Hi everyone,

I'm a losing small stakes PLO cash game player and was considering getting some database analysis done for $200 per hour. He's a solid winning player mid/occasional high stakes player but I play mainly $10/$.25 - $.25/$.50 and i'm losing at a healthy rate. Would you recommend getting this analysis now or working on my game via other methods or finding a cheaper coach first before contacting him?

Thanks

I think database analysis has its place but it sounds like you need someone to work with you on fundamentals and database analysis isn't really the way to go for that.

TL;DR:

This thread has been created because the OP is a student of mine and has requested a refund of $150 of the $200 he paid for an analysis that I did on his DB.

The way that the OP was structured indicates that he wants a consensus on whether or not the amount of money is worth being paid for an analysis but this is slightly misleading to the actual case as the money has already been spent, the analysis done, and many other factors should be considered.

I believe i have been nothing but ethical and respectable in my dealings with this particular student and want to use this opportunity to defend myself against the accusations he made to me via email that he may make public.

Botnic11 first contacted me on the 2nd of September 2011 via my coaching page at www.godlikeroy.com/coaching by filling out my coaching form with the following response:

I replied to his email with this:

From here we sent 15-20 emails back and forth (total) where I gave further advice to him free of charge on subjects such as training sites, books, poker software, other coaches, coaching in general and my own personal game and approach to poker.

I was fully booked in regards to having no time to take on further students at the time in addition to my playing commitments and I told him this at the time. I said that if he wished to contact me after a month or so that I would have some more time and would be able to take him on as a student. He said he was very keen.

A month later he did get in touch and we sent some more emails back and forth. Once again in one of his emails he said:

From everything that I had gathered about the student throughout our emails I felt that an initial hour of DB analysis would be more beneficial than other coaching, and that we could then take it from there.

After some more time and emailing back and forth, he sent through $200 and his hands and I did a DB analysis for him. This analysis was ~3,000 words long and went into great detail into his game and the leaks that I felt he had.

There was a bit of an issue in regards to the analysis as of the hands he originally sent I was only able to import 10,000 of them and I ran my analysis based on that sample. He had actually sent (or intended to and something went awry) ~30k hands. When I realised that I made a mistake and did the analysis on a sample that was less than what we had made an understanding of I told him to re-send the hands and that I would re-import them and re-do the analysis on the new sample.

It turned out that the majority of his stats were identical or almost identical in the 30k hand sample as they were in the 10k hand sample so I stood by my original analysis for those. For any stats that were even slightly different I added any additional thoughts that I felt would be helpful to his game and always erred on the side of providing more rather than less advice.

After this was done he sent me an email a while later saying he was quitting cash games. I didn't reply to this (I read it while I was doing something else, made a mental note to reply but ended up forgetting. I regret not replying but I don't think the lack of a response makes me a bad coach or provides reason for a refund). His email was also a bit one-sided in that he said he would like to get in touch again to ask for more coaching and he didn't ask any further questions that required answering.

Several weeks later I received this email:

This was a few days ago. I replied and told him I felt I did no wrong in regards to my ethics and approach to coaching. I told him that I would be happy for either he or I to make a thread such as this with all the details of our correspondence and if the general consensus was that I was in the wrong that I would refund double of what he paid me. I stand by this.

A couple of specifics I want to address in public -- This was my response regarding LeakBuster:

Finally, in a response to my latest email you (Botnic11) mentioned the following:

This is a bit funny as I had personally recommended Gakn29 as a coach to no less than 5 people (probably closer to 10) for the exact reason that I felt his coaching was more worthwhile to smaller stakes players than mine was. The most recent of these recommendations was no less than a week ago and with the permission of the other parties I will happily make these PMs/Emails public so that it is known that I am not out to "rip people off" or anything of that nature.

I am also certainly not above recommending other coaches who charge lesser rates, or recommending software or training sites or other (cheaper) avenues of coaching if the student asks or indicates wanting such information.

In this particular case however the student (Botnic11) contacted my via my coaching page on my website where my rates are very visible and asked for my advice. He also said things like "I am quite intelligent" and "I would like to fast-track my learning". I gave him 1-2 hours worth of free coaching advice via email and offered alternate methods for learning (supplemental to coaching) so the fact that he has accused me of ripping him off and taking advantage of him, and asked for a refund, is offensive to me.

