Hello Everyone,

I've decided to make this thread to drum up business for my paid coaching thread and have a little fun helping a few players become immediate micro and low-stakes crushers.

THE PLAN

I'm going to work with 3-5 micro players starting out and develop a few of them into long-term crushers. I'm going to help every student in both private and group sessions as well as be available outside of sessions for additional questions and advice. We're going to start by June 15th with the goal of having each student immediately turning around their games and having constant deep runs in tournaments that will eventually lead to profits. It's that simple. I will be leading all sessions and I've provided some information about myself and how classes will be constructed below.

The only requirement for being a team-member is that you're willing to work smart and hard to get better. If you're a micro turbo mtt player or micro 180 man sng player I believe this is the thread for you.

If you would like to be a part of "Donkey Development" simply post in this thread telling me briefly of your poker experience. I'll be selecting the 3-5 best candidates based on some abstract formula my gut feeling tells me.

Lets go...




"WHO AM I?

A little background about myself before I get into what I'm offering and why I'm offering it. My name is James Irwin, I play under the screenname "ottocat01" on both Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker. I'm quite new to poker compared to many other coaches and successful players and believe it to be one of my strengths. I started playing professionally in March of 2011 after learning the game 6 months prior in late 2010. I moved to Europe in June 2011 with rather limited experience and have been truly learning on the fly for the last 3 years.

http://www.pocketfives.com/profiles/ottocat01/

WHAT DO I PLAY?

I play mostly online MTTs as well as limited SNGS and occassional cash games and live tournaments. I feel comfortable playing in any stake MTTs currently and have done quite well in the upper end of my buy-in range both live and online. I'm up an addtional 30-40k from live tournaments not listed in the graph below.

http://www.sharkscope.com/#Player-St...lass:SCHEDULED

WHY AM I OFFERING COACHING?

My main goal in coaching is to provide myself with a steady form of income. My secondary goal is to continue to help players become more and more profitable over time, to help them learn an easy-to-follow baseline of standard play and when to deviate from it. Additionally I take great satisfaction in watching my students learn and earn a living and improve as players and people. I certainly stand to learn a tremendous amount from teaching, but also from learning from students as the value of anyone's opinion in poker shouldn't be overlooked. Lastly, I truly hope to help a few players simply avoid many of the pitfalls that have set my career back many times over and point them in the right direction as well as I'm able.

WHY SHOULD YOU SELECT ME AS YOUR COACH?

My rates are some of the lowest around, as they should be, given there are so many other well established coaches offering help. I've spent a tremendous amount of time talking to high caliber players in many different game formats and can offer some alternate perspectives to many MTTers. I can explain concepts in a very easy to follow manner. I can explain concepts in a nearly impossible to follow manner ...For better and worse, I can get you thinking about poker in ways that I believe few other people can. Overall, I believe the basic premise for approaching poker that I'll present will be rather interesting and certainly profitable at the stakes I'm offering help for. I've run a small stable before and every single player in the stable was profitable, with a few going on to have excellent careers and multiple large wins to their names.

HOW WILL THE SESSIONS BE CONDUCTED?

Going through hand histories via skype phone call and screen share or through sending me hand histories to comment on or make a video of my thoughts regarding the play. I'm happy to work with Holdem Resources Calculators, Pokersnowie and other programs to explain concepts and provide "concrete" answers to simple and more challenging scenarios.

WHAT DO YOU AS A STUDENT NEED TO BE PREPARED FOR A SESSION?

A mircophone is mandatory, I have enough carpal tunnel already. You'll also need some hands to review, general questions to converse about, theories to theorize on or so forth. I'm happy to work with students however they see fit, but if you give me too much room I might end up babbling about quantum physics and universal consciousness for half the session."

This will be fun,

James

FIRRRRST

good man <3, every micro player should snap this up imo!

glhf

Great! subbed

Just wanted to make it clear this is a free coaching offer for the 3-5 players that are selected and there is no staking involved. The offer is for coaching and player development to aspiring MTT players. Look forward to working with a few of you.

James

i would love to join!

what are the conditions to join?

Hey,

There are no preset conditions to joining. I believe this would be best for transitioning SNG or Cash Game players, struggling MTT players or those simply looking to get some help and move up in stakes quickly. As this is coaching only, there are no game requirements, no fees or profit-share whatsoever, etc.

The one thing that I will say is that while I'm willing to put in a great effort to help everyone involved, team member's efforts will have to be exceptional or I'll quickly replace them. I want this to be a very positive, pro-active and profitable venture for everyone involved.

If anyone would like to send me a hand history, I'll happily make a short video with my thoughts on the play and post it here (assuming it's allowed and I can figure it out )

James

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to bump this and post two videos I recently made. Please bare with me here on these videos on both the video quality and some of the mistakes in play and communication as they are literally the first videos I've ever made. Realistically this is going to be a massive learning process for me as much as anyone, but hopefully you can get some idea of where I'm trying to go with things.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2R...it?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2R...it?usp=sharing

James

hey ottocat!

id love to be a part of this (thank you onlyraiseAA for mentioning it )

a few words about me:

My name is Fabian, I'm 23 years old and started playing poker about 1 ago. I've decided to focus on MTTs and MTTSNGs ~7 months ago and have been mainly playing them since.

