In another thread I unintentionally derailed we (we=me vs pretty much everyone else) disagreed on the ability of coaching to turn you into a winning player.

Ultimately I compromised on "Coaching can make you better, but cannot make you a winning player" because the edge is just too small in this game and luck plays too big of a factor. Instead of starting that debate again I am going to put the question to at least an unscientific test and I'll need your help for the parameters.

I only play live and it's a 1/3 game. I will pay for a coaching site, currently thinking of Crush Live Poker because that's the one Jamon Burton recommends. If you think I should use a different one let me know, and let me know why.

I'll study and play on my own for a month putting in at least (how many?) hours a week of study. As I am currently a losing player I will count the winnings for the month to the ending bankroll, if I lose during that month I will not count it toward the ending bankroll.

I will use a $5000 bankroll for the test. Once the month of study is up I will commit to (how many?) hours of play a week and will play for (how many?) months or until busto. A running total will be kept with the final total posted when the test us over.

I will post all meaningful hands for critique/correction as I go. I think this is fair to the coaching site as it gives people the ability to say I am not following the coaching or see that I am. I will also post all hands folded pre that are even marginal decisions, I will not be posting that I folded 3-9o from UTG unless you can convince me it's important to do so.


I'm not a smart person and likely didn't think this through enough and it is in the formation stage. What would you change and what should the (how many?) parameters be?

I would choose this because Daniel is one of the best players. Total live earnings 40M + great online results too. You can see his graph on the screen behind him.

I don't think it's worth paying for a coach or a training site until you're at least at the point where you can beat the low stakes live games (2/5 NL and under) and the micro stakes online games (10NL and under).

There's so much free information available on the internet and on YouTube that can give you the basics and teach you how to play a simple yet effective TAG strategy. Watch Splitsuit on Youtube. Watch xflixx on his GrindingItUp series. Watch the way Andrew Neeme, Brad Owen and Matt Vaughan play during their live poker vlogs. Just imitate them and you'll do fine.

You only really need coaching and training sites once you move up to higher games where you're battling it out against other regs and you need to find their imbalances and exploit them (25nl+ online and 5/5+ NL live).

I don't disagree with you, but that's kinda the point of this idea. We disagreed in that other thread that "anyone" could be coached to be a winning player at live low limit games. Well, I'm willing to put my own money on the line to test that theory.

One on one coaching would be difficult due to how my work schedule can change from day to day. I know I can put in several hours a night via a training site at my own pace so that's the route I'm gonna go.

Playing low limit live games you should be able to gain a considerable enough edge (minus rake, not sure where your playing and what the rake is) that luck becomes almost a non factor. To be honest if you really were interested in gaining this edge you could do it for free with enough hard work, study, and playing.

I know that you arent trying to do this for a living and admit that currently youre losing in the game youre playing, so I dont mean this to be rude or condescending at all, but most players that are losing in small stakes games dont have the work ethic, or really care enough to win. Edges in a 1/3 game can be much bigger than I think you believe they are and as edges become larger the luck factor becomes smaller. Youll win more pots non showdown and while you can run below EV in showdown value and will effect your overall bb/100, it wont have enough of an effect to make your winrate negative.

Now for your challenge, I do think youre already biased and believe that luck controls long term winners and losers, and nothing will change your mind about that. I can promise you that that premise is incorrect at low stakes. How long would it take you to become a winning player with coaching? Hard to say really. I think alot of people have the wrong idea when it comes to any type of coaching. People buy a package of 10 golf lessons and expect to drop X amount of strokes per round just by taking the lessons. Thats not how it works, and isnt how it works with poker. Majority of what will determine your outcome is how much time your willing to put into your play and how badly you want to win. Itll take more time and effort on your part than anything else, and most players fail with or without coaching from not putting in that effort.

Anyway, GL.

Higher Visions, all fair points and I won't disagree for the most part. I think you downplay the luck factor, at least a little bit. When you play in games where people do not fold it's much tougher to win those non-showdown pots than maybe you think.

