OP is right, but it shoudn't be a problem for people with common sense enough to vet their potential coaches.

Still, there are guys currently losing at 25/50 that might well still be good enough coach a mediocre 1/2 player, or guys that can coach better than they play. Likewise some players are great at the tables but are poor teachers. Players need to be talking to a coaches' references/prior students for a good while, and frankly their results are probably just as important if not more than the coach's.

It's quite simple. Everyone who sits at a poker table knows that it is a game of skill with an element of chance, that other players are possibly more skilled, etc. Many people sit at the table with the expectation of being able to compete and have fun. If all is done within the rules, then everyone should be happy.

Coaching sites promise legitimate training from experienced players/coaches. People who seek coaching generally are looking to improve their game or their win rate. If the coach presents himself or is presented by the training site as someone who knows the ins and outs of today's game and is capable of beating it, but the coach in fact is a loser or breakeven player, then the buyer will not receive the level of service that he likely expects.

I don't understand the point of the "verified coach" undertitle. What exactly does that mean? 2p2 seems to be endorsing the person to some degree.

aejones doesn't even have a + winrate and charges $1000+/hr and gets adored by 2+2. hmm, or maybe he just says he is adored, can be hard to remember.

i would just advise to be skeptical of someone too eager to get students. if you are looking for a coach, try to find the person you think is best for you, don't let a coach find you.

Apparently there is a difference between "Verified Coach" and "Sponsored Coach." There used to be a slew of players in msnl that had the undertitle "Verified Coach" who I thought gave some pretty dubious advice on a pretty consistent basis. Nobody has "Verified Coach" anymore because apparently 2+2 pulled the plud on that. Some people still have "Sponsored Coach," though.

I just think OP's post is so perfectly timed because I just can't believe how like EVERYBODY that doesn't post in the busto forums has coaching rates in their profile now. And still it's a lot of people who I think give poor advice (or atleast not great advice).

In fact, I created my profile (you can read it) just to mock everybody about coaching.

I recently received a PM from a midstakes player who asked me about coaching solely off of the strat that I post in the forums. I don't advertise coaching or solicit in any way. I told him that I'd consider it but I want to make sure that I'm the kind of player that can assist in plugging his leaks and that he'd actually really get something out of it and that I won't do it just to take his money if I don't think he'll really get anything out of it.

My point, like OP's point, is that there's a lot of whoring going on out there and people should be careful. Look at how much money the old school live pros made when the pokerboom started and everybody had no clue.

So basically this is a continuation of Boywonder's thread, and I think OP made great points.

I wanted to point out a few observations:

*Taylor Caby is humble to admit he shouldn't be teaching $1k 6m, and most guys with celebrity status such as Taylor are not able to make that admission (if they see it at all).

*I've seen high profile players bum hunting the games, playing tiny sessions only with position on huge fish, and that's basically all they do for playing now, IMO.

*There IS an existing answer to this problem for people that are aware of it. There are training sites that only accept top players, or at least have enough clearly top players that you can just follow them. Bluefire, Leggo, DragTheBar come to mind. I think the larger ones struggle b/c they already have so many vid makers who have become popular, plus you grow to like your guys, you're making money with it...it's hard to work backwards (not that it shouldn't be done).

*I have an idea which I don't mind if ANYONE steals it b/c I'd rather see it happen than make it happen myself. Someone should start a website or modify a current training site to do the following:

-Provide an evaluation of every coach at every training site (at least NL 100 and up) from a competent and discerning person or people. Just to throw out an example, Aejones could do this quite well IMO.

-Offer PTR names and "last 3 months" results for each of their coaches (!)

-In the strategy forum, at least have one separate forum committed to having player results listed in order to post. For instance, to register for this special forum you must provide your SN for all PTR data and your last 3 months' results. This must be confirmed and verified by the staff before being allowed to post in the forum. It does NOT matter if you are a losing player or huge winner--the point is that people have some sort of an idea of who you are when you post. I have often thought that this would help tremendously in increasing the quality of the posts in strategy threads. You would have the same sections at 2.2, such as Small Stakes NL 6-max, Mid Stakes, etc. NL, PLO, etc. I think this would increase the quality of the threads not only because readers could discern better which posters have more merit without having to be talented in linguistic discernment, but also because it will keep posters honest--it will be hard for a poster to rep themselves as something they aren't. It's kind of humbling to post in NL 5k, "check/shove and it's not close" when you are breaking even at NL 50 over 100k hands.

I think the wave of the future is much higher coaching/vid standards, and this is evidenced by the new training sites coming out which make that their niche (such as the aforementioned sites).

