I've been thinking about this for a bit and wanted to share some thoughts.

I was in a CFP for 3 years and wanted to share why I don't think it's a good idea.

#1) Most stakes/agreements for CFP are 50/50. As the student you are getting absolutely wrecked agreeing to a 50/50 deal here. A more fair deal would be like 80/20. 80% you keep and 20% goes to the coaches. Why?

Because you can't count variance free money the same as variance money. They aren't even close to the same thing.

The coaches get 50% of variance free money, but the student get's 50% of variance money. That is not equal! Not even close.

This is even more true in extreme situations. Let's say you run really bad over 100k hands and break even. As the student you are going through intense mental turmoil. The coach? He spent a few hours coaching and that's it. Meanwhile - let's say you play 400hands/hour. You have literally gone through 250 hours of hell. But you both get the same payout?

How the hell does that work?

End rant.

with your understanding of the problem I am afraid that your overall logic did not bring your coaches lots of money :-(

Thanks coach

Fun rant I guess. Might be helpful if different level buy ins were part of the equation, because not many coaches will do well with a 80/20 deal teaching 1/2 cent cash or $1 SnGs.

In the end it is essentially a math play. Do you pay $xxx per hour or do you pay a percentage of your profits. If you are playing 5K NL then I would not suggest a 50% of your profits each week with no makeup is a good idea for you to do a coaching deal. Just pay the $200-400 an hour for proper coaching. If you are playing 5NL then to be blunt even a 100/0 deal for the coach is a steal if it is a solid coach.

Seems the OP just wanted to whine, so fair enough on him saying that was his purpose, but it was kind of an empty whine given the lack of proper context to his situation. For what it is worth, when the coaches I work with do a profit for coaching deal (rare these days), we put in a "cap" of 2-3x the typical hourly rate for that buy in level (silly if someone wins the Storm and owes thousands for coaching), and that is fair given some weeks the coaching will get paid $0 when they do not win. If the OP thinks otherwise then do not buy coaching for profit or coaching at all.

I mean seems like the issue is more the coaching/assistance isn't very good... If its a 50/50 deal the coaching should be more than doubling your winrate to be worth it or your playing much higher stakes than you could normally afford to make your hourly atleast 2x. Supposed to be a mutually beneficial situation but realistically it never is. Doubt coaches would make $ with 80/20 to everyone so many scam/don't work out etc.

Few hours of coaching? I'm not that familiar with cfp but I thought they coach you as long you are part of that deal? Allso running really bad and breaking even isn't even running really bad. And if you b/e how does the coach get any money? They accept sklanskys? You get to keep the rb right?

The interesting thing about this kind of deal is that with a % of win the coach is actually incentivized for you to become a winning player but an hourly coach makes no more money if you win or not.
You would think only a coach who truly believed he could teach people to win would take such a deal. With hourly coaches I'm sure there are all kinds of people with questionable resumes looking to fleece people.

Wow, 3 years seems insane. I feel like some stables are dragging mud into CFP's by offering such contracts. IMO it's pretty scummy to mass recruit students and just give group coaching + video library access, they are pretty much free rolling you.

Up to nl200 or so, free material + RIO elite membership should be enough. I doubt any CFP will be worth it for micro guys since any HSNL player wont be bothered with coaching micro players.
After that, actual good CFP's where you can get 1on1 with HSNL coaches are a viable option. Altho IMO, in most cases, hourly coaching is higher EV if u can find that, unless CFP can also offer staking for higher stakes

What is supply and demand

why were u in a cfp for 3 years? wtf.

It's actually much worse than this. Some CFPS, like Bluff The Spot, require you to settle up every 100,000 hands. So if you're on a 1m hand contract and you win $10,000 in the first 100k hands, you owe them $5k. IF you then you lose $10k in the next 900k hands, even though you're breakeven, you don't get the $5k back. You also split rakeback 50/50. Additionally, if you're a micro or low stakes player you have to play on sites affiliated by BluffTheSpot. So as a micro stakes player you give them a deposit, they get 1/2 your rakeback while on contract (and then some % of your rakeback for life on that network after your contract is over), they get 1/2 of your winnings. Talk about win/win (they win if you win, but they also win if you lose)


See above. A few CFPs are somewhat selective for this reason, but other CFPS (BluffTheSpot, BestPokerCoaching, etc.) make sure they have 0 risk and are essentially free rolling you. Also, yes, just a few hours of coaching. I don't want to keep singling out BTS exclusively so I'll give BITB some love here too. For 50% of your profits, you get exactly 1 hour of 1on1 coaching per month with BITB

This is how it's marketed and how it's supposed to be, but generally the reality is much different.

This is spot on.

