Official MTT COACHING thread.

[shaundeeb]

mastr hu hands when tilted don't count

Also foucalt we all make mistakes and just for your own enjoyment posting bad hands is a bad idea lol.

augie you can get all the free coaching you want while you are rolling and supplying weed, speaking of which coming to ill to visit the gobbo's soon before the canterbury classic.

[Bakes]

more people better send me hands

[gobbomom]

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speaking of which coming to ill to visit the gobbo's soon before the canterbury classic.

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o'rly? then you better prepare to have your butt kicked at drunken ping-pong young man.

[AGame18]

Am actively looking for a coach/mentor don't really have any guidelines/price limitations just looking for someone to improve my mtt results.

[nath]

I haven't started coaching yet, but I've been seriously looking into it, because lately I [censored] hate playing tournaments.

my qualifications are that I've been a consistent MTT winner for two years with major wins on every site and this one big live score this one time blah blah blah. most importantly is that as the games have adapted and gotten tougher I've been able to keep the pace and not fallen to the wayside like the online "superstars" of yesteryear.

I'll teach you how to identify spots where you can pick up chips that you wouldn't otherwise notice. I'll teach you how to be properly aggressive and switch gears when necessary. I'll teach you how to be observant of your table; you'll learn which opponents' bets mean what, who's full of [censored] and when to exploit that, who's feigning weakness, etc. Poker is a game of people, and too many of us get programmed into making generic responses to actions because of the forums or because we're multitabling or whatever. I'll teach you to exploit players bad and good. I'll teach you to win the pots you need to win without showdown to pad yourself for the late-game races. I'll teach you to maximize your advantage as a big stack, truck along looking for good opportunities as a medium stack, and push sooner than everyone thinks you should as a small stack, because I believe getting back to a big stack is more important to tournament success than floating along as a short one. I'll teach you how to understand the flow of the game and the table and move with it, not against it. I'll teach you all the stuff that makes me a winner and makes everyone else think I'm an idiot.

I do sweating via AIM (and eventually Skype when I get it), hand history reviews, and answer questions.

And now:

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call each other out by posting badly played hands

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[LearnedfromTV]

Couple thoughts about how much coaches should be paid and how coaches add value.

The market for coaching was basically set, initially, by hourly rates; the first nl cash coaches started charging a little less than their hourly and prices fell in line from there.

But value to the student is unrelated to a coach's hourly, and there are a lot of people who make $200/hour playing poker but aren't capable of improving someone else's game any more than that person can improve via free sources like 2p2 and aim. On the other hand, if a particular coach is capable of explaining things in a way that significantly improves your understanding, you pay for the lesson once but it repays you every time you play poker. Paying ten hours of a 400NL winrate to learn how to go from beating 100nl to 400nl is obviously worth it for anyone who plays a lot of hands. The key question is whether a specific coach can do that for you.

The most important quality to be a successful coach is the ability to teach, not the ability to play, although you need to be able to play in order to be able to teach. In most endeavors, the people with the most talent aren't necessarily the best coaches (most of the most successful pro and college sports coaches were very good but not great at the sport; they had to learn every nuance in order to stay in the league; the great coaches are guys like Phil Jackson, Bobby Knight, Jerry Sloan, not Michael Jordan.)

Imo, there are very very few MTTC guys who are worth ~$300/hour. Honestly, if I wanted coaching at that price, I think my list would have two names: Ansky and MLG. I don't even know if MLG coaches, but I name those two because each is *both* an excellent player and poker-articulate. I imagine there are others who haven't posted here as much, like ActionJeff, who are worth that much as well, and obviously someone like Strasser is probably worth more.

There are a lot of current regulars, however, who I think are worth $75-$150/hour (maybe a little more for the best ones) to a lowstakes grinder who has trouble with fundamentals and wants to be a consistent mid-high mtt winner (equivalent to the move from ssnl to msnl, imo). Which of those guys to pick is based more than anything else on how clear their explanations are to *you*, that is, how compatible their teaching style is with your learning style.

[betgo]

There is no point in my paying $150/hour for a coach who is not that much better a player than I am. It sort of depends on where you are at. If Ivey, Brunson, or Negreanu were willing to coach and I could afford them, I am sure it would help my game tremendously. I agree that teaching skills are important, but people who are doing well can afford a high rate and need to pay that to get someone strong enough to help them significantly.

[0evg0]

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There is no point in my paying $150/hour for a coach who is not that much better a player than I am. It sort of depends on where you are at. If Ivey, Brunson, or Negreanu were willing to coach and I could afford them, I am sure it would help my game tremendously. I agree that teaching skills are important, but people who are doing well can afford a high rate and need to pay that to get someone strong enough to help them significantly.

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you cant see me but im rolling my eyes

[LearnedfromTV]

betgo that post is like raising your hand to tell the teacher you know the answer to a harder question than the one he asked. What's the point?

You already said you want a $300/hour coach and you offer coaching at $80/hour. That seems about right.

[augie_]

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speaking of which coming to ill to visit the gobbo's soon before the canterbury classic.

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o'rly? then you better prepare to have your butt kicked at drunken ping-pong young man.

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OMG! I'M SO THERE!