Originally Posted by CasperW
I can't find the thread but here is my story:
Summary:
The overwhelming majority of Jason's students have had worse results after his coaching than beforehand. Many winning players have become losing or break-even players as a result of following his advice.
a) I was a consistent, high winning 2/4 NL 6 max player before coached by Jason Ho.
b) I first paid Jason $4500 ($1500 +$3000) in coaching fees based on his StoxPoker.com reputation.
c) After first 2 months went well, Jason had me pay $10,000 upfront for a “2-week Intensive” course followed by another $10,000 fee based on profits and to be his “protégé” to mentor through high stakes.
d) After losing month in the “Intensive” course, Jason didn’t fulfill the agreement and asks for additional payments despite no profits.
e) Jason convinces me to open and add funds to a Full-Tilt.com account, loses about $11,800 and stops providing regular coaching as I struggle at 2/4 following his new playing styles.
f) Jason convinces me to do another profit-sharing agreement, doesn’t fulfill it and currently owes me $1000.
g) Jason’s uninformed advice and unethical behavior has cost me estimated losses of about $150,000.
To: StoxPoker.com:
I am writing to complain about how my affiliation with one of the StoxPoker.com coaches and lead instructors, Jason Ho (Code 7654321), has caused serious damage to my bankroll and confidence. I believe Stoxpoker.com bears some responsibility for not conducting an adequate background check on him.
I have been a paid member (through affiliates) of StoxPoker.com since around mid 2005.
Around November 2008, I decided to seek a coach to help me move up to play 3/6 NL 6max (“3/6”) and above and saw that Jason Ho “Code7654321” was advertising his services under the members-only “coaching forum” on your site. He also received good reviews from other lead instructors on your site, such as “mental coach,” Jared Tendler, which impressed me. Your site had also advertised that Jason won over $1 million in the past year playing online poker playing a “game-theory,” heavy mathematically-based style.
At that point, I had been a dominant winner at 2/4 NL 6 max (“2/4”). My poker career had begun with me grinding small limits at NL as well as limit hold’em, not having a losing month for about 24 months up until February, 2009. From 01/01/08 to 12/03/08, I won about $80,470 at 2/4. This would be a 4.36BB/100 win rate over 230,509 hands, which is considered to be very good. I had also won an additional $20,000 in other limits. I initially paid Jason $1500 for 5 lessons then $3000 for 10 more lessons. Part of the reason I paid for the additional lessons was because he told me he would only give a custom HUD (Heads up Display for Holdem Manager) only to students who paid for 10 lessons. In our first coaching session, Jason told me that he would have me playing 25/50 NL 6 max within a year. I was skeptical but based on his reputation, I was pleased to hear that.
The coaching initially went well in December and January, 2009. Under his guidance, I played 3/6, some 5/10 NL full-ring and won the same amount I had won in previous months although I sometimes doubted his advice. In January 2009, he told me that because I was a very strong player and he wanted to accelerate my progress, he would undertake a “profit-sharing” agreement starting in February 2009 with me. The agreement would be that he would give me free coaching for at least 2 weeks at 5/10 NL 6-max (“5/10”) and would take his coaching fees out of half my winnings. That seemed to be a great deal and I agreed to it.
Around January 20, 2009, Jason told me that his girlfriend didn’t think the deal would be fair to him. Instead he proposed a complicated agreement whereby I would undertake his “2 Week Intensive, 40 hour” coaching course whereby I would pay him $10,000 upfront, and another $10,000 from profits for a total fee of $20,000.
The agreement was also that he would provide me unlimited coaching to ensure that I would feel comfortable playing 5/10 above and beyond the 40 hours of the course. One kicker would be that he agreed to play 15-20 hours/week on my account. The final kicker was that after the course. I would be his “protégé,” meaning I would have unlimited access to his coaching, specialized documents he would produce, and that he would eventually have me be a winner in 25/50 NL 6 max in return for a monthly fee of $5000. I asked for a traditional staking agreement instead whereby he could take some of my profits in exchange for covering my losses but instead he sold his agreement to me as a “no-lose” proposition.
We also talked about how a player at StoxPoker.com, known as Matt “Mbolt1” Bolt had recently moved from micro-limits to winning over $100,000/month at medium to high stakes with the help of Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt, another well-regarded high stakes StoxPoker.com coach and lead instructor. Jason led me to believe that I would be a similar success story. Relying on his reputation as a well-regarded StoxPoker.com coach who had also won over $1 million, I agreed to this deal.
The 2 week-Intensive sessions did not go well. Throughout the course, I felt uncomfortable during the coaching sessions as he would have me playing differently than he had coached me at 3/6. He explained that good play at 5/10 was much different than the lower limits so I accepted the unorthodox lines he had me play. For instance, at 2/4 and 3/6, I had been continuation-betting the Turn with about 25% frequency, but Jason emphasized that such low frequency was too passive and exploitable. He recommended instead that I continuation-bet the Turn with about 50% frequency.
