I'm thinking about getting coaching in the new year and am just looking for some advice on the sort of rates I should be paying and what I need to do to get the most out of it.
I was playing at 0.05/0.10 stakes with some success and have moved up to the 0.10/0.25 stakes where I have been breaking even. My goal is to start winning consistently at this level and move up again.
Should I look for a local coach or does that not really matter. What sort of statistics will I need? Any other advice? Any help will be great!

join training sites much cheaper than coaching most coaches charge rip off price for not much work go to r t.p.e or run it once imo

also get your poker mates on skype and go over yesterdays hhs's with them

caveat emptor

at $10/mo basic membership at RIO is good place to start

best choice is bestpokercoaching.com , only site which actually puts their money where their mouth is.
Everybody else = poker players making money of their fame without proof of actually helping students.

With that in mind, $10/month anywhere you can't go wrong, but i'd rather think in terms of oportunity cost.

Hi Harry

Those questions dont have an easy answer , in fact nobody can give you an accurate answer because there are several factors
you need to consider : some examples

Site membership is usually cheaper however there are some formats where sites lack good videos and info
+ in most sites you get basics /be vish strats and not really advanced strats or secrets

The videos you will find in sites are usually made by coaches , then you need to find are those coaches really good
atm , can they win in todays game etcetc , the same applies if you want to hire a coach obv.

Theres only one way to make good money in todays games , having someone that reviews your game and leaks consistently
knows what to look and how to correct them as you can imagine no site can do that as they have a passive aproach
you read and listen the content and the interaction is limited.

I would say , you want the basics search a site , you want to succeed seach something else

gl

Thanks for all the feedback! I am already a member of a training site but will definitely check out bestpokercoaching as well. There seems to be some negativity towards having a coach, is the general feeling that it's not really worth it? The reason I wanted some help was, as Mimic says, to have someone more hands on to review my game. It seems to me that the training videos are a great tool but I obviously have some pretty serious leaks and the best way to pick them up is with a coach. If the general view is that most coaches are overpriced, underqualified and a bit of a rip off though I might rethink.

Dont forget all videos and all sites that do Staking etc have "coaches"....So if you dont want to pay a coach individually
because its expensive but you want to pay to watch videos (wich u can find in the internet for free sometimes )
or you want to pay a stable to have a group coaching with 15 guys at the same time a huge % of your profit you are not doing the right math imo

Fact is most players dont have money and dont know whats best for them usually they chose the cheapest route , and more often than not they dont get very far .

Players who buy coaching usually play midstakes nl25 -nl200 and have money and experience to know how to select a good coach and they also understand well the advantages/disadvantages of each option.

I hope im not being harsh but theres no better way than telling the plain truth and i can add one example , you prefer to pay 100$ hour for someone to help u individually or pay the same guy
20$ hour (because the same coach will do a video or a group coaching session wich is cheaper because 10 guys pay 20$.....) and have generalistic content ...All good and smart coaches know this
they know ...ok you dont want to pay 100$ ? lets do some videos...and lets do some group coaching where we get a % of profit + some advance....they get money anyway .....u get worst content for cheaper price but in the end the knowledge u gain is much smaller

gl

I am not saying there is no value to coaching just a lot of shadiness, so you need to be careful. I really don't know what "most" coaches are like and I doubt anyone has great read on this as there are so many sources of poker information these it is hard to keep up with it all.

You're not being harsh, I understand what you're trying to say. Before starting this thread I would have happily paid the going rate for a good 1-1 coach and just wanted some basic feedback such as the rates, number of hours etc to get the most out of it. I have to say though that the initial feeling I had reading some of the comments (not just here but a couple of other places as well) is one of negativity and puts me off slightly. I probably will still look for a coach, I believe that there are some big leaks in my game that a good coach could help with, but I'll certainly make sure beforehand that whoever it is has a solid reputation.

Generally speaking a coach is very expensive and most coaches have no real results of students to show for.

A coaching system / guided coaching is more effective and you will get more value for money.

I personally think most training sites only consist of thousand(s) of videos, and they have been doing that for 10 years, no advanced learning, it's like Netflix, just watching poker... not effective with learning at all.

Bc of that you gotta look what's the best mix of all, which (imo) is bestpokercoaching.

I think the biggest thing is to not overpay. Almost any coach has value (if they beat the games youre trying to beat), but if you pay too much for that value it wont help you make more money. Make a calculation of what you think a good coach could make you.

Example:

Lets say you find a coach who you think will increase your winrate by 1bb/100 after having done say 6 sessions.

You play 100K hands per year (not a lot but its just an example).

In 1 year this coach will increase your winnings for that year by 1bb*1000 (bb/100 so 100*1000=100,000), meaning he made you 1000bb. Technically assuming no discount rate (inflation, or money you could have made for putting the coaching payments in the bank) this coaching would be worth 1000bb assuming you could only play for 1 year (clearly in most cases you will keep making 1bb extra for more years to come).

So if you play 25NL this coaching would be worth 250$ to you (1000*0.25=250).

I think this is the kind of calculation almost no one makes, but its very easy to spot coaches that are way too expensive for you this way.

