I've been playing poker on and off for about 10 years now.

The times I've been playing I was always really serious and studying hard.
I have about 8-10 books on poker lying around, most I've read more than once.

I feel like I have a really solid grasp on the fundamentals and on how to play ABC poker against bad opponents.

On the other hand, I don't consider myself an expert of even a very good player by all means.

I'm currently a winning player both live and online, but both over very small sample sizes.


My ROI in live tournaments is currently 65%, but I've only played 13 tournaments. I made the money in 5 of those, being 38%
Most of them were small cashes and one was a deal we made with 3 players remaining.

Online I'm currently +20BB/100 over 2000 hands.


I do feel like I understand the game way better than the people at my table, mostly at the live tournaments.
Since I started playing again a few weeks ago I just seem to be playing way better than I was about two years ago when I last played.


My goals for now are to play 10k hands online this month to get a better view of my statistics.
And to play 100 of these live tournaments to see what kind of ROI I end up with and if I can remain a winning player.


Is it too soon for me to start thinking about coaching?
Do I need to be a solid, proven, winning player to coach others?

I also think I would learn a great deal myself from coaching others.

The thing I'm afraid of is that maybe I'll teach wrong strategies and people will become worse players from being coached by me.
Or people just not believing I can teach them anything since I'm only winning over such a small sample size.

Yes, you need a much larger sample size to be a proven winner. Also, being a proven winner is necessary for being a solid coach (for a given stake level) but not sufficient. You also need teaching skills.

As for sample size, 100k hands might be a decent start for cash. For tourneys, you really need at least a few thousand to get any sense of your win rate.

Well, the first question I think is: why do you want to coach in the first place?

Results matter, but they are pointless if you can't explain yourself or if you don't like teaching/mentoring.

Skills are kind of relative. You don't need to beat NL200 if you want to teach Poker to someone who is struggling at NL10 - it's probably fine if you beat NL50, or NL10 for what matters!

As long as you can add something to someone's game, you are worth his money. Just set your fees accordingly to the extra value you can give.

That's probably a sign that you are not ready. If you do not believe in the quality of you teach, nobody will