Yes, I can hear the crowd saying "if they never fold just wait until you make a hand and value bet the **** out of it". Sure, if you make those hands, which is, at least a little, up to luck. Tighten up and wait for premium hands pre? Sure, get it all in pre with AA and lose to JJ. I maintain you can't teach someone to know when their AA will be no good. I don't know anyone folding AA pre and when it costs you a $300 stack it's hard to recover that from non-showdown pots when there aren't THAT many of them to be had.


I don't want to be misunderstood thinking I'm saying that skilled players aren't at an advantage over non skilled players. I just don't think there is enough of an edge in the game to beat the rake and luck.

I'm willing to put the time and money into this experiment, but it doesn't seem too many are interested so I'll likely just bag it.

Thanks for the reply.

If they never fold (which in itself is not true, everyone folds sometimes atleast) than you can value bet them more thin, and extract more value from medium strenght hands.

I dont know what kind of rake structure and games you play,but skilled players can beat rake and players where i play (Pokerstars, and European sites) for online. Its being calm and strong mentally which is very important. And poker is also difficult game, so that luck factor maybe punting stacks. Now saying AA vs jj , and losing it happens, but what i find true is how you react and play after things like that happen determines your winrate and success. And most people play badly, losing blinds, and punting stacks. Making lots of mistakes in all areas of game.

As for coaching it can deff make you a better player, if its good sound theoretical coaching, if its some live magic coaching, looking at chips stuff, cant be to good for you.
Poker is a game of math, if you give yourself time and study it correctly you will know how to adept to different situations, if you learn adapting, magic, reading who is eating what and drinking what, you will not know how to play.

Lets face it and be real, all people losing i hear live (some are my friends struggle to beat zoom 10) and they basiclly dont play good poker. They are bad, but they all speak about feel for the game, live this that. They are lazy to learn because its boring. Than make some stupid remarks about math and things like that. Its just facts.

Im not saying its you, im saying, if you want to really learn you can do it and crush that live game. But if learning material is eating sandwichs and strange glances on chips, than well.

Invest in flopzilla first(if you dont have it), start working in it, understand your range, how it plays on different boards and then you can start understanding ranges of your opponents and work on your strategy. Its nice because you can see some basic math principels and it will help you a lot. And after you just go, learning more and more. Good to connect with other people working in same softwer on game and learn with them. And you will get better. And then you see how things work, study apply and then again without frustrations. Its just that.

I think you should probably go for it if you want to at least give yourself a shot at winning long term. Your post shows a lack of fundamental understanding of ranges and strategy vs ranges.

Could really open your eyes and see what edges you could develop.

If you have at least 500 (preferably 1000+) hours of past sessions logged for a reasonable "before coaching" sample then I'd say go for it. The "after" study sample running totals will be interesting to see but actual measuring points I'd say could be done every 200 hours using the 95% confidence formula until you get to 500-1000 hours "after" for comparison.

2*(stdvhrsbb)/sqrthrsplayed

So for example: You played 1000 hours and won 10BB/Hr and have a Standard Deviation of 73BB/Hr

2*(73) / sqrt of 1000
146 / 31.62

Means you have a 95% confidence interval of your true winrate thus far
being between

14.6BB/hr and 5.4BB/hr

My honest hope is that you are correct. I am surprised, at least a little, that there isn't more interest in this. The pessimist in me says it's because people know that the coaching will not really help, but don't want to admit it to themselves because they secretly hope they could become a winning player one day.

In any event, I'll update progress in this thread. Going to go with CLP and I will post how much studying I do, any light bulbs that go off and any session results that I play.

Background is simple, lifetime loser at the game. I lose 8+ sessions out of 10 and always leave feeling like I never had a chance to win. I play super nit tight and always fear the next guy has the nuts. I feel putting a 1/3 player on a range of hands is like voting in the local election, despite your best research you really have no idea what they have or what they are going to do.

I'll put up $5K of my own money as well as the cost of the coaching which will be CLP as well as an hour or so with a live coach to either plug leaks or further explain things I didn't understand from the web site coaching.

Let's see where this goes......

Hello there. I feel sort of a kinship in the sense that I'm a losing player over my last 150 hours. That is, since for the first time, I've started keeping record of my live sessions.