When you make a calculation like this be conservative in how much you think the coach can do for you, so you have a margin of error.

While there are a lot of dated videos still floating around, there is WAY more value in training site IF the student applies himself. It can be a challenge to find ways switch the passive video watching into an active learning session, but it can be done. Back in the day training videos were key to helping me become a full-time pro!

You're right mike, but you'd figure in 8 years sites might improve. Besides bestpokercoaching, there is no learning system out there which is quite embarrassing imo.

"Hey i'm playing high stakes, watch me play and listen to my smart bs that will never help you win on lower limits" is the name of the game

I agree in general that some coaches are WAY overpriced, but I think it is very hard to really estimate the value a coach brings with these types of WR calculations. There are just too many variables that change over time. The biggest might be the students ability to practice and apply what the coach teaches them.

I also changed my perspective on this years ago when I paid $50/hr for some tennis lessons. I had zero expectations of making money from tennis but I was happy to pay for the joy and learning. To be clear, I am saying that this is another small factor to consider.

I won't comment on your "system" as I don't really know much about it.

In 8+ years sites have improved greatly. The top video makers these day are WAY better players than 8 years ago, which makes sense as we have all gotten better at this game. There are way more high quality "concept/theory" videos now. There are way more tools one can use to get better, and videos to teach you to uses these tools.

Absolutely agree with this. Since I joined a training site I've watched hundreds of videos and I learn something from almost every one.

Our system is the only one that produces verifiable before and after results. To be fair, $20/month coaching sites don't run on the success of their students, they have no incentive to do so.
If we did always what our students wanted, jeez, we'd be nowhere. Aligning incentives does the trick.
And once you do that, you have to stop circle-jerking gto-phantasies. You actually have to do what works. Difference between University and the "real business world".
One you get paid for scking teachers d$ck, other you get paid for your real market value.
Ask any comparative cultural study student

I think the quality of videos hasn't even improved with the quality of the game. Sick enough that 8 years ago some sleeping pill, coke-snorting-weed-bag would get paid to record himself. So yeah, you don't see that today anymore and in a weird way we could convince ourselves that this is "progress".
You always put metrics in relation to something, otherwise they are meaningless.

Everybody will agree with that statement, and i don't think yours is "wrong" either, just interpreting the data differently.

As long as you are being conservative in your estimate at least you know youre not overpaying. Way better than nothing imo. Of course we won't know how much a coach will bring to the table.

I agree completely with your tennis statement. But for poker most players just want to make money (or well they say they do), so its slightly different in this field. That doesn't mean there is no other utility to be gained besides financial ones like you mention .

Mike you have a good point about the "joy of learning".

Often "fun" and "joy" do come together with "success". It's simply important to figure out what success means to you. Doesn't have to be millions.

For me in poker making anything below a million meant failure. I was serious about being a pro etc.

We have others on the team who are happy because we helped them make as little as $200/month. They have a job, family, but they love the game.

And believe me, every game is more fun when you're winning (at least most of the time lol).

What about Upswing poker of Doug Polk? Does anyone know if its actually worth it? Yesterday I saw a $224 offer for a year membership. I want to learn as much as I can from any site and improve by myself also.

I payed 350 for this guys software course it was double your 6 max win rate long time ago. So i rewatched it recently cause i am getting back into 6 max again to refresh my memory. Then i realized it was kind of confusing so I ask 2 simple questions about his course that he made and I was told to ask in his free forum. Where people who don't pay for anything ask questions about anything. And sometimes he doesn't answer the questions. This is about his course I payed 350 dollars for and I can't simple email back about the questions. Its like if green is not put in his hands your not appreciated if your a old customer. I have not asked him a question in years. I will never go back on his site again.

I did learn some stuff from gordon and his course especially with using a hud but to be honest I learned how to get better at poker by just playing and studying my own hand history. Gordon stuff is more of a mind refresher imo its just basic math from huds(hud only gets you so far). All the best players in the world learned on their own. Going from doug polk, dwan, ivey, isildur, antonius, jungleman etc. They taught themselves through their own hand histories. And the best advice I can give is study your opponents that are crushing you and find out why and figure out a way to stop them from crushing you. So imo coach yourself. And if that doesn't work then ask around and get peoples feed back on the different poker sites. I am not going to promote any poker site on here but if you pm me all shoot your straight on how to improve in poker without losing a ton of money.

@fkme2tears:

Hi Shane,

feel free to post the full conversation you had with our support. Please include my very polite response as well + answer to your question.
If you do this, do it the right way.



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We get glowing reviews everywhere and people telling stuff like "even if you don't believe in yourself, THEY (BPC) believe in you and do everything for you.
Support is super fast and very helpful as well.
That's the overwhelming message over roughly 5 years.

So where did this go wrong:

Fwiw, it does hurt me to see this as i do believe in a special bond to people who bought products from us. We constantly update and improve programs for free, we're the hardest working team in the industry.
You will see from the convo (that he will hopefully post) how nice we were. But there's a line and some people believe that only because they gave you money, they can demand anything.

Anyways, there's a good chance he just had a bad day or whatever and is a fine guy. So as always, we don't take this personal, but we do have to state the truth.