He also forwarded me some emails between him and Kyle “Cottonseed” Hendon, another well-regarded, high-stakes StoxPoker.com coach where Cottonseed praised his analytical abilities after Jason provided him with a customized “leak-analysis” report. He also told me Cottonseed was paying him $1000/hr for his coaching and had sent him his entire database. He also told me that Leatherass was also seeking his coaching and had also sent Jason his entire database. He told me that Leatherass’s database indicated he was a “brute-force” player who did not play optimally.
In fact, Jason told me he had made more than Leatherass did in 2008 while playing substantially fewer hours. He also told me that he was in the process of preparing a document that would “virtually solve” NL 6 max by being “game-theory optimal” and this strategy would be “unexploitable.” He expected to be able to sell this document to high stakes players for over $100,000 each. He would work on this document during coaching sessions and appeared distracted many times.
During the course, I lost about $15,000 combined during our coaching sessions and playing on my own. On the last day of the sessions, he had me look up the PLO tables, said that he saw a “big fish” at 10/20 PLO 6 max and had me play him at a 6 max table. I had never played PLO at that point so he directed every single move (During the sessions, he had mentioned that he had made more lifetime earnings in PLO than NL and that eventually, he would teach me PLO since he thought it was more geared towards my tight, playing style). I merely followed his instructions at the PLO table. The session ended with about $6000 in PLO losses.
Following that day, Jason made about $13,000 that weekend on my account in about 5 hours of play. He then immediately asked for the remainder of the coaching fees of $10,000 even though our agreement had specified that the remainder of the fee was to be from profits. I told him so but he was very insistent so I agreed to immediately pay $5000, expecting he would continue to have similar success playing on my account.
However, that would be all the play he would do on my account except for a few isolated 2/4 and 3/6 sessions in the upcoming months. For the remainder of February, I was left to play on my own and finished the month losing about $5000 plus the additional $15, 000 I paid Jason for a total loss of about $20,000. This loss affected my confidence and bankroll and I moved back down to playing 2/4, feeling an enormous amount of disappointment and feeling let down by this coach was supposedly going to mentor me to being a high stakes winner.
Consequently, I struggled when I went back to playing 2/4 trying to incorporate the new strategies Jason had taught me. Around mid-April 2009, Jason advised to open up a Full-TiltPoker.com (“Full-Tilt) account under his affiliate and I would receive a favorable rakeback deal. He also said he felt bad for my struggles and he said if I put money in the account, he would play 2/4 there to boost back my bankroll. I deposited $12,000 in that account and asked him if that was enough since it was 30 buy-ins. He said it was. A few days later, he told me he lost it all, except for about $150. I was shocked since Jason had told me that most of his students played at Full-Tilt and I assumed he knew how those games played. He even declined my offer to provide data-mined hand histories beforehand. He also told me afterwards that 30 buy-ins was not enough for his mass-multi tabling!
Because of this hit to my bankroll and confidence, my game suffered and I consequently have had numerous breakeven and slightly losing months after not having a losing month in about the past 24 months before the February Intensive coaching. Frequently, I also lost some motivation to play, since it seemed that I was constantly either losing or at best, breaking even. I felt at times that despite, my best efforts, I was constantly regressing. I did not play the amount of hours I was accustomed to playing. When I told Jason about my struggles, he told me that I had simply not experienced regular “variance” in my game and that my previous success may have been that I was running over expectation and that I merely had to keep “plugging away.” He would regularly advise me to play different styles as I continued to struggle.
Since then, Jason has advised me to play PLO and coached me for a few sessions in return for potential profits from playing PLO. He bragged that he had multiple students who were 4BB/100 winners at PLO. I have lost about $7000 in PLO and have stopped playing it since. Despite Jason’s coaching, I did not feel comfortable playing PLO and frequently did not know what the “correct” play was in many situations. Finally, around October, 2009, he told me he had extensively studied the game of “nanonoko,” a dominant 2/4 NL 6 max player on PokerStars.com.
He said he felt bad about losing my $12,000 on Full-Tilt in April and wanted to make it up to me. This time, we would contribute $5000 each to my account and he would play 2/4. He promptly lost that as well but told me that he had taken shots at 5/10 PLO to build up the $10,000 and he would pay me back. I have received about $4000 back and he has owed me $1000 for about a month. On 12/24/09, Jason transferred $1000 from my account to his account, “zenconcept” and told me about it afterwards. He paid back $1000 about 2 weeks later and currently, still owes me $1000.
In short, I won approximately $110,000 in 2008, with only $10,000 of it coming after Jason coached me. I was still improving and highly confident of doing better in 2009. Instead, in 2009, overall my results are that I have lost about $15,000. Needless to say, Jason’s flawed advice has cost me much in terms of coaching fees and lost potential earnings. I estimate my true losses to be at least $150,000. Before coaching with Jason, I was a dominant 2/4 player. Because of my results in 2009, I am currently playing 1/2 NL 6 max.
Having now spoken to some of Jason’s students and reanalyzed the coaching advice he gave me, I believe that Jason only knows enough about poker to appear to be an expert player. I believe that StoxPoker.com has advertised and given credence to someone who, at best, gave me dangerous, uninformed and untested advice, and at worst, purposely and knowingly gave me wrong advice for unknown reasons.
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