So, definitely will be following if you continue. But, I have to say out front, I disagree with your premise. Sure, I agree that coaching can't make you a winner. Only you can do that. When we sit down at the table, we are alone, making each and every decision alone. There's nobody there coaching us.
Besides, if someone is an idiot, it's true, no coaching in the world will make him a winner. But, I strongly disagree if you think that coaching is useless.
I think if I had a coach when I first started out, I would be a much better player today.

Also, is not your challenge sort of counter intuitive? you're going to study on your own and see if you lose it all to prove that coaching doesn't matter?
You've been losing it seems and trying to explain it away by saying poker has too much luck, and that the rake is unbeatable?

Any ways, I wish you lot's of luck.

To be clear, I didn't say nor do I think it's useless. I believe coaching can make you a better player, I jus don't think it can ultimately make you a winner.




I mean, I hope not. The goal would be to improve to a winning player, but to do it publicly and confirm my stance about coaching or confirm I'm wrong. If I do it publicly people can call me out for making mistakes, not following the coaching or just not putting enough effort into it.

I'm OK being wrong and I promise you will get nothing but honesty about the venture all along the way.

Listen, you're putting 5k of your money on the line for this experiment.
I salute you for it and definitely would prefer to see you succeed.
When you say you're a losing player, how much of a losing player over what stretch of time?

Well, I guess then we sort of both agree. I definitely believe coaching is beneficiary. Even the best golfers in the world have swing coaches.
We all have to ultimately figure out the difference maker between being a loser or a winner on our own. Some people are not cut out for it, for sure.
Again, good luck.

I've played a good bit for 10 years+ and at no stretch would I consider myself winning. Last year, if memory serves, I went to the casino at least weekly so I would say in the range of 60 visits. I lost around $8000 last year total with no big losing sessions and certainly no big winning sessions. Us nits don't tend to have a ton of variance, we win with the best hand and call/fold when we don't have the best hand.

I know that SOUNDS like a big number, but buying in for $300 and leaving with $150 or so when you play once (sometimes twice) a week is kinda what happens for a losing player. Well within my budget so this isn't about chasing losses.

Thanks

Getting a poker coach and signing up to a training site are two very different things. From players feedback and my own experience having a medium where you can interact is worth so much when you first start out. You'll have so many questions flying around and concepts that need to be explained further. Getting an actual coach or even joining an active skype/discord group of people in the same situation is (imo) going to be way more valuable in the short term than watching an hour long video every now and again. Even posting hands in here or the LSSNL forum will help you improve quicker. Unless you know exactly what to look for from videos it's an easy way to toss off an hour but still feel like you've done something to improve. If time is a big factor, you don't want to be wasting it.

Yes, I see you've been here since 2010. I had an earlier account, even before that when I was living in Germany but I wasn't really very active back then.
8k in 60 sessions. You're losing around 134 each session on average.
I've played only 43 sessions and a lot were very short, I hardly played during the last winter. Totalling 150 hours and a negative of 1,470.
I was in VEGAS recently and ran pretty gross. Lost with Queens and with Aces, both times against a rivered straight. The games in Vegas are looser th an where I play. People in Vegas either are reg's or have money to gamble. Otherwise, I think I'm happy with how I played.
So, yeah. 8k is a lot. You definitely(my favorite word I guess) need coaching dude. Trying to justify your losses to the idea that " oh well, coaching wouldn't have mattered anyhow, it's all luck " is pretty fishy thinking.
Coaching or like sl8a recommend, some kind of group, poker friends.
Poker, and I might have said this before, is simple on the surface but damn complicated! It's a science and an art.

You have to meticulously record all your sessions.
Easiest way is downloading a poker tracking app on your phone.

I don't disagree with you, but with my flexible schedule at work I'm gonna have to do this at my own pace and on my own time. While a site isn't the best option, it fits my situation.

That does not mean that I won't find 5 hours or so for a live coach along the way.

I'm not a complete noob, and according to most that I interact with on here it doesn't take much to beat 1/3 live. So I would consider live coach vs training site a deal breaker if I was trying to beat 5/10, but I'm not. I'm just trying to become a break even 1/3 player.

