I've spent years of my life teaching English language and literature, and years of my life playing at a mediocre level in 50 and 100 zoom pools with very little bankroll management or study.

Then, late last year, the province of Ontario in Canada became a segregated online poker market, and my relationship to the game quickly changed.

First of all, Ontario no longer has zoom, so I was playing regular tables. Then I watched Uri Peleg's course and it changed how I thought about the game. Really without many changes, I was beating 100nl quite easily. Ontario is softer than the global market. I was still a rec, so I took a shot at 200nl with like a 3k bankroll and kept winning. Now, I was studying with GTO Wizard 3 hours a week. I joined a CFP. I got coaching from Poker Giraffe. I was doing better and better. I'm up $20k over 100k hands, played over the last six months. Now playing every soft $500 table on 888 or Party (there's not always a lot of action), and still grinding 200nl regularly with a winrate of 6.5ish/100. Is this easier in Ontario? Yes. Could every player do it? I don't think so.

My hourly ev was at something like $60 or $70/h, and I was still teaching English on the side for $30/h. This felt a little silly, but on the other hand, poker as a vocational pursuit is new to me, and it's still scary. What if the games get tougher, or I'm sun-running massively? 100k hands is enough to have a guess what's going on, but not enough to be sure. It pretty much guarantees I'm a winner, at least. I'm also in school to become a therapist, so I can't put in much more volume than 20k/month.

I was getting really tired of teaching English. I am so tired of grading bad Macbeth papers and proofreading essays for tutoring clients. My girlfriend whom I live with is amazing, and she's supportive of me playing poker, but it's scary for her too. The idea of me dropping all "real work" to play is a bit daunting.

But it occurred to me, I am a good teacher, and I am so passionate about this game right now. Teaching poker to newer players felt way more interesting to me than explaining to another student why "Macbeth is a bad person" was not quite an A+ thesis. And I really, truly believed that for recs and really low stakes regs, I could be super helpful.

So, I started trying to build a poker business.

Man, I am just not equipped for trolls on the internet. I don't know. Maybe I've got a little Hellmuth in me. Each time someone says "lmao this pathetic scammer etc etc" I lose sleep, I'm not present in my day for an hour after it happens. I'm getting better at dealing with it, but it's been slow-going. It's not clear how to get outreach or advertise somewhere that people actually want it. Reddit is a nightmare, the Ontario Discord is a nightmare. Hopefully with word of mouth it gets easier.

So, I guess I'm looking for advice and possibly validation. Is it unreasonable for someone who is only barely established as a winning reg at mid stakes to offer coaching for players struggling at low stakes? I think my rates are reasonable. 50USD/h for hand review and concepts; 65USD/h for a 6h package with DBA.

I've gotten some clients. I did 1h with two separate clients, and someone pre-bought the 6h DBA package for September. I really believe that it's a good deal; that I can break down concepts like checking back, the nuances of range advantage, geometric bet sizing, SPR, all the preflop stuff (obviously)... and that these things will really be worth it for some players in the long run. But I can't shake the fear that clients will fizzle out and I will have wasted a huge chunk of emotional energy when I could have just studied for school or something.

Does anyone have advice? Critiques? Comments? I'm really game for honest takes, delivered respectfully. The site is colliepokercoaching.ca

You know me from discord and probably dont want more of that troll fest but since you double posted and I felt a bit bad ill post something so one of your two posts can die and people know which one to post in.

Your hourly is 60-70$ Canadian? so its about the same as your charging. I think your probably equal in skill to either a global 50 zoom reg or a 100 zoom reg If i were to guess as someone with a similar hourly to you playing in ontario .

We have to ask ourselves here what nl50 nl100 zoom players are charging. is there even demand for their coaching? I honestly dont know but I doubt its more then 50usd. I think most people would rather pay more for a good nl200 player. So now your in a situation where your hourly is always going to be higher playing then coaching. so why coach? you have to really like coaching give it a shot but I have a feeling you will realize its silly to do it in your pov.

Think of it like currency conversion. is your Ontario winnings really worth your value no? but your also in a unique situation where you can now afford a coach better then you very cheap relative to your hourly. So what I would suggest is find a coach and get him on the cheap like I did. You can literally find a player whos better then you who might make less then you how sick is that? . you can also learn from him how to be a better coach and increase your value as a coach in the future while increasing your hourly and future coaching fees if thats a path you go down.

You can find a better player to coach you for less then you make an hour because your making more then him which is very good for you. But it works in reverse where your coaching value is not as competitive like buying us products in Canadian currency. so your in a bad market for what you offer. and your also targeting ontario players but thats not realistic too few potential students and you have to play against them.