I am making a stand to not give a refund out of principle and policy, not because of the money. I am not opposed to giving refunds to students who feel that the quality of my coaching was poor or that I was unethical in my dealings with them and that there is evidence of such behavior on my behalf.

If the general consensus is that i owe the OP a refund then i will happily refund double his money. If not then I hope this issue goes away and we can all move on.

Roy

Also I would be happy to post every email and piece of contact between the two of us ITT if anyone thinks it would help or be appropriate. As of now I think it would only be clutter but I have nothing to hide within our entirety of dealings.

First of all, i'm a poker noob and Roy knew that. Everyone new to poker has a lot to learn regardless of their background. I explained to Roy that I am/was an intelligent idividual and was studying at Masters level, but if you look at the first email I also explained that I have a chronic illness and am prone to making bad decisions.

At no stage did Roy recommend Gakn29 to me despite knowing I was a big losing small stakes PLO player. Also at no stage did he recommend any books other than Theory of Poker. He said he didn't recommend any books but also admitted to not having read any recent PLO books. I explained to him that I wanted to fast-track my learning and for a premium price coach, I would expect him to point me in all the right directions, including Leak Buster, for us to get started. He didn't.

He was quite prepared to charge me hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars to do DB analysis that could be done by Leak Buster for $50. Granted, some of his analysis may go above that, but what he gave me for the first $200 did not.

I realised Roy was charging a premium price so I spent some time emailing back and forth to ensure he would be the coach for me before even parting with $200. I think this is perfectly reasonably. As someone who was training to be a professional before I fell ill, I understand the need to spend time ensuring I can meet the person's needs before I begin charging them for my time. Roy seems to hold this against me, though, as you can see above.

When I finally parted with my $200, I asked for a DB analysis in my 30,000 or so hands. Several days went by before I sent him an email asking what was happening with my report, and he said he was busy and would get back to me asap. When he got it to me, he said he was only able to perform an analysis on 3000 hands as that was all that was available. He didn't contact me to see if something had gone wrong, and then he briefly reviewed the other 27,000 hands and said his analysis stood because most of the stats were the same. Also, Roy didn't explain what I would get for $200, other than essentially "you get what you pay for." For $200 he covered VPIP, PFR, AFQ and a couple of others, as well as some comments about starting hands. There was certainly a lot of writing, but i'd say a lot of it was standard cut and paste material.

So why, Roy, didn't you refer me to Gakn29 when you are allegedly referring other students and i'm in the same position as them? Can any of those students vouch for you doing this?

Then, when I tried making some adjustments and kept losing and sent Roy an email saying I was quitting cash games, I received no response. He wasn't at all interested in my experience with him or why I decided to quit.

Overall, I feel taken advantage of. I explained that I was sick and prone to making bad decisions, and I feel Roy intentionally withheld information from me, such as about Leak Buster and about cheaper coaches better suited to my circumstances.

I'm also outraged that Roy posted these personal emails of mine on this public forum so now everyone who reads these posts knows about my health problems. I'm sure part of it was an attempt to embarrass me as well.

Cheers Roy. Good game.

P.p.s The coach in question is Godlikeroy.

I think what all of this comes down to is the question I asked above - why, Roy, did you not refer me to a more suitable coach when you are doing that for other people? Was it because I told you I was sick and had cognitive problems and was therefore more vulnerable to exploitation than others? I'm really curious to hear your answer to this.

Just saw this thread (Roy did not ask me to see it just surfing the net) and I can say I was staked by Roy several years ago when I was just starting my poker career and have never heard anything but the best about him. Extremely honest and classy guy, and it looks like he gave a ridiculous amount of free coaching here in emails alone. There is no way OP was taken advantage of.

A few points:

#1) Being smart doesn't mean you'll be good at poker, and studying at the "Masters level" doesn't really do absolutely anything to indicate you're smart.

#2) If you have a chronic illness and are prone to making bad decisions, I would highly recommend you not pick up poker especially if you are already doing well academically. This personality does not fit well with poker, and poker isn't nearly as lucrative for new players as it used to be, especially with the future of legislation and bots being so uncertain.

