OT: Hiring Coaches

[Indiana]

Since I get like 10 aims and PMs a day about coaches I thought I'd talk a little on hiring coaches for HU poker. Let me begin by saying that i dont coach because i dont have the time and i'd rather make money playing poker. I feel that I could easily be worth 50/hr or whatever but I'm a busy scientist in a big company and I already make a grand a week playing poker on my own (which i enjoy more than coaching). There are, however, some guys on the forum that will be good and you should PM them if u want. I personally think that cwar is the best coach I've ever had (and ive hired like 20 from 2+2 over the years), but with that quality of instruction its not going to be SUPER cheap (although i think its still a very very good deal to hire him and i consider it cheap personally). Another very talented up and coming player is PrimordialAA who isn't quite at cwar's level, but he can get you a lot of info and make u profitable for less $/hr.

Me personally? I pay a few hours a week for coaching and I'd say that no less than an hour a week is essential if u want to be good at this game. Before i hired a coach for myself i was a bumb grinding for 500 bucks a week. now im making 1000 a week and i'll soon be at 1500-2000 (and i only play 15-20 hrs per week).

So what am i trying to say here? There is absolutely no way that you can dominate this game on your own. These forums are great, and so is reading books and playing, but having a solid coach is the surest and best way to take your game to the next level.

A lot of players try to get by on the cheap and go at it alone, but they are totally cheating themselves and screwing off when they should be getting someone to help them. I'd say that every dollar I've spent on coaching has returned me 2 dollars.

GL to you fellas in your pursuits, see u at the WSOP 2008...

Indy

[ChicagoRy]

I don't think you can talk specifically about a certain coach in a thread in the forums.

I may not disagree with anything you said about cwar but it sounds like an ad for him and is probably not appropriate here.

I get a few pms a week of people asking me about coaches or strategies, etc. and I usually refer them to specific people for either HUSNG or HU cash, depending on what they are looking for.

[Indiana]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think you can talk specifically about a certain coach in a thread in the forums.

I may not disagree with anything you said about cwar but it sounds like an ad for him and is probably not appropriate here.

I get a few pms a week of people asking me about coaches or strategies, etc. and I usually refer them to specific people for either HUSNG or HU cash, depending on what they are looking for.

[/ QUOTE ]

eh, i don't worry about rules...if the mods dont like what i say they can shut down my threads or ban me. Its all good baby baby...I'm interested in helping players become better, not following standard operating procedures.

Indy

[ChicagoRy]

So say a player has a 1k bankroll and is playing the 22s or 33s. They should hire a coach for 5-10% of their br per hour?

That's the part I definitely disagree with because those are likely the players with the most potential that actually could use the coaching.

There are plenty of mediocre 55 and 110 players that will never be able to move up any higher or I should say the odds of the moving up any higher are very slim because of a bunch of reasons, mainly mental limits in the area of creativity and stubborness.

There are also players that have never had a coach that have risen through the ranks and are probably better than most of those people you see in the 10k HUSNG MTT on stars (better in HUSNG I mean).

The right coach can make sense as far as efficiency goes but it can also make no sense in terms of money. It is a very player dependent and coach dependent situation and to say "if you hire a coach you'll be in group A if you don't you'll be stuck in group B" is totally wrong IMO.

Also, maybe you can't answer this and he will have to himself, but has cwar received extensive coaching in HUSNG as he was moving up levels? I was under the impression it was no.

A peer learning along with you can be a more efficient alternative depending on where you are with money and the options of coaches available.

[maxv2]

***none of this***
-Leader

[Deewhizzle]

id have to agree with RY here. i think that the BEST players had relitivly little coching, or had coaching & some sort of a stake and had VERY sucsessful player help them. Look at cRounder, he had a little coaching, but has done most of his winning on his own, by following some advice, and good BR skills, he is about to go full time.

i agree also that all of us need someones elses opinion to learn from our mistakes , and to re-enforce the desicons that we made that were correct. i wouldnt mind sitting down with someone and having them look over my shoulder and offer up opinions and advice, but its gonna be hard to justify spending the kind of money that it would take to make it worth thier while.
all in all, i think the best way to get better, with out hiring a coach, is to study, study, play, win, study, loose, etc.etc.

[PrimordialAA]

I can personally say getting coached by Cwar was the best thing that ever happened to my HU game. And also, I won't name names, but didn't cROUNDER33 get either coaching or ALOT of help from a very successful player? I can't say whether it's necessary or not, but i'll tell you that it changed my game a ton, and I think alot of the people who think they are great at HU TRN have alot of leaks that could make them much better if they took some time, and some coaching, and worked it all out IMHO

[ChicagoRy]

I was under the impression that Crounder received either coaching or definitely some sort of help from BCM and Maxv2, I think there were a few other names but I can't think of them.

Not sure if any of that is true or not.

[Indiana]

RY,

I dont care what ur bankroll is, I'd say that if getting a coach is 50% of your bankroll then its still worth the expense. Also, the reason that I put those names in the post is because I cannot afford to answer 50 PMs this week. Sorry, Im just not having the luxury of lots of time these days.

As far as what you say, I couldn't disagree more. I don't think mental limitations has much to do with crushing HU. I mean sure, we all have our god-given IQs but there's nothing that can be done about that and I think poker is as much perspiration as it is inspiration.

And as far as lots of pros never getting coached, its just not true. And sure, there are guys grinding their asses off making good money w/o getting coached but lots of those guys have leaks and resisting the necessary changes to their games only costs them big bucks (and makes me big bucks).

I have a very different philosophy on life. I don't believe that mental limitations hold people back, but rather, their lack of focus, discipline, and direction do. But then again what the [censored] do I know? Im just a poor piece of white trash who refused to hear this negative [censored] from my teachers growing up and now I'm paid like the mother [censored] boss.

Indy

[Indiana]

[ QUOTE ]
id have to agree with RY here. i think that the BEST players had relitivly little coching, or had coaching & some sort of a stake and had VERY sucsessful player help them. Look at cRounder, he had a little coaching, but has done most of his winning on his own, by following some advice, and good BR skills, he is about to go full time.

i agree also that all of us need someones elses opinion to learn from our mistakes , and to re-enforce the desicons that we made that were correct. i wouldnt mind sitting down with someone and having them look over my shoulder and offer up opinions and advice, but its gonna be hard to justify spending the kind of money that it would take to make it worth thier while.
all in all, i think the best way to get better, with out hiring a coach, is to study, study, play, win, study, loose, etc.etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

#1 Crounder got coached big time

#2 Crounder is still a fish