OT-Teaching a friend to beat sngs in one day

[costanza_g]

Im kind of grunching here but i notice most people said it would be relatively easy. Im going to have to go ahead and disagree with this.

I tried to teach 2 of my friends from high school to beat sngs on party last summer/fall preban. Neither of them got anywhere, one of them just lost it slower than the other. Both of them were much better at school than me, so they were pretty intelligent. And both were adequately bankrolled.

So either I suck at coaching, or it just isnt as easy as you all think. In order to succeed I think the person needs to have a natural motivation to want to be the best player he can, and run pretty well(or at least not bad) for the first chunk of sngs he plays.

Spacegravy, you can probably show him the ropes and get him comfortable in playing in one day. But once he goes on a 10 buyin downswing, its gonna take alot of work for him to keep his composure and continue to play optimally, and not go busto. He has no idea of the kind of variance associated with this game, and its not something you can teach him. It's gonna take alot of work to deal with the psychology of running bad.

[bones]

I'd bet almost any amount of money that you couldn't teach someone to beat sngs in a day. It's just silly to think so. SNGs are just too counterintuitive.

[Hercules]

constanza, obv it depends on who you`re training. And what space said about his student i am definitely giving a yes.
A friend from my former chess club in germany was interested in poker. All he knew 2 weaks ago was hand rankings, and that he shouldnt call every bet, only because he has a pair....something like that.
So i made some quick videos, gave him some easy push/fold guidelines...Its almost like progging a bot...
Right now, this guy is has a ROI way over 10% over a ~350sample. And i dont think it will take long for him to move up.
Btw, this guy is very intelligent, but he`s not what I`d call a genius. I am convinced that i could teach like ALMOST anybody how to beat the 6-16$ without much effort. Its really not that hard. At the 27s it might get harder, because more regs play the game.
But basically SNG`s are not that complicated (on a lower level), because you don`t really need to know to much ICM (just a general clue) or Nash equil. to beat the games.

[derdo]

Just instruction would not cut it. You'd have to let him play games himself and review hand history afterwards. And my guess is review of at least 40-50 SNG will be required in best cases (with knowledge of math and stats).

[Guthrie]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
After 18 months on this forum, all the tools, hundreds of hours of analyzing hands, and 7000 SnGs, I'm at 0% ROI. I haven't had two consecutive winning days this year. Obviously everyone but me can learn to easily beat SnGs in a few hours.

[/ QUOTE ]

if this is happening at the 16s or lower then sng's aren't for you.

[/ QUOTE ]
I have faith that someday I will actually have a pair stand up to two overcards, or any ace; that will mark the beginning of a turnaround, and the mathematics will actually prove to be correct in the long run.

[AMT]

if he has basic poker knowledge, and you are confident in his math and intelligence, you could probably teach him to beat the 6.50s in a days time. he probably will not be a big winner initially and will make many mistakes, but with *this* read on your friend (thats right, i called it a read, wanna fight about it?), it can be done, IMO.


anything less, and i agree with all the nay sayers.

[proell]

lol. not in a day.

if your student happens to want to learn to beat the games then I'm sure he will eventually.
But only afer he learns how to improve on his own (sngpt, sttf, hh, etc).

I had a student once (several, actually) that, no matter what I did, could not learn to learn for themselves. They won, but not after lots of coaching.

wish there was a good way to prop be this, since the idea seems to come up fairly often.

[FeNeF]

Depends how good a teacher you are, and whether he has a "feel" for the game (not necessarily related to intelligence).

I certainly think it's possible though.

[curtains]

For the large large majority of people the answer is NO by a longshot.

[Dr_Wonderful]

Some people are tough to teach no matter what you're trying to teach them. If this person is a willing student with an open mind that doesn't have his own pride in the way than I think it's certainly possible.