#3) You are lucky Roy was willing to go back and forth emailing you, as this is a very lot of free time for him to give you. Other coaches would try to get you involved in a "package deal" rather than actually spend some free time on you and tell you beforehand to only risk 1 hour of coaching.

I agree with you posting about your health problems was probably a bad idea, but I'm guessing he didn't mean to embarrass you. He's already spent a LOT of time on you I'm sure and only been paid for one hour of it, so he probably was just trying to get his point across quickly and precise and didn't think that through.

[QUOTE=Subzero_Wins;30683563]A few points:
#1) Being smart doesn't mean you'll be good at poker, and studying at the "Masters level" doesn't really do absolutely anything to indicate you're smart.""

No, not at all. Most people get through five years of uni with distinction average. Unfortunately, I suffer from a progressive disease of the brain and again, i'm outraged that Roy posted these emails, inviting comments like this from people like you.

Your point #2 is what I would expect to hear from Roy. That, in my opinion, is the advice I would expect to hear from a responsible, ethical coach. So thanks for your opinion. I'll take that on board. If Roy had given me that advice in the first place, he would never have spent any of his valuable time on me. But he was happy to take my money.

Also, I never wanted to make any of this public. That was Roy's choice.

I don't see anything here so far that suggests there should be any sort of refund.

lol leakbuster compared to actual coaching ITT
op are you for real?

To get started correcting some major leaks before paying $200 per hour for detailed analysis/coaching, yeah, or at least recommending it to supplement coaching. Again, this is what I expect of a professional coach. Others may disagree.

You went busto (again) and are trying all you can to get anything back on your poker account IMO.. Roy seems like a classy coach and has given you more than enough 'coaching' value via the emails and DB analysis.

I don't care about the money. As I explained to Roy, I work and earn a good income. I don't need poker for a living, but I was trying to beat the game nonetheless. The point is, I should have been turned away at the outset because of my circumstances, as noted by the guy above. He wouldn't have then spent any of his time corresponding with me. I'll keep repeating this too.

What I find most outrageous about this is that Roy took it upon himself to post private and confidential emails that I sent to him when we began corresponding and discussing coaching. He could have explained the situation without doing that. He obviously put a lot of effort into the post so he could have left those out. The things I said to him were personal and embarrassing to me, and I told him those things because I felt my poker coach needed to know my limitations. And now he puts them online?

Yeah, he's all class.

You are a grown man and you say you are intelligent. YOU made the decision to pay for this service and as far as I can tell you received the service you paid for. I really don't see the issue.

Btw, I have leakbuster and it doesn't compare to a coach doing a 1-1 database analysis

Thanks for the defense guys.

I'll respond again in more depth a bit later when I have a chance (am on my phone) but I just wanted to chime in quickly in regards to my posting of the emails.

Shortly after I made my post the OP emailed me saying he was outraged that I posted what I did and started mentioning lawyers and breaches of privacy law and whatnot.

I PM'd a mod of this forum and had him edit out the parts of my OP that would be construed as personal/private.

I apologise if my post caused you as much malaise and discontent as it appears to have OP. It was unintentional.

For starters you never said you were prone to making bad decisions. I won't repeat exactly what you said (as you have asked me not to quote your emails any more) but you never said you were prone to making bad decisions.

I did not know you were a "big losing small stakes PLO player". In your original email you mentioned things like you were doing reasonably well and had had a good run for a while, and were doing poorly after that, but that doesn't imply that you're a big losing player. I was under the impression you were probably a slightly losing player who needed some leaks plugged. I was genuinely surprised when I saw your DB as I didn't realise you were at that early of a stage in your game.

You also never asked me for cheaper coaching alternatives and if you did I would have instantly recommended Gakn29, Wazz, or someone else as I have done maybe 10 times already this year.

That's because all other books suck. I'm not going to recommend a bad book and you can't hold it against me for not recommending you bad books.

I've read bits and pieces about some of the more recent PLO books and have heard reviews from other respected players that they were much like all other PLO and poker books out there.

