[Monster207]

First of all thanks for doing this, it's going to be a huge help to whoever is lucky enough to be chosen.

I am currently a 22 year old college student in his fourth year. I originally came to college to play Div. 1 hockey and get my degree. At the time hockey was an intense passion of mine and since I'm an incredibly competitive person hockey acted as an excellent outlet. Long story short I remember going to the NCAA national tournament my first year and hanging around the hotel when I saw some of the guys playing cards. They introduced me to the game and ever since I've been hooked.

That was roughly a little over 3 years ago. During that time hockey seemed to take a backseat to poker. I didn't know what it was that made it so fascinating to me, but I threw myself into studying the game. After practice (I know this is gonna sound lame as hell) I would go to Borders and just read all the poker books available. I have pretty fond memories of sitting in the Kids/Games/Puzzles section with a bunch of 9 year olds who were reading Calvin and Hobbs while I tried to read Super System.

Anyway, quite sometime later I found the forums and started lurking and reading some mind blowing posts. (Tiens, Gigabets, etc.) I really felt like this, even more so than all the books, got me going in the right direction. Unfortunately during this time I had only played primarily in live games. I don't remember when, but I switched to online play rather recently, around 6 months ago, maybe more. I found the games slightly tougher than live but as I read the forums and reviewed the books I had accumulated over time I found that I was improving and going from a loser into what I thought/hoped was a winner. (During this time I really tried to force myself to post more hands/be more active/this so far has had the greatest impact)

Fast forward to present day and I seem/feel that I have grown quite a bit as a player. Although I'm still in the micros (10nl with some 25nl) I feel quite proud of the effort I've put into the game. You might be asking yourself 'well thats nice but what makes you a good candidate for coaching?' and the answer is that I simply just thoroughly enjoy learning about the game, even just discussing it in general. You stated in your post "I cannot guarantee i can teach you to win more money, or that you'll even improve, but I think it's definitely worth a shot.", thats totally cool with me, the opportunity to talk to someone with your background in poker would be awesome.

Anyway I'll finish this off as I didn't intend to write this much.

Recently I've come to realize that in online play I'm prone to tilt. I've never realized it until the past month but I need to work on my self-discipline and emotional control. I've focused so hard on the fundamentals of poker that it seems to me I've overlooked how important just keeping control of ones self is at the poker table. From my experience so far at the micros, it seems to me that the biggest winners are going to be the ones who maintain the highest level of discipline in regards to their play. I could be way off but I feel that is the case with me. My goals are simply to work on self control and noticing when I go on tilt (not sure if this is even possible for a coach to help me with) and to narrow hand ranges for villains. Also finding value in fairly thin spots is a big concern of mine, I feel that I may be playing weak tight. (probably am)

With a coach I feel like I can find the leaks that I haven't spotted on my own and will also help me to work on the things I mentioned. Perhaps even discussing how you handle tilt etc. would be very beneficial to me, someone of your caliber has to be able to control themselves and just hearing your ideas would probably be quite insightful.