Dusty ‘Leatherass’ Schmidt

Joins DragTheBar.com As Lead Instructor

Emerging instructional site adds legendary player/coach to roster

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — January 8, 2010 — Emerging poker-training site DragTheBar.com announced today that leading online player and coach Dusty Schmidt, aka “Leatherass9,” has joined the company as a lead instructor. Schmidt’s first blog was posted on the site earlier in the day.

“Dusty is one of the top mid-to-high-stakes players in the world, period,” DragTheBar.com CEO and professional poker player Hunter Bick said. “He’s played so many hands at such a high win rate that his depth is simply unmatched. But as good a player as he is, he’s an even better instructor. It’s unusual to find someone who can do both. We don’t want our site to just have good poker players as coaches — they must be well spoken and great teachers too. Dusty embodies those qualities better than anyone.”

Bick, who founded DragTheBar.com in June with partners Phil Nagy and Korey Gillis, said Schmidt will blog, make poker videos and actively participate in member forums.

“Dusty is a huge asset,” Bick said. “Just a few years ago he was playing low stakes, so he knows where those players are coming from and he can help them accelerate their learning process. Our members will benefit greatly by having such an incredible instructor at their disposal.”

Schmidt comes to DragTheBar.com on the heels of a three-year tenure as lead instructor at Stoxpoker.com, from which he resigned last week. “I couldn’t be more excited about coming to DragTheBar.com,” Schmidt said. “I was feeling as though I was getting away from my teaching roots a little bit and this allows me to do what I love and do best. The relationship just feels really, really good. They support my interests, and in turn I’m looking forward to watching this site become the finest in the world in very short order. I can’t wait to get involved with their members and watch them improve as poker players.”

Schmidt’s story is the stuff of poker legend. A renowned “grinder,” he’s played nearly 7 million hands of online poker over more than 10,000 hours during his five-year career. He’s won over $3 million over that period, and has never had a losing month.

In 2007, Schmidt achieved Poker Stars’ SuperNova Elite status in just eight months while playing high-stakes cash games exclusively. He posted the world’s highest win rate in both 5/10 NL and 10/20 NL in both 2007 and 2008. In a four-month period between Nov. 2007 and Feb. 2008, Schmidt won in excess of $600,000 in high-stakes cash games. In Nov. 2008, Schmidt posted a 1.2 million-hand graph on a TwoPlusTwo.com forum which some called the greatest graph in online history.

Prior to his start in poker, Schmidt was a top-ranked golfer who broke two of Tiger Woods’ junior records. He was the leading money winner on the Golden States Tour when, at age 23, he suffered a career-ending heart attack. He first took up poker as a means of paying his mounting medical bills, putting his last $1,000 online and playing as many as 400 hours a month in an effort to get ahead.

Today Schmidt, 28, plays as high as 25/50 NL, often playing as many as 20 tables at once. A successful entrepreneur, Schmidt recently released the top-selling book, Treat Your Poker Like A Business, available at www.dustyschmidt.net. The book focuses on teaching players to monetize their poker skill and creating a significant revenue stream by employing tried-and-true business principles.

“Poker has done a tremendous amount for me in terms of the independence and quality of life I’m able to experience now,” Schmidt says. “I like to think that I have something to offer all poker players, from those who view it as recreational to aspiring pros who want to turn the game into something more serious than a hobby.”

Schmidt becomes the 11th coach at DragTheBar.com, which boasts some of the world’s top online-poker instructors, as well as affordable membership and rakeback options at a variety of poker rooms. The site’s poker-training videos and poker software are not digital-rights managed and are compatible with iPods and other MP3 players. The site also features games besides poker, including backgammon, coached by world champion Bill Robertie.

“Bringing Dusty on adds even more depth to our already outstanding coaching lineup,” said Bick, who himself has been a poker instructor for more than two years. “The future is very bright.”

Read our Drag the Bar Review

Here is whats making headlines in the Poker Training World.  Not many xmas specials yet, but hopefully we'll see some soon.

