Quote:
Originally Posted by RedLinePhoenix
From his website
This is a just a personal opinion, but I would consider that a red flag. IMHO a guy shouldn't be coach for a living but he should play for a living.
I think his coaching hourly is way way more than he's hourly at the tables.
IMO the big problem for the student is to be able to judge the coach value. Since he is looking for help it would be really difficult do understand whether the coach is legit or not. This is true for every coach out there
I sympathize with this reasoning and I think there is some truth to it, but there's some nuance, I think.
IMO, what separates Clarke from players who play very very high stakes is that the guys playing nosebleeds have an extremely razor-like perception of miscalibrated frequencies, probably some insanely granular study habits, and just overall things like photographic memory and being built different psychologically. Like in chess, the best best best players in the world don't necessarily have an intuition that is miles beyond other good players... it's just that Magnus Carlsen memorized every national flag in the world when he was four years old.
These traits that separate the best players from Clarke are not often teachable. So, hiring a coach who wins more does not necessarily translate to the student winning more.
By contrast, someone like Clarke who clearly has a strong enough foundation in the game that he can beat 200 zoom or whatever, he's going to be a good teacher simply by virtue of that being his only job.
Also the hours and hours of talking about and thinking about lower stakes might come in handy for people playing lower stakes. A 10knl reg might have overall forgotten population tendencies at 50nl. Or maybe not forgotten, but be less finely tuned to the population tendencies.
So, personally, I don't think what stakes the coach can beat tells the whole story. I would say it's something like (How rare their knowledge is)x(How well they can help the student internalize that knowledge). Clarke is probably like (B)x(A+) there, whereas another coach might be (A+)x(C-).
An example in practice? The Kanu study course vs the Uri Peleg study course. Kanu was playing higher than Peleg but the Peleg course is worth way way way more imo because he's a good teacher and Kanu is a dreadful teacher.
Is Clarke worth the money? He's very expensive, so I'm not sure. But I do think the coach's profit playing does not map on perfectly to how much a student might benefit.
I guess one other strike against Clarke is if you're going to pay 5k for coaching from him, you could just join a good CFP instead. If they take 30% of your winnings for two years and you play 50nl, it's tough to say which would be more expensive in the long run.
So, those are some thoughts. I'm saying this as a coach who currently plays.