I took up cr pro "citizenwind" on his offer of cheap coaching for donations to his sick friend,i shipped cw 300 on ftp directly and took 6hrs worth.We arranged our first lesson and it started up as expected.

Twenty mins into the lesson i couldnt answer a question that he asked me,i just wasnt getting exactly what he was asking,the lesson kinda stalled and he became frustrated that i couldnt answer.Now he is meant to be a proffesional coach and i assumed that this guy is going to be good as he is a cr pro.How a lesson stalls in this way with an experience coach i dont know,how does he not move it along to something i can answer or try a diff approach.Ive had lessons with other coaches before and never experienced anything like this,my last paid lesson was with a 2+2 mod and that went fine as it should do when a coach is being helpfull and reasonable.

So we are 20 mins in and the next thing i know he is saying to me,this lesson is over ,im giving u my time,im not wasting my time,i cant coach you im too frustrated.How the hell is this justified? a guy im paying 50$ an hour is telling me lesson over, as he is frustrated! He asked me how many lessons i had taken and said he doesnt see how he can coach me and obviously no refunds since it was donations.As the lesson went downhill it really felt as tho he wanted me to just quit and walk away as he couldnt careless it seemed,perhaps this is just his normal bevaviour i dont know.My thought is that he took on a bit more than he can chew with the cheap lessons and was pissed that he now has to do it at half his normal rate.If u look at his blog recently and see some of the comments,for example the guy who asked him for stats etc,he called him a douche and prick,this is the kind of attitude that emerged during my lesson.up until this point i hadnt been rude in anyway what so ever.

Now at this point in the lesson i blew my top and reacted badly and angrily,resulting in verbal abuse my side on skype which he promtly hung up.I apoligized shortly after on skype for ranting at him and he told me im still entitled to the 5hrs on top and i have to wait a month to cool off.

When the lesson first ended i felt bad about the way i reacted to him on voice,but once i calmed down and thought about how the lesson was conducted and his behaviour an attitude prior to me going off at him,i wanted to contact cr support to make them aware of this situation.There response was "its nothing to do with them since it was privately booked lesson",this is despite the fact he is a cr pro,i saw the offer on a a cr hosted blog + a post on a cr forum.So thx alot for help there cr support.

To wrap up: Citizenwind made a grand gesture to his sick friend,took the money then turned in an extremely poor effort in respect to paying back my donation.He seems to think because he donated his time cheaper than usual it allows him to be a tool.Unfortunately my rant at end of the lesson gives him excuses to justify himself,but all i can say is that we have done 20 mins of the 360 minutes ive paid for and im not even going to bother to try and get my other 5 hours as he is such a p.o.s.Just gonna write the money off and put it down to lesson learned.My advice to anyone looking for a nice friendly coach to work with is avoid this guy like the plague...

Sounds like he was more interested in you answering his questions than him yours.

Pretty unprofessional on his part if that's the case.

You should of watched his videos first. It's mostly him saying dumb things and being corrected if he's doing a duo..

My name is Alex Huang and I am the Brand Manager for CardRunners. I wanted to let the OP know that I am aware of his situation and I will be investigating what happened. I'll report back ASAP.

Thanks.

Alex Huang
CR Brand Manager

Weak man, weak

Yes, this was one of the most difficult sessions, if not the most difficult, I've ever done. In my eyes, OP was curt, argumentative, and close-minded. I'd ask a question like "Why do you raise AK here? And he'd respond 'Because I have AK, man!'" And then get frustrated when I asked for a less circular answer. There's only so much I can do from there.

As soon as things became sour, OP told me to "go **** myself," to "shove the $300 up my ass," and he began accusing me of purposefully sabotaging the lesson so I could scam him out of the money. I told him the lesson was over, that I needed to cool off, and that we should focus on starting fresh the next lesson, and focus on making the most of the rest of our time. He began swearing again, so I hung up on him. I went for a walk, came back and told him I'D STILL HONOR THE REST OF THE LESSONS. It's his decision to not take the rest of them. I'm sure OP can confirm all of this.

CR had nothing to do with this. I was doing something completely on my own accord out of love for a friend. But I applaud CR for showing great initiative and following up on the matter anyway.

I'll refund $250 if you want it, OP. At the end of the day, I'd rather be fair and donating an extra $250 than to be considered remotely untrustworthy. Though I'll say, on a personal note, that it sucks to set out doing something really altruistic and feel like a total ****-bag because of it.

Alvin "Citizenwind" Lau

Money sent,matter closed i guess.

Sounds like you two weren't meant to get along, although tbh if OP is going to answer such questions in such a manner when someone is trying to help them, they're going to frustrate way more than just this one coach.

if people already know the answers to all the questions, he wouldn't need a coach...

No. Read again.

If you cant answer a question like why are you raising here with anything but "because it's AK man" you will generally have a hard time making money playing poker and also finding a good coach.

1) he has had other coaches
2) if a coach can't get an answer he wants, he should ask a different question. hes being paid. its his job. period.

if thats how he answers it, coach should ask a different question that could engage the student better. he is not ******ed and the "uncoachable" tone is quite condescending. not everyone is a professional, hence... the coach.

not really, citizen just wanted his student to help him understand how to play AK. reverse coaching.

yeah....I know that...I just wanted to point out that if someone might not be able to look beyond a certain seemingly easy to answer question I'm not sure if this person will ever be good in poker. Not sure if it's the same but I will try an example: You are asking someone why he eats and he only answers "cause I'm hungry". Sure he might be hungry but if you get asked the question again you might wanna think about a different answer like "cause I havent eaten anything in the last 7 hours" or "cause I just walked beyond a burger joint" or something like that.