CardRunners is offering everybody a special holiday gift: a complimentary $25 off any CardRunners or StoxPoker membership at the Poker Training Store before December 20, 2009.  Simply enter promo code K4t9 when you check-out, and your discount will be automatically deducted from the total.  Limit one per customer, only 100 gifts available so act now while supplies last!  Promo code Q8zP will get you $20 off if the other code has already been used up.

Poker Swat has been sold and will relaunch in the near future.  For now all accounts are on hold as no new videos have been released in a couple of months.  Hopefully the new owners will keep producing high quality poker training videos at a more consistant release schedule.  There's a good library at pokerswat, there just needs to be more content.

If you are intersted in SNG training better get a SitnGoGrinders account now.  Prices will be increased in 2010.  Right now you can get a yearly subscription for $120, $10 per month is a huge deal.  Not sure of the 2010, but it will be posted when we get it.  PTG still ranks SitnGoGrinders.com as the number one poker training site for solely sit n go players.

Use promo code HOLIDAYS at PokerVT to save 20% off your activation fee.  Activation includes 90 days access to the full PokerVT poker training library.

There is a new Hand Converter at Leggo Poker.  The LeggoPoker Hand History Converter will work for any HEM supported site.

Have a great holidays and a happy new Year!

 

A lot of poker sites these days are using poker training as a way to bring in new players.  The thought of educating new players to help them play profitably and make more money appears to be a great way to entice more players.  Sites like PKR have partnered up with popular poker training sites.  In this case earning PKR points will allow you get access to Bluefire Poker Training with Phil Galfond.  Bluefire pros are also writing strategy articles viewed for free on PKR.

Full Tilt has partnered with Cardrunners to offer Truly Free Poker Training where you can earn free subscriptions to the popular training site by simply playing.  You don't even have to spend your hard earned FTP points to pay for the subscription, its completely free.  FT Poker also has their Full Tilt Poker Academy where you can earn FTP points by completing certain tasks and quizes while building up your poker education.  This is a completely free service as well.

Party Poker will be eventually unveiling Party Academy, their version of a free online poker training school.

NoIQ tried going with a poker training section which lasted a few months.  Was mostly a quiz to earn a $ bonus.

PokerStars has their Intellipoker, which is simply a Poker School run by PokerStars meant for the German poker community.  Intelli Poker provides poker coaching as well as live poker training for their poker school.

Probably won't be long before we see all major poker sites incorporate more poker training within their offerings or partner up with some poker training sites to provide additional incentives.  Poker in 2010 should be interesting.

 

In June 2008, Patrik Antonius challenged the best online heads up NLHE players to play him on Full Tilt. In June 2008, Jay "KRANTZ" Rosenkrantz stepped up to the plate.With guest commentary from the 2 months 2 Million crew: whitelime, Ansky, FoxwoodsFiend and flawless_victory. Only at DeucesCracked and for FREE.  Enjoy the early christmas present from Deuces Cracked. 

Bienvenue, Les vidéos BluefirePoker maintenant en français : Giggy vous accueille!  Translation: BlueFire Poker will now be making video translations in French!  Martin Fournier Giguère (Giggy) will be doing French translations for existing and future Blue Fire training videos.  French poker players including Elky Grospellier and Antione Saout have been taking the poker world by storm.  As the french poker playing population continues to grow, so too will training sites to accomodate this rapid growth.  Now enjoy great videos such as those from Phil Galfond en francais.

Here is a quick profile about Martin Giguere from the Bluefire site:

When Martin began playing cash games, he started at the .50/1 games.  Only weeks later, he decided to drop out of school to play poker.  He spent the winter traveling through Europe and living on his poker winnings.  He then began to take the game more seriously, and progessed up through 1/2 and crushing 2/4 with a unique style that his opponents had trouble playing against, and enabled Martin to be arguably the biggest winner on the net at 2/4.  After returning from traveling through Austrailia last winter Martin purchased a luxury home in Quebec City with another well known poker pro, Takechip. Martin is 21 years old, and currently plays the 2/4 and 5/10 games online.  People have been waiting to see Martin teach his unique, ultra-aggressive style.