I think I have a lot of theoretical knowledge but I'm really struggling when it comes to implementing the theory to my game, (i guess ). Therefore Id love to work with a coach that can help me find my leaks.

Ive only heard great things about you and even railed you a little bit at your miniFTOPS ME FT earlier this year, so you would obviously be a great choice as a coach.

btw: we were together at a couple of tables last week when you were grinding the 50c/mttsngs, so you should have a couple of hands in your tracker

my stars screenname is: aicrag99

if youre interested/need more information just add me to skype: fadogar1991

looking forward to hear from you

maybe its just me, but unfortunately you can only watch this vid with camtasia and i havent been able to convert the video..

would it be possible for you to upload them as a .mp4?

Fabian,

It was good talking with you and getting to know you on skype, it's really nice to see your enthusiasm and I believe you have the chance to do quite well.

I'll work on getting the videos uploaded in a new format if possible.

BUMP for UPDATES

is aircrag a beast yet or does he only get to hear how AWESOME I am? mmmmm

def not a beast yet!

i havent been able to play a lot in the past 2 days because i have 2 jobs atm.. which is actually decent because that will allow me to deposit a proper bankroll in the next couple of weeks..

james and I have had our first live session this week in which i mainly played 45s and 180s from .50c - 2.50..

i wasnt really used to playing 12 tables while talking about my thoughts and listening to james' opinions so it was actually pretty exhausting and i missed some spots

james is a very friendly and funny guy and he definitely knows what hes doing..

he found my significant leaks very quickly and told me how i could work on my ranges etc. (biggest leak: running into AK :P )

all in all i was very happy with our first session and i think my game already improved a little bit even tho it was mainly for james to see how i actually play

soo im really looking forward to our next session and i can only recommend james' coaching offer to any losing/breakeven micro stakes grinder!

@james: feel free to post any SS graphs to show my/our development


im at work and writing on my iphone so sorry for the grammar etc

Confirming non-beast mode at this point, but quite possibly soon.

I was able to get a clear picture of Fabian's game and I'm quite excited about his potential as his biggest leak is a binary and easily fixable short-stack problem, specifically from late position.

I'm encouraged that he's looking at the job situation as a benefit, as in my eyes, it most certainly is. I feel there are far too many struggling micro, low and honestly even mid-stakes players who would be better served by getting a job, studying and coming back to poker with a proper bankroll, a clearer head, more optimism and less pressure.

I believe an intelligent path would be for him to be playing Hyper 180 $1s, Turbo 180 $2.50s and mixing in super micro MTTs until we get a good sample of showing winning play, which again I believe can possibly happen near immediately as he's shown a clear understanding of the game, some decent theoretical knowledge and just has a couple leaks that were identified and are going to be easy to fix.

I'm really looking forward to this and getting another couple players started immediately.

good to hear guys, fabian just grind these nash charts and you'll be fine

im trying.. looking for some charts right now.. gonna print them all in the office :P

Hey Everyone,

I'm posting a quick 10 minute free video in MP4 format that talks briefly about Cost Per Round (CPR) and Chip Stack Index (CSI), a few concepts that I see players struggling with or potentially unaware of. Everyone should be able to download and view it using the link below. I hope you enjoy.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2R...it?usp=sharing

As a follow up to the video above and to address one of Fabian's largest leaks I've made this 10 minute free video as well using Holdem Resources Calculator.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2R...it?usp=sharing

great thanks! gonna stop working immediately and go home watch them

On the "follow up to other video" note. I'm considering making a series of say 52 videos and sequencing them in a way that they kinda build upon each other over time and take a newer player (or non-poker player) through a series of learning steps that teaches them the tools they need, how to use them, how to learn and think about poker, moreso than just giving the answers to hands. If anyone has ideas or feedback as I start to roll these shorter videos out, please feel free to share your thoughts.

Subbed.. will be in touch soon

After years of being a very casual poker hobbyist, I've decided that I'd like to take a few months to make an effort and actually figure out how to play well (ie learning basic math, devoting set hours to playing, trying to track my progress, etc.) Unfortunately, I'm in the US so I can't just go back to playing .01/.02 games on Stars and will therefore be playing 'play' money for now.

But this thread and ottocat's video series idea have be excited enough to finally register and post on 2+2 after many years of lurking in the shadows. Ottocat, if you're looking for feedback on what a total noob is looking for, feel free to pm me!

This post made my day. Unfortunately I am unable to PM you as you have a low post count. I really appreciate the fact that this is the first post you have made here and would be happy to talk to you on skype (ottocat01, real name James Irwin) or via email. Additionally, if you would like, please feel free to post any video or learning tool suggestions here and I will do my best to address them and work them into my plan.

James

I hope I stumbled on this thread at the right time. Really a nice thing you are doing, whoever receives your coaching is very lucky. ---shooting you a pm =)

Subbed - gl Ottocat01