E.L. (USA): 3.5 → 5.2bb/100
“The interaction with the coaches is incredible. Nothing feels cursorily done.”
Where I started, and where I am now
Before: about 3.5bb/100 at an average stake of NL350 (290k hands in the 11 months before joining), a mix of 200 and 500NL. After: about 5.2bb/100 at an average stake of NL580 (434k tracked hands since joining), mostly 500 and 1kNL now.
How my game has evolved
My understanding of underlying concepts, some of which were very unintuitive to me before I joined but are intuitive to me now, has made my strategy far less ABC than before. Hopefully this results in better play, but even when it doesn't, my ability to figure out what went wrong and how to improve is much higher.
The biggest difference from 12 months ago
Not only do I study more, I study more effectively, both because I can see how the coaches and fellow students study, and because the quality of information at my disposal is very high. This has boosted my confidence, which in turn helps me execute my strategy with an awareness of the long term, variance, and how small edges work, without sweating individual hands too much.
What made the biggest impact
The interaction with the coaches is incredible. Nothing feels cursorily done. In sessions or answering questions on Discord, they test strategies, investigate the sims you post, and walk through what they're thinking, rather than just giving quick, basic answers. This extends from basic hand questions to people posting strategic thoughts or running nodelocking experiments. It's all made better by the fact the group is small.
Breakthroughs and turning points
Seeing how other people approached the game, and how well they were doing, lessened some of the mental hang-ups that stopped me improving. It's a lot easier to believe that a certain punty-feeling strategy is just good poker when other winners agree, rather than being in your room by yourself praying you aren't missing something that made your play horrendous.
To a strong mid-stakes player who's unsure
I found it daunting to invest a cut of my present winnings when my winrate at the time wasn't high. But the poker ecosystem changes so much that being set up to weather it, by getting better and more confident, is worth infinite. A few US states merged pools midway through my contract, and I don't think my game or my confidence would have handled it as well if I hadn't joined. And because BitB doesn't teach a protocol-heavy approach, these gains feel lasting and flexible as the meta and game structures shift.