Also ontario games are probably going to get worse so not improving and coaching seems like a bit of a deadend that I dont recommend. Coaching and getting coached seems like the play for you. If you played in ontario before 6 months ago your win rate would be much much higher

Theres also some ethics things where you have to disclose your playing on ringfenced sites if a row player thinks your making 70$ an hour on row sites because it really is that much easier and they probably wouldn't understand that.

TLDR do what you want but its not hard to make 60$/hour in Ontario so those inflated winnings put you in a weird spot where you are never worth more as a coach then as a player. But you can also hire a coach with a worse hourly then you and improve.

also PLZ PLZ DONT COACH ONTARIO PLAYERS there is little upside its such a small pool it will actually directly effect you if you continue playing poker.

(meant to post as a reply, below)

That's all fair advice. I have definitely taken advantage of my fortunate position in the market to invest in coaching for my personal improvement. I've put about $1400 into that already. My primary goal is still to improve each and every week and move up.

You are right that coaching is just going to have lower ev for me no matter what, compared to someone playing internationally. As an example, if I eventually move up to $1k games, I'll want to charge $200/h+ for coaching, but then they could get someone beating $1k international games for that price. On the other hand, Jarretman is in that type of situation and he is still pursuing it, so it's probably not totally impossible to land on a compromise that works for everybody. But you frame the issue in a way that makes sense to me.

That being said, I do think there is something slightly overlooked here, which is that I think coaching skill and playing skill are of close to equal importance, and I strongly believe in my abilities to teach people. You need both, of course. But hopefully that means my value as a coach goes up enough that I'm net-even-ev if I can build a reputation, but we'll see. The simplest thing to fix is just the sample. That, and learning to deal with trolls. Discussing it with level headed commenters like you really helps, so thank you.

I really appreciate your respectful and earnest input.

Would go with a lower price given that 1) you both lack experience in terms of playing and coaching. 2) There are some way more competetive price ranges for coachings. The ones sticking out the most being Kanaxis and especially Giova9990. Would either charge significantly less probably close to half of what you are charging or just focus more on playing and you can probably charge a lot more in the future (given you either keep your results or ideally improve).

Hey man,

I'm the admin in the Ontario discord, so I thought I would give you my thoughts.

My perspective and relationship with coaching in poker is complicated, as I think that coaching is definitely beneficial for most players, regardless of the stake, as everyone can always improve, and I myself have gotten coaching from keuwai, just like you.

However, I have always felt that coaching and poker can often be a little bit predatory. In my opinion, a lot of people in poker seem to very quickly realize that there is a lot of variance in planning and putting in large volumes to achieve their hourly, and realize that poker coaching can be another poker related income source that is a break from the grind, but allows them to still chat and talk poker, while helping someone else.

I have criticized numerous posters on this form who have only beaten 10nl or lower, and then have had the audacity to open a coaching thread, trying to charge new players for information that they can get for free online on tons of poker strategy sites, or support they can get from hundreds of better players in hundreds of free discords at no cost.

While I don't doubt that many people offering coaching are great poker players and can help players improve, I've always believed that people offering coaching in poker should be open to criticism about why they would be a good coach, and their results on the table. With the opening of the coaching marketplace on 2p2 under the new ownership, it's clear that there are literally hundreds of winning 100nl-1knl regs offering coaching, and I think is very valid that people be able to question those people offering coaching.

However, I probably should've let you know that people were going to criticize in question your coaching offering when I agreed to create a new channel to post it in the server, and that I wouldn't step in to stop it as long as they were not personal attacks. My apologies for not giving you a heads up on that. I also recognize that most of the frequent commenters in that server like to troll, myself included.

I have no issue with trolling, as I see it as all in good fun, but I do recognize that a someone new to the server you might feel that the trolling, tongue-in-cheek questioning of your credibility as a new poker coach might feel like a personal attack.

On another note, I do think that Target makes a good point that perhaps there should be no posting of coaching listings in that server given that the pool is so small. If you get the 200nl-500nl regs coaching the 50nl-100nl regs, it could very quickly become a situation where most of the regs are at a similar skill level and then anything above 50nl is just a bunch of sharks.

However, if people in Ontario are offering coaching, and other players in Ontario want that coaching, I think they're gonna find each other one way or another, through the server or not.

Aren't those players charging 2.5 to 3x the amount? Like 150 USD for an hour with Kanaxis? Giova9990 is offering $50USD a week for what seems mostly like a seminar for a bunch of students at once? I'd imagine he charges 200USD+ for a 1on1 hour.

I would be genuinely curious and interested to know if there are well-established coaches offering 50USD for 1on1.

But yeah, I do lack experience. I am not sure what a competitive price point would be. If it's much less than the hourly playing, it doesn't seem like it's worth pursuing.