Once again, the onus is not on me to recommend every piece of software to every student. I even recommended HEM to you (over PT3). I have recommended Leak Buster to students in the past. The reason I didn't recommend it to you to begin with was that I had no idea of the state of your game and that you needed such basic leaks plugged, some of which would have been helped by LB. If we had an ongoing coaching agreement, especially one where I was sweating you play, I would almost certainly have recommended LB in the early stages. I had a student in the past in an almost identical boat to you in terms of their game and we went down the same path and he was more than happy with my coaching.

I wasn't really prepared to charge you thousands of dollars for a DB analysis. In fact I explicitly stated that I thought you would benefit the most from only 1 hour of analysis and that there was no point in doing more until I got a good look at your game and we addressed the leaks that you had. If I was out to scam you or rip you off I would have suggested more than just the one hour.

I understand the need for this too and this is why I was always happy to respond to you in great depth and answer all the queries you had. I don't "hold it against you" but I do take offense to the fact that you think I am or was an irresponsible coach. I always go above and beyond for my students and I was merely pointing out the depth and number of email correspondence between us to highlight this fact.

Once again I apologised for the mishap that occurred when I did the analysis on the sample of hands smaller than what was agreed upon. I felt that I made this right when I re-imported the entire amount and re-did my analysis. The fact that most of your stats were the same is irrelevant. If most of them were different then the whole analysis would have been different. As it stood, most were the same, so most of the analysis remained.

I can't recall exactly what I said in regards to what you get for the $200 of analysis but I doubt it was "you get what you pay for". More likely it would be what I usually say and that is that for an initial analysis I will go over your general game and stats which are things such as VPIP/PFR/3bet/fold to 3bet, aggression frequencies, WTSD, W$SD, W$WSF and the like. The longer I have to spend on the analysis the more stats I can go into and with analysis' of 2-3hrs+ I will filter out specific hands and situations and go through them individually to find leaks in your game that would otherwise have gone unnoticed by just looking at the stats.

There was indeed a lot of writing (~3k words) and I went into as much detail as I could on all areas within the time allowed. I'm almost certain that I spent over an hour on this analysis (as I do with all of them) but that's my own fault/flaw as I get carried away. I didn't and never have cut and pasted a single piece of analysis that I have ever done. It was all typed by me specifically for you. Some of the information would undoubtedly be similar to that which I have given other students because there is a lot of overlap in general advice but there was definitely no cutting and pasting.

I didn't refer you to him because a) you didn't ask for cheaper alternatives, b) you seemed eager for a DB analysis and you sought me out for it and c) I had no idea of where your game was other than that you were probably a small losing player. Again the onus is not on me to provide you every bit of information about every avenue of coaching tools available, though I do try to do as much of this as I can.

Lastly I don't think it should even be expected that one coach recommends another one ever. In essence we are like competing businesses and sending a student to another coach is like sending a customer away. I don't really prescribe to this notion though as has been proven by the fact that I have indeed sent many students away to other coaches because I felt they would be better suited to their specific scenarios. The fact that this didn't happen in this particular cause for whatever variety of reasons should not be held against me.

I'm sure that they can. I will seek out some of them and see if they want to post in this thread. I will also contact Gakn29 himself and see if he would like to post about any students that I have referred to him.

Without revealing the name of this person, these PMs were sent on the 25th of Dec 2012 from me to a student who asked for my advice on improving their PLO game as a beginner.

Note that not only did I refer him to other coaches, but as a video producer who makes videos for both PokerStrategy and UltimateGrinders I instead recommended a different site where I felt they had videos better suited to his needs (converting from NLHE to PLO). This further goes to show that I am not out to make a quick buck or have self-serving needs and that I am always looking out for the students best interests.

Again, I regret not responding to this email. I almost always reply to every email a student sends (albeit sometimes a little late as I can get very busy) and my not replying to this one was simply a case of doing something else when I first read it (probably playing poker) and making a mental note to get back to it and forgetting. I hope this in itself isn't enough to sully my name as a coach (seems very unlikely) but I admit that I was wrong in not responding to the email and apologise for that.

I don't want to go into too much detail about your illness as I have had it edited out of my earlier post and gather you don't want it discussed on here any further. I will just say that I was not under the impression you were "prone to making bad decisions" and I did not take advantage of you. I provided you the same high level of service that I do everyone. I did not intentionally withhold any information from you.

