Trooper needs to get on the road. Maybe head out west this time. He had some good words of warning on poker coaching in the latest video. For those that can't be arsed to watch, the cliff's notes is; his new-to-poker-friend had an appointment with a Las Vegas poker coach and got next to no useful advice for $200.

"poker isn't like a golf swing or pitching a baseball -- the things that make a good poker player come from within"

Yet when you read the comments, some of them over the top fanitical it reeks of paid views and paid comments

I was googling something and somehow came across another forum thread that was about someone wanting to buy an established, aged 2+2 account.

The post was dated around 2 years ago and several people responded and an account sold.

The buyers screen name was "Poker Pro" or something similar. I wonder if that is where Trooper picked up some of the older accounts. lol

I'm a professional musician and I also hear this same fallacious argument used about musical talent all the time... but it's always by people who don't understand music/couldn't be arsed to put the work in to 'git gud'. In fact, we have plenty of historical correspondence showing that even Mozart would get offended when people would suggest that he was simply born with his talent, as though he didn't refine it through years of discipline and curiosity-driven study.

I'm not sure where your quoted post was from or the context around it but just wanted to add -- I agree there is no such thing as natural-born talent. I've watched people (mainly in sports) that have been described as having natural-born talent and they were some of the most clunky, least likely to succeed individuals in their early days. Anyone who excels to the top of their field does not have naturally born talent but instead an extreme work/practice ethic that leads to expertise that misleads people into believing it came naturally.

I would argue anytime a phrase similar to "naturally-born talent" is spoken most people should interpret it instead as having spent thousands (most likely > 10k) of hours in practice making their expertise look like naturally-born talent.

“As a matter of fact, the longer we flip coins the further from even we’re gonna get.”
-OG

Math genius right there

I'm not really sure what he was trying to say there. Just before saying this, he talked about how small sample sizes aren't useful and how variance is a *****... so, yeah, not really sure what he means.

It's actually true. It's called the arcsine law.

The proportion of heads/tails gets closer to 50% as you do more and more flips but the difference between the number of heads and tails grows bigger.

The Law also shows that if you're flipping a random fair coin and you get $1 if it's heads and pay $1 for tails that ending up close to even is the least likely result and instead the most likely result is you are either up a lot or down.

this is complete nonsense.
extreme work ethic/practice are very important in being a pro athlete. but any pro athlete is born with more athletic ability than 99.9+% of the population.that work ethic will separate them from similarly talented guys no doubt. guys like lebron and kobe work their asses off and get the absolute max out of their talent but to say they weren't also more naturally talented than basically everyone is absurd. people don't realize how talented some bench warming nba scrub is for example.are there fring nba players or whatever that never make it bc they're lazy? sure. but they still have that ability most don't come close to having to even have a remote chance at the nba.

same for poker. if everyone worked equally hard there would still be great players and still be fish. this doesn't mean everyone now is getting the 100% max of their ability- but it also doesn't mean there isn't natural talent.

I haven’t watched a Trooper video in a while but that may just get me to click one!

Ahh I see where he was going now. He missed some important words but he was mid rant so I’ll give it to him.

Totally agree.

I have a pal who played at Cal-State Fullerton. Made the NCAA once or twice but nothing to write home about accomplishment wise. We went and shot hoops with a co-worker who played ball at U of Colorado once. They both made nearly every shot WITH THEIR OFF HAND as well as making a variety of high flying dunks for fun.

Neither guy was close to being a pro player and both were worlds better than I could ever be at basketball in both physical and natural ability.

There is even a level between regular people and pros that those guys live in that regular people can’t even touch.

However we are talking about a sport that requires rare physical gifts. Even the short ones can jump out of the building and are faster than everyone else. So not exactly apples to apples to music or poker where you don’t have to have s minimum of physical gifts to qualify for the next level.

I don’t think the advice to open more from position is “horrible” advice. I was shocked he said that.

I don’t understand the advice to raise to $8 though. But as a new player it’s possible she misunderstood the advice she was given.

It also sounds like she paid for a coach, had one losing session and immediately overreacted to that. If she had a great session instead would she think this person is the greatest coach ever?

Who is the person he was talking about that he hates at the Bellagio?

He was making excuses for not hiring a coach, and it reminds me of the excuses he makes for why he won’t discuss hand histories. The only “positive” part I saw was he thinks he is good enough to coach himself.

Boski? Andrew? PA? Who else plays at Bellagio. I'm guessing Boski since he has been trolling the OG the most.

I dont think Jeff plays at Bell

Historically vlogwise, he's been a Wynn Venetian guy with a few visits to the RIO.

He's been bringing it very well lately.

How far can we go in speculating who this mystery coach may be?

Some facts
Trooper said $200 for the lesson and Solve for Why offers website offers
"One on One Coaching" for $200/hr

"experienced poker coaches who have been helping students crush the lower stakes for years."

Let me repeat this back to you in layman terms to confirm that I'm understanding...

Let's say you have 10 trials of a coin flip, and it comes up 6 heads and 4 tails. That is 60% heads, and 40% tails. The difference between them is 2.

Now, let's say you have 1000 trials of a coin flip, and it comes up 550 heads and 450 tails. That is 55% heads and 45% tails. The difference between them is 100.

So, the bigger trial is closer to even percentages (55/45 as opposed to 60/40), but the difference is larger (100 as opposed to 2).

Yes?

I did not mean that everyone is born equally as obviously everyone is born with different peak abilities, but those abilities still need to be identified and developed. The main point I was trying to make was that when people say oh he has natural born talent they are normally completely overlooking how much work that person has also put into what they do. I was not writing very coherently last night, and am probably still not, but if you still disagree with that then we will just have to disagree.

Wot?!? I can make money for this crap? How much did it go for? Starting a posting frenzy now...

Same here. He used to show the struggle and the drama of his personal life and finances, but now he doesn't. Being 100% transparent about everything in your life is compelling. I actually think he should go all-in on transparency and even talk about his struggles with social anxiety and medical care and finances and everything. Be an open book. Desert Manor was funny. Plus there were lols from the trolls. His current apartment is yawn. Now he's spending his cash on new toys, and having a comfy average life and talking about shallow things is just not that interesting.

As for Trooper Thursday, that is his self-destructive mode showing. He treated people badly way too often. Some of his fans had bad experiences and wrote about it in his comments section. So other fans saw that. I think it will recover though. Especially since Westgate's sportsbook offers good odds.

I saw this video and it reminded me of TBC. Thought I'd post it here in case it helps someone out there find free dental care.

He's probably making a dig at Boski, but VeryJosie got a lesson from Boski and she said it really helped.

What is a coach going to say to a newbie but the basics that are available everywhere? Anyone who is new would be much better served reading the basics on 2+2 and library books and watching all the free poker lessons on YouTube. Personal coaching should be for people like Bikeking who want to move up or need to find and fix specific leaks they are blind to. Anyone who expects to be taught and remember all the secrets in an hour is naive.

That being said, Trooper is probably building up to offering his own coaching. And he should, because some of his newbie fans will buy it and they'll get a little better than they were and will be happy to support him. And he has a very unique niche goldmine in that he could film them at Trooper Thursday then offer specific coaching on their and their opponents' tells during a hand. Or he could partner with someone who has written a book on tells and send them the footage.