Thoughts on coaching rates/quality

[pig4bill]

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I don't know for a fact that this is the case, but I suspect that most coaching consists of the coach watching the student play for a while, then telling him what he did wrong, or telling him what to do for the rest of the session. This seems like a huge waste of the student's time to me, so I recommend against that approach when a new student suggests it. IMO a video is a far more time/cost-efficient way to be sweated, for obvious reasons.

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You mean the coach sweat via watching a video? The student would make a video of their play?

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Also, most students would benefit more from thinking about where they think they have problems, and bringing their coach prepared questions for an hour, as opposed to being sweated.

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I could not agree more! Every time I read a book or watch a video, they always say "Do this, and if the opponent does that, you react by...". Well what the hell, the opponent NEVER does what he's supposed to. So I come up with a bunch of questions I would ask a coach, if I ever found one.

[pig4bill]

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Also, I strongly disagree with the idea that a low stakes player will benefit greatly from coaching from any MSNL winners. Lots of MSNL winners suck really bad, and I doubt they coach a ton better than they play.

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There's the dilemma. A high stakes player is going to want $300 or more an hour. A 1/2 player is going to find that hard to swallow. Also, a high stakes coach might forget how 1/2 opponents play.

[Xaston]

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Also, a high stakes coach might forget how 1/2 opponents play.

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This is why you want to look for a coach who demonstrates a deep understanding of the game on a fundamental level. Not someone who just sort of happened upon a winning strategy at X game.

[ALReturnsLOL]

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One thing that I think is overlooked in general is when people count their hourly rates for playing they often overlook the amount of upkeep and studying they have to do to remain competitive winners. To remain a consistently high winner I imagine you (msnl winners) have to study/talk about hands browse 2p2 a decent amount. Unfortunately all that is overlooked when you count your hourly.

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I really don't see what that has to do at all with this topic, since you're going to be doing that stuff regardless of whether you're coaching.

And if you want to go that route, coaches have to spend quite a bit of time off the clock setting up lessons, fielding questions from potential future students, and other stuff of that nature.

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I felt it was relevant because many coaches base their pricing on hourly rates, which I think are lower than they believe them to be.

[DJ Sensei]

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Also, a high stakes coach might forget how 1/2 opponents play.

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This is why you want to look for a coach who demonstrates a deep understanding of the game on a fundamental level. Not someone who just sort of happened upon a winning strategy at X game.

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This is generally true, however the original quote has some merit, too. For instance, many times while sweating live, the coach recommends courses of action to the player. Clearly, the best coaches will recommend the best courses of action, but if they don't know the texture of the 1/2 playing field these days, some of those actions will be a bit off, or at least better used in different games.

I know that's happened to me several times during sessions, because my assessment of standard hand ranges for the spot was a little off, though the end result often works out well anyhow. Its also hard to say, of course, because many times they'll show up with the 5% outlier portion of their range that you didn't really account for, and sometimes you get made to look a little foolish. Not really what you want during a coaching session, but theres no good way to avoid it if you're making tight reads on people for the sake of the lesson.