$50 usd per month, with 4 group sessions and some other stuff, and $125 for one on one. And yes they charge 2-2.5x the ammount, but they also play 5x as high as you. I don't understand who you think will pay you instead, the gap really isn't that big in terms of cost compared to skill. I'm just not seeing who would take your offer over theirs or what group of players you are targetting. I've played and coached more than a decade, and tbh I never heard or met anyone (as I know of) who took coaching from anyone playing below nl200. Brokenstars is another example charging $100/h which is pretty close to your offering ($65/h for db analysis, which is probably one of the most obvious sessions for the clients you target). I'm not sure if you just underestimate how big the skill gap is between regs that crushed nl500 on world-sites compared to someone crushing nl100 in a regulated pool for 100k hands. If someone takes coaching from you they are sort off speculating/gambling since who knows, you might not even be around in a year.

Just trying to be honest with you, I sort off respect someone for actually asking people what's a reasonable hourly instead of just taking a number out of their ass. If we were to break down the first two suggestions and you.

Kanaxis - Asfaik and heard from friends / students that play nl400-nl600 he is one of the best regs at these stakes, which also his results indicate. Seemingly a lot of happy students and some good resumes. Someone mentioning on his last page that they are regularly playing nl2k after his coaching. Complete steal for what he is charging

Giova - former BTS student who had coaching from MMAsherdog, later was a coach for BTS and have done very well at 500z over a big sample. Dont know exactly how big he played and what volume, but I have played with him as high as nl2k on stars. Paying him $50/month is just a complete steal for just access to chitchatting with him over poker, and it seems you get a lot more.

Do you honestly think you are competing with these two, and why if so? If your only argument is that they charge twice as much it seems a bit silly since their resumes indicate they should charge a lot more. From the perspective of a student I assume most possible clients will decide they will spend like a couple of hundreds for a couple of hours. I doubt a nl25-nl50 regular would need more than a couple of hours with these guys to have all the tools they need to establish themselfes at nl200. I've also been where you are litterally, my first attempt to coach I just let people offer me money for an hourly at that time I was beating a regulated pool for roughly 15bb/100 playing nl100-nl500 over 500k hands. Recieved couple of bids that I considered lowball ($50 to $80/h) offers, picked up a cfp student instead few months later when I was playing nl1k regularly and he moved from nl50 to 1k within 6 months (in same regulated pool). Back to the previous post by me, if you want to maximize your hourly or you think it's unreasonable to coach for less than what you suggested I think you are just better off spending time on your own game.

I imagine if you’re charging less than $100 an hour, you’re mostly coaching recreationals. It’s fine for someone beating soft 100nl online to teach recreationals, in my opinion, as long as you’re honest with them that they shouldn’t intend to be making their money back unless they’re really down to improve and also put in serious volume. You could also definitely help someone rise the stakes quickly from the micros.

I agree with other commenters though that working on improving your own hourly is a better use of your time. Quit teaching English, have some balls dude.

I'm not familiar with these players, so I hadn't really considered that they are low-balling themselves. Obviously if they could and should charge more and don't, then it's pretty tough for anyone to compete with them, unless it's a really advanced player who wants coaching from someone in the top 0.05%.

The devil's advocate argument (and I'm not 100% sure I agree with it), is that some recreational players can learn the same amount while paying less. They need someone to explain to them how SPR works, and how to stay level-headed in a 4bp, and so on. But yeah if someone is beating 50nl zoom and feels hard stuck, they'd for sure be better off with Kanaxis or Giova.

The last thing is, I play in a fenced pool, which is softer, but I don't play 100nl. I guess the pool might be like 100nl. It's definitely softer. But I am now playing 500nl regularly, just not in all-best-regs-plus-one-decent-fish lineups. It is a bit of a weird situation because whales are more frequent, but I am also playing at the same table as Matt Roberts, Jarretman, and some other players on a somewhat regular basis. Basically whenever I can get a seat on Party or 888 at $500nl or sometimes $1knl where there is a real whale. 1knl is more aggressive shot-take, but I am rolled for and am comfortable with 500nl the last two months or so.

Yeah, I am going to. It's tough when there is another person involved and you are mutually responsible for one another's finances. But at this point, it's the only thing that makes sense.

Yeah this was my intention. What do you think about the rate?

I think based on the feedback I have received, I am going to focus mostly on improving, increasing sample, and getting to 50k or more hands at 500nl over the next three months. I think in the meantime, I'll continue to put out educational videos and take on microstakes/rec students if they come my way, but manage my expectations, and also be transparent with everyone always about what other options are out there, and what kind of students I believe make the most sense for me to take on, personally (ie. not winning 50nl zoom regs, etc).

I think I should also just have some gratitude that 2 years ago if someone said "you'll be playing a pot with Jarretman at $1knl while taking a shot" I'd have given it exactly a 0% chance of happening. So, I am running pretty good in life.

Anyways, thanks for letting me bitch and moan. I appreciate the honest feedback and tough love.