Again, I apologise for my posting of those emails. I made my large post in haste last night and was copy pasting them to illustrate our interactions and not to embarrass you or anything of the like. I purposefully edited out your name from the emails but it didn't occur to me to go further. As soon as you made me aware of the fact that you were unhappy with my post, I PM'd a mod of this forum and asked them to edit out the applicable parts of my post.

Roy

Roy is in the clear on this one.
I don't expect sites from whom I buy stuff from to stop in the process and advice me to go buy stuff on other sites cause its cheaper. I spend some time checking out different options, then decide.

Ironicly, this has actually happened. (Which I just now remembered) And this is Roy's answer when I asked for coaching, and said I played $50PLO

I have not had coaching from Roy, but in all my dealings with him as a Mod of SSPLO, he's been nothing but aboveboard, helpful, etc. The onus to recommend leakbuster or a different coach is not on him, it's on the OP to research all available options and/or post for recommendations for his situation.

I don't feel like OP deserves any refund and I doubt Roy's reputation takes a hit from what I've read. I'd still recommend him for anyone looking for coaching in SSPLO.

what are the reasonable expectations of a poker coach/instructor/tutor? if you list them, i'm fairly sure that roy has exceeded them in this case

I don't know of Roy except for coming across his posts in the PLO forums, but I feel like no refund should be given. It is obvious from looking at his coaching site (I just looked at it now), that he is not a cheap option. If the OP was looking for a cheaper option then he never should have contacted Roy in the first place.

Thoughts:
1) The OP contacted Roy first. While he advertises his coaching, he did not seek out someone saying "I want cheap coaching, PM me if you want to coach me." He wrote an explicit message asking for coaching from Roy's website.
2) The onus should not be on the coach to make sure the player is making the best possible decision to choose that coach. While it is nice if you notice that perhaps someone could benefit more from a different coach/learning mechanism and lead them onto that path, that is not a coach's responsibility. He is a poker instructor, not an agent hired by the OP to search out the best possible coach for him.

Part of me needs to point out that unlike many coaches, Roy plays a lot, and is a proven winner, and could have made more than $200 playing poker in the time he has spent on this thread (never mind the time spent on correspondence and the actual db analysis).

I'm disturbed by OPs lack of personal responsibility. Roy did not come to your door trying to sell you service, you went to his. He did not misrepresent himself or upsell you, and he did the job contracted for. I don't know roy and have never played with him, but the effort and clarity with which he has defended himself ITT speak for themselves.

Roy is absolutely in the clear from everything I have read. He has seemed to go beyond the immediate requirements and services that you hired him for. He has acted with class which is refreshing in todays environment.

Like many have stated before me, it is your job to research all possible products. You would do the exact same thing when buying a car or a computer. Research prices, decide which product best fits your needs etc.

Yeah yeah, caveat emptor and all of that.

I was more than happy to keep my concerns private and liaise with Roy privately. I would have accepted a declined refund request, unhappily, and I would have continued private discussions to air my concerns but Roy insisted on posting my concerns on a forum such as this. You will note initially I kept the post anonymous and brief as I wanted opinions about whether I got value for money. The first opinion was that it wasn't value for money for my circumstances.

I still feel that even after Roy became aware of how big and basic my leaks were, he didn't refer me to another coach or to Leak Buster or any other avenue to address my leaks. He didn't bother to respond to me at all when he discovered I was clearly unhappy with his service, and that left a bitter taste in my mouth, after which I contacted him and complained about the overall service. Again, I still wasn't prepared to post this publicly. That was Roy's choice. You all think I received outstanding value. Fine, whatever. That doesn't change the way I feel.

****If Roy had made some more responsible recommendations, such as to use Leak Buster or to use a cheaper coach, after discovering how many leaks I had, none of this would have happened. I would have felt I received value and that Roy was being completely open and honest with me. But he didn't. Why not Roy? Why choose to withhold this information from me and recommend it to others? Granted, you weren't aware of how bad I was before the analysis, but afterwards you were. All of Roy's mates who are posting on here wil probably put the onus back on to me, but Roy himself keeps repeating that he referred other people to Gakn and other coaches/resources when he recognised they were more suitable options, but he didn't do that with me****