But anyways....since neither one of us will ever know what exactly went down and the issue seems resolved I think this thread could be closed.

Alvin,

Hey I have a business (not poker related) and every time I tried to do something free for people who couldn't afford it (or at a heavy discount and all money goes to charity) I got people like this who would take advantage of me. Sometimes it wasn't planned..like sometimes someone would just legitimately not be able to afford something and I would give them heavy discount or not charge at all. Every single time these were the most frustrating, difficult, and time-consuming clients.

I kept thinking I was getting unlucky but after 7 years of doing things like this I decided to stop. I decided that my services were valuable enough and enough people would pay and respect it enough to where if I wanted to do "charitable" things or help people out, I would do so with my own money instead of offering something for free, etc..

So my advice would be just keep coaching at your normal rate and if you wanna help people out, just use your money or your time or resources or whatever. You're very very rarely gonna get someone who pays you your normal rate act like this. And this is the kinda $*** that ruins your energy for the day and affects your mood, other clients and possibly family.

This nails it. I always thought that these things only happened to me. But most of my progression as a poker player came from the altruism of other players.

good post gene fish

I don't really like Citizenwind, but most players just starting out can't really handle these sorts of questions because they just poke a big hole in their perception of themselves being a good player. That's not to say I think it's impossible to teach them, but it's incredibly hard and frustrating. The biggest problem is that when you confront a beginner with a mistake like this they feel attacked and respond in the worst possible manner. I think Citizenwind could have handled it better just from the random stuff I've read in here, however, it's a frustrating situation on both sides and I can easily see how something like this would happen. Some people just aren't ready to learn.

I don't agree with Fish's post, otherwise wouldn't all the coaches charging $25-50 per hour be complaining of terrible students?

I charged $50 hour for enough time to have a few dozen students awhile back and had no issues. I know people that charge $30-50 and I never hear complaints about their students being *******s.

I don't think this is a reflection of cheap coaching, I think it's a reflection of two people that just did not get along well. Perhaps both people made bad decisions or one of them was truly terrible, I don't know.

I also do not agree with "well if he doesn't know why he's raising AK he's going to suck with or without a coach." That's the point of coaching. I ask people all the time in heads up sngs, "why are you limping that hand 50bb deep." It doesn't matter if they don't have a reason or say "well I want to see a flop" if the guy OOP is folding 60% of the time they are basically just as wrong and I need to explain to them the value of fold equity and an overall wide button raising strategy against that specific opponent.

That's just an example, but I'm sure it carries over to whatever game you're coaching here.

It's really troubling to see two people get into such an argument and make such a big issue of this. Hopefully you each have success working with other people.

I don't see any use in issuing a barrage of questions for OP and CW here, refund has been issued and they are done with each other.

However, this confuses me:

Did you donate the coaching money to charity prior to the first session? By the sound of your version of the experience it surprises me that you didn't snap refund OP and wash your hands of the mess.

It's also kind of funny to me that $50hr is now considered welfare coaching. Yes, it's cheap compared to most hourlies, but that's like saying "that guy has the base model Aston Martin, he lives on the bad side of Beverly Hills."

The cheaper you charge the less skilled of students you probably have, but by the same token they are often much more impressed with the knowledge that you share with them.

Coaching by CW was offered vs a donation to help pay health care for one of his friend.

So yeah it was kind of, for each 50$ you gave to this charity I'll coach you for 1 hour.

This is not a professional coach in my opinion. Also I see many videos from popular coaching sites and some of them are really good, but to be honest some of the coaches are playing so bad that I sometimes think, how the hell is he winner? Probably from coaching money... Really good coaches are usually really expensive, because they know how much is their /h. That's not a rule tho, because I know some coaches that are very good and they don't charge... But in the most cases...
Also every good poker player cannot be good coach... I know some very good mathematics, but some of them are terrible at teaching maths. Same goes for poker coaches.

To clarify -- Alvin was helping to raise money for a friend of his who was hospitalized.

Alvin gave a discounted rate for coaching in an effort to raise as much money to alleviate costs (and matched 100% on the first few thousand out of his own pocket).

I dun get it, why didn't you refund the money right away? You could've ended this issue quickly if you just gave him his money back. Guess you were too greedy to... you just ruined ur own rep

Cheng this seems a little extreme.

We don't know all the details here or the thoughts going through each person's head. If we had something like audio from the session or the coach flat refusing a refund, then a more harsh reaction would be more appropriate in my opinion.

Hindsight is 20/20, even if CW should've refunded instantly (I asked in my prior post why he did not, though it does not mean he's terrible for not doing so) the one thing that is obvious here is that both OP and CW got under each other's skin. Coaches aren't immune from emotional reactions, and it could very well be true that CW didn't instantly offer a refund because he wanted to continue to help the student/make right on the session.

I'm not saying that is the case, nor excusing CW or OP from anything that may have happened here, but there could be quite a few variables that change the degree of "wrong" from both parties here and either party could possibly have handled this well.