Here's how it goes. You sign up thinking that you're going to have regular access to MMASherdog and other very talented coaches to guide your learning progression. It's sold as a 50/50 profit split where you're learning from the best. They don't make money unless you make money. The reality is that you pay them a deposit. You sign up with them as your affiliate on all of the sites that you play on, so they'll be receiving your rakeback on that network for the life of your account (well after your contract has ended). They make you settle up in a manner that's so unfair I can't believe I haven't seen it brought up publicly before: If you play 1m hands in a year and win $5,000 over the first 2 months, but lose $20,000k over the next 10 months...you will have still paid them $2500 for the first 2 months. On top of that, rakeback is settled independently so they will keep 1/2 of your rakeback even though you've lost money overall. But you get regular access to MMA right? Not until you're playing midstakes. Until then you're thrown into a group chat with like 50-100 other players in the same position as you are. There's a monthly group coaching but attending counts as 1-2 hours of your 1on1 coaching. You do get access to a video library, but you could have just signed up to RIO Elite for less than 1k per year if you wanted access to a video library. They take so many students that they don't have the time or structure to give students the amount of attention that they need.


Piggybacking off of the last point, BTS and PokerDetox are/were selling public courses and have a monthly subscription "lab" on top of their CFP. It should be a slap in the face to any CFP student who's giving up 50% of their profit for 1+ years to have coaches also selling content to the public in the form of courses or monthly subscription memberships.

You are writing like a communist.

You are essentially free rolling a education by a teacher you get to pick. I would argue the opposite that CFP is incredibly fair. Compared to other studying in uni.

@Warder great post, thank you for your input

lol no - read Warder's post. That is spot on.

1.4 milllon hand contract

Thanks for your contribution Warder you win the thread.

Also - yes your rakeback is taken 50% as well. Just as an extra f.ck you.

Lol damn.

So when u started 3 years ago what stakes were u playing?

Now u have finished what stakes are you at?

Why did sign a 1.4mm hand deal? Surely there are better options in the market?

Naivete basically.

Just wanting to get better as fast as possible.

Started at 10nl and ended at 100nl.

Do u think u were a good student? I mean did u do everything they asked of u? Did u make the same mistakes more than once?

Did they ever reach out to you and try to change things up? Like if i had a student and after 500k hands he was still at 25 or 50nl then i would start to think something is going wrong.

I don't think I was a great student - probably below average in as far as doing what they asked me to do. I did a lot of stuff on my own because that's how I like to learn.

They don't reach out to you if you are still at the same stakes after X amount of hands.. There's too many people in the program for that (200+).

I definitely improved a ton. Looking back at 2018 I was really really bad. Hopefully I can say the same thing in 3 years about my current skill level.

No it isnt, he is critizicing 2 specific teams. This doesnt have to do with the system it self.

1. I def dont think its the norm that you profit cut like this every x ammount of hands, I know in my own stable that i run with rahm93 that posts on here and in for example bitb cash the team lets the students rollover profits untill the deal ends so the student can play higher games. This is actually quite valuable since you are technically loaning money from your coaches without paying any interest.

2. 1.4 m hand contract sounds like a lot, I wouldn't have signed that many hands and I dont think its the standard at all. There are flaws in that rule as well since the student shouldn't be inclined to try and masstable his way out of his contract. With that said, if you have x ammount of hands in the contract, i dont seem how you think its unreasonable to share rakeback. I have also known plenty of people that just cant grind that much so it would take them ages to reach 1.4m hands since they play less tables / less hours.

3. Never heard of the deposits as well, I dont think it makes much sense. It could be essential for these teams since they seem to prioritize quantity over quality. If you have 100+ students, some will just be scammers/thiefs/waste of time. Maybe you guys shouldn't pick a stable with this many students? Once again there are plenty of stables that doesnt have this many.

4. I dont think it's the industry standard as well that you have to sign up through their affiliates, i never heard about this. ´

Seems to me all the things you guys were dissappointed with was something you agreed on and should have researched before signing a contract. Think you guys should write in whatever stable you were withs thread and give feedback there instead of in NVG. To write it in here and make it seem like all CFPs are some giant ponzi is just stupid/unecessary, lol.

Kinda always wondered why anyone would go with BPC, or whatever their name is. They seems like the nut low decision and have been recieving a lot of hate over the years. Not sure if any decent player came out of that stable despite them being around for more than decade.

So you can't play stars fe because they don't have any aff deals so they can't take your rb? What happens if you say **** this sheet I'm done and just quit? Gonna sue your ass ain't happening because most likely you live in different countries.

yea this kinda kills any arguments you might have. as far as ur rant/whining about the deal being bad...you knew what teh deal was before you signed, use your head next time, its your own fault imo.

It's not mutually exclusive that it can be my own fault and the CFP sucks.

The motives I had for posting this was 1) Frustration 2) It might help someone out who is thinking of joining certain CFPs

Yeah it's 100% my own fault I'm not debating that.

I'm saying that the CFP program in general can be manipulated so that it is very advantageous for the coaches. A lot of people who join CFP's are newer players that are trying to get good as quickly as possible. It makes sense that they are excited to join and rush through the fine print of the contract.

You run a CFP so you are inherently going to be biased.

Getting 50% of the rakeback is definitely a gray area. I would say it is unreasonable. Because like I said, the money isn't equal.

Variance free money will always be worth more than variance money.

Playing poker will always be much harder than coaching poker. It's not really close.