I would say that you already posses knowledge to beat the game, just cant translate it into a good strategy when playing consistently. I was just now sweating a good friend of mine playing what would be 1/3$ online on one site, and i know he knows how to play, but for some strange reason he would make bad plays. He played vs spazz donk, and happens this hand he has A6 on BB, and spaz donk limps, he checks and flop is 2c4d6h donk pots, he raises ,and donk 4bets big, and he folds. Now its a clear mistake. And he says we are little bit deep 120bbs, its to much this that and other. So he made a mistake because of money.

What i want to say is, maybe problems are not tehnical, you can always work, but there are some things that go beyond that make a winner on poker. I think i can find fish good , exploit it , and play long long sessions good. And im not as gifted as many or could solve difficult spots as some, i learn and try, but my strenght is this. So working on those aspects is also very important, not only on your game.

And others gave great advice , how you work is also very important. GL. Try using study groups, and find solutions to problems on this forum. I have bad english so i did not use it, now i think i would be much better if i did, but i used local forums to try and disscus with players. Now im little better, not good, but im trying. So i will use this forum to learn PLO hehe.

Update 10/8

Haven't played at all, but have been going through the material at CLP quite a bit. Watched multiple videos several times each to make sure I am understanding the material and have had several podcasts on in the car (which I'm in 4-6 hours a day).

Not to throw bait out there for the "I told you so" crowd, but I can already see where I have lit fire to a good bit of money in the past.

• Even though I consider myself a tight player I have been playing too many hands.
• I have called a raise way too often with small pairs in an attempt to set mine.
• I blindly C-bet when I am the PFR without regard to who's range the board is more likely to hit.
• I limp way too damn often.

I think if I put into practice what I have learned about myself I should, at the least, cut down the losses as soon as right away.

So you are starting to see the mistakes you have been making that you didn't even know existed prior to this. Hope it opens your eyes to the "unknown unknowns" that you had at your previous level of knowledge of the game. I don't know if people "need" a coach at your level but it wouldn't hurt for sure.

Dude these are literally the exact same mistakes I used to make about 1 year ago.

Preflop, even though I was somewhat positionally aware, I'd still open hands like 76s, A8s and 22 UTG, which was simply too loose.

Whilst I did raise most of my hands pre, I'd do a bit of limping behind in spots where I could've iso raised or just folded instead.

I would always make excuses to set mine. Even if villain had a $200 stack, he open raised to $20 and it folds to me sitting in the SB with 33, I'd still flat, when that's a horrible call.

And I would Cbet like 90% of flops, even multiway, under the logic that "if I cbet everything then people can't predict what I have". Terrible logic there too.

Glad to see you recognising your flaws and making improvements to your game. Keep up the good work!

Update 10/13

Still on the learning site and lost count of the hours of video/podcasts I have been through, it's a lot and most of them several times. I do think I have identified a lot of leaks, some of which make me better understand that luck plays a smaller part than I wanted to believe.

I am struggling with ranges and range advantages. Small example, I open from mid position with KK and get one caller. I'm being taught through the site that on a flop of A J 7 I should go ahead and c-bet because I have range advantage over the pre flop caller.

It's been my live experience the Ax is well within the callers range and I do feel as though the number of times I lose with KK vs Ax is higher than I would like.


I said all that to say I think I'll certainly be able to improve my preflop game. Much less limping, much less calling raises to set mine when stack sizes to justify it, etc..., but I'm still working on the post flop material as it's not sinking in real well just yet.

Good luck all.

You have to think more about your range than about the fact that you have KK in that spot (though tbh I don't mind checking KK either). Villain won't really be able to x/r you, you'll deny some equity, and you'll still get value from hands like JT, QJ, and so on. It's a spot where you'll be bluffing a super high freq as well.

Think about it like this -- which player has all the combos of AA, JJ, AK, AQ, more AJ? Is it the opener, or the defender?

Coaching LDO can make a losing player a winner over sample, glad you're starting to realize that your strategy was lacking a bunch in some spots before.