Why coaching when there are videos?

[WiltOnTilt]

The thing about videos is you can watch, think you have a concept down, try to implement it and it blows up in your face... so you can be left with asking questions like "did I forget to take something into consideration or did I just run into the top of their range? Should I even try this again at my stakes/with my image/at my table position/etc?"

These are the types of questions that never get answered from a video. If you try to post the question on a forum to get the answer you have to dance through minefield to hopefully get a correct answer... or worse you don't correctly explain the situation so even the "correct" answer is wrong or doesn't apply.

These are things that a coach can identify for you in real time. The coach is there, he knows the situation, he knows the image considerations and he can tell you which variables need to change to make it a good/marginal/bad play.

When I'm coaching my students I'll often say things like "now if he was more aggressive we'd do XYZ instead" or "if our image was tighter/looser/more aggro/passive we'd have to check/bet/raise/fold whatever instead. The idea is that we're tailoring the exact situation for the exact play and if the coach is doing a good job he's giving you guidelines for future slightly different scenarios.

Again these are things that can be tough for a video to convey... and if the student reaches a similar situation in the future he can always IM me and say "remember concept ABC -- would this be a good spot given XYZ?"

Having the coach tell you what to do is just the start -- having a coach that explains the "why" including which variables need to change to change the strategy is where the real value comes in from coaching. I've never seen a video that does that.

Videos are still very valuable, but you have to take them for what they are. As JoeTall said they aren't the end all, be all. The combination of coaching + videos is what seems to give the best results.

WoT