all FREE!
9 Response to "Crush the Micros? ORLY?"
Couple of items of note. Don't know who this player is, probably don't care, but:
A. If you're watching his videos, sometimes players will use a different account to record those videos.
B. Even though it's not intentional, you're pimping his book by bringing attention to it. I wouldn't have even known about this book or its availability without your post.
C. There are a ton of scams on the internet. This seems pretty harmless.
I appreciate your response and I had considered those things.
When coaches/trainers make videos under a different account they don't obscure their video making name. Just look at the trouble StoxTrader is in for using multiple accounts.
I never really heard of Bernie Madoff until he was on the news. After I saw him on TV I didn't think "Hey let me see if I can send him some money."
Most of the scams on the internet seem harmless. That's why they are successful. What's a few bucks here and there. But it adds up.
I've helped bust 6 or 8 online poker cheats. They were only cheating people out of 5-10 bucks at a time. It may not seem like a lot but it added up to thousands of dollars. Even more if they weren't caught.
I get it. However, it seems like this guy is trying to eek a living from a book. Anything > losing money could be called "CRUSHING." Perhaps a command of the language and a computer qualifies you to write a book. I don't know; if I wrote a book on Abraham Lincoln, whose life I only have a cursory grade school education of, would I be considered a fraud? Likely no one would buy my book - just as the person you're outting. You think anyone even knows about his book?
As for the analogy to the cheaters, you're talking day and night difference. Cheating is disregard of the rules. It is wrong, and totally deceptive.
As PT Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute," - or something to that effect. If I can sell ice to an eskimo, is that wrong? Buyer beware.
I think most ebooks are scams with few exceptions like the ones that were originally released in hard copy and converted. Amazon now set up a way for these ebook scammers to add some legitimacy.
I understand what you're saying and don't really want to get into a big debate about it.
Bottom line for me is the guy has a shady past and this seems to be an extension of it. I'm very familiar with these types and their tactics.
People get conned all the time. At the tables the other players are my enemies but away from the tables there's so much against us I think we should try and watch out for each other.
Jason Ho started taking people for small amounts as coaching fees then wound up taking them for 10's of K. Sure they seemed to be very naive but wouldn't it have been nice of someone to smack them over the head before they shipped that much?
People may not know about the book yet (it just came out) but given his track record with internet marketing chances are they will soon. I know a thing or two about building traffic and getting good search engine rankings legitimately so some of those people might wind up here.
I find it kind of comical that you bash my book (and myself) while all the while promoting it via an affiliate link to Amazon.
I obviously do not record my videos using my own screen name. That would be plain dumb. If you notice in my video, I blur out EVERYONE's screen names.
The book was something I've wanted to do and figured, why not? I worked with a friend of mine on the project and it is his scree name you were researching, not mine.
Furthermore, pay close attention to the first screenshot you posted. Notice how he was -$122 when we started our project? Did you also notice how he did nothing but WIN from then until then end of our project?
Opinions are great but please be sure to have your facts correct before making comments that are factually incorrect.
So you admit to multi-accouting or playing on someone else's account? Both of which are against the policies of poker sites.
"The book was something I've wanted to do and figured, why not? I worked with a friend of mine on the project and it is his scree name you were researching, not mine."
So your friend uses that screenname on pokerstars and you use that screen name on createspace?
https://www.createspace.com/en/community/message/50338#50338
"Posted by: wolfmmiii
Hi all....
I've got about 18 inches of snow outside so I'm not going anywhere today. I'm sitting here watching the coverage of the snowstorm here in PA while tagging everyone's books. If you would be so kind to tag mine as well, that would be awesome. It just went live on Amazon today.
No Limit Hold'em - Beating the Micro Stakes
Thanks,
Tom"
Micro, Love this blog. Found it today. Tons of good stuff here!!!
I've downloaded both of your spreadsheets to incorporate and flesh out my own workbooks. I'm trying to find the leaks in my game and bankroll management (aside from my known leaks = playing scared and degenning because I'm under-rolled even for the micros).
Hey, awesome job on being one of the "legit" table crushers and super kudos on "openly" sharing your data and profile.
All, the best, ET
Thanks ETz, glad you like the site and are getting use of my bankroll management spreadsheets.
I'll be posting a couple more soon.
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