“Everything that I’ve done in poker that I’ve had success with, I’ve done because of Boot Camp. The Boot Camps that I have attended, I can honestly say, have elevated my game to a totally new level.”

Bob Hoy

"Virginia” Bob Hoy has been playing poker since he was 10 years old.  But he says that it wasn’t until he took a course with WPT Boot Camp that he began “really playing the game the way the game should be played.”  Now he’s doing so well playing tournaments that he and his wife have bought a house in Las Vegas.  In two or three years, Bob says, he’ll retire from his job as an engineer with IBM and play semi-professionally.  He’ll play tournaments and his wife will play cash—something that she also learned to do through WPT Boot Camp.

“I think, when I went to Boot Camp, I was an experienced player,” Bob says.  “But what I was able to get at Boot Camp was a refinement of the game, understanding a couple of key concepts that I never understood.  Especially in tournaments, with regard to stack sizes.  I think just having the experience of the Boot Camp helps you fine-tune your game.  Sometimes that one little tidbit can make all the difference in the world in terms of your moving on in a tournament.”

Another benefit of Boot Camp, Bob found, was getting to know the pro instructors, whom he found very accessible and eager to help.  “I’ve gotten to know Todd Brunson and T.J. Cloutier, and I’m now very good friends with these guys,” he says.  “I’ve really benefited from picking their brains on certain things."

“There was a point in a tournament where I would get stuck in a certain phase,” Bob explains.  “I would be so tight that I would get very short-stacked and it would then limit my opportunities.  And there comes a time in a tournament where if you’re not getting cards, you have to steal to stay alive."

“I learned in Boot Camp how to get past that, and it’s made just huge amounts of difference,” Bob says.  Then he grins.  “T.J. Cloutier taught me how to steal pots with no hands at all!”

After taking the Tournament Boot Camp, Bob wanted more, so he signed up for the WPT Boot Camp Battle, an annual event featuring a roster of top pros, some instruction, lots of chances to play cash games—and several exciting tournaments.  One of Bob’s biggest victories was a $40,000 prize package that included a $10,000 buy-in to the WPT Southern Championship in Biloxi. 

“I’ve been a fan of the WPT since the beginning, and I’ve always been really looking forward to the day when I could actually play in those tournaments,” he says.  “But I couldn’t have done it without winning my buy-in.  You know, $10,000 to me is still a significant amount of money.  So I’m grateful to Boot Camp for giving me the opportunity to win my way in.”

Before Boot Camp, Bob spent his time playing cash games and had entered only one tournament, which he soon realized he didn’t have the right strategy for.  After Boot Camp, though, he soon found himself cashing and even winning, including taking down a Venetian Deep Stacks event in Las Vegas for $37,000.

“Everything that I’ve done in poker that I’ve had success with, I’ve done because of Boot Camp,” Bob says.  “The Boot Camps that I have attended, I can honestly say, have elevated my game to a totally new level.”

Even though Bob now feels he can hold his own at the tournament table, he plans to keep returning to live Boot Camps and to work his way through the online curriculum as well.  To him, it’s part of his commitment to “never stop learning”.

'I think that every serious player, no matter what he thinks his level is, should go to a Boot Camp,” Bob says.  “Because if you learn only one thing, that might be the difference between winning a tournament or losing a tournament.  Just add one little tidbit, and all of a sudden, the light-bulb goes on, and you go, ‘Oh, my gosh, THAT’s what I’ve been missing!’”