But there are quite a few regulations here. This thread is an example of one, a consumer warning that functions as a type of peer review in the same way that the massive amount of book reviews published about the ebooks function as peer review. The NVG army is currently out in full force running boywonder's history through the ringer in the other two threads, digging through his posting history and debating the nature of bumhunting.

Instructional gambling materials have a long history that date to the Renaissance, and mentoring up-and-coming players has long been a part of professional gambling, whether or not those gamblers were making money as honest card players or as scam artists. Selling the "magic bullet" has been part and parcel of many professional gamblers repertoire. This is the latest iteration of a shadowy industry, but this is as transparent as it has ever been, because there are massive amounts of information available for anyone who wants coaching.

Stopping predatory coaching is currently the burden of the student. Except for longevity in the industry, it is impossible to gauge an individual player's success or winrate. That is a fact of professional online poker. PTR has severe flaws as a tracking mechanism. The only way to verify a professional gambler's winnings at the moment is by having him post a tax return, and we all know that might not be accurate either, and it sure wouldn't measure his efficacy as a coach.

I don't know who the hell is buying this coaching, but I would presume anyone in a position to pay $400 an hour for this "predatory" coaching would also be in a position to evaluate and assess it reasonably well, especially because if they have made it to that level, they should have an established poker network that provides referrals and references. They should know how active a player the coach is, how long he has been sustaining a living playing poker, and they should have talked to former students of that coach.

If someone invests thousands of dollars in a coaching package without doing a couple dozen hours of homework then lol. He was going to be parted with his money in one way shape or form anyway.

I would definitely out this guy if I were you, I think you almost have a moral obligation to even if it would create a sticky situation with your mutual friend. W/e though thats just my opinion.

Yeah, a brain. Seriously if you can't understand why your post was lol then I feel pretty sorry for you.


How the hell does a life coach think like this? There should be a thread in some life forum about this kinda issue (bad coaching) for people who are considering hiring people like you.

'The benefits of going to a gym are minimal at best. I know this for a fact, because I've seen women work out over and over and still not lose weight. It definitely does not have anything to do with them not following their diets.'



To OP I definitely agree, but I don't think results are always the main factor you have to look at when hiring a coach. Someone mentioned MDMA which is a good example. This is pretty easy to overcome though because of referrals, reviews and if the student is willing to look around or ask in the coaching forum here, pure reputation should be enough.

fds: "I recently received a PM from a midstakes player who asked me about coaching solely off of the strat that I post in the forums. I don't advertise coaching or ilicit in any way."

Same exact thing happened to me (except I'd say "solicit" ), weird. I declined; atm I help 2.2ers for free when I have time. I will do a random sweat or stats review and have helped random 2.2ers on a longer term basis just b/c I think our community should do that (not to mention it helps me think more critically about poker which helps my game), and b/c I don't feel justified in charging unless I was someone like DrGiggy who owned, or if I won at 2+ levels above the person I was helping. This sort of standard should be used by all coaches IMO.

Cowpig--a note about MDMA. He coached a good friend of mine and I've read a ton of his posts over time. IMO he would not do well in the games of today, or at the very least he'd need to adjust quite a bit, and IMO he'd be very prone to tilt and I wonder if he'd do well at all. This is not to say he's not a great coach--I am arguing that his success in coaching is based on his conceptual understanding, but there are many more requisite skills necessary for being a winning PLAYER. Thinking fast, concentrating hard for long periods of time, multitasking, emotional self-control, etc. I would contend that MDMA is successful for the same reason all the former guys who crushed and now lose or struggle or don't play would be successful helping MSNL grinders. They have so much experience thinking about poker in a way that finds a way to win against tough comp that they can help pretty much anyone but a very advanced player. Of course, you have to understand how to discern between the info they wont be expert at giving (such as many game-specific plays) and the info which is gold (how to recognize specific leaks in regs over time, how to approach poker in general to be successful at any form of it and at any level (CTS and Townsend do this well IMO), etc.). Even if the former HSNL guys lack the discipline/desire/heart to beat today's games, they can still contribute tremendously to current players in the games.

That said, I think it's more valuable for players to learn from guys that are both successful like the former guys and still beat today's games well.

I agree with OP but I feel like I should point out that just because you lost huge over a period of time like 6 months to a year doesn't mean you're a bad coach and vice versa. Variance is a bitch, good players can run bad, bad players can run good and you can't completely base someone's ability as a coach on how much money they made playing poker.

Also have to point out, just because someone is a good player doesn't mean he could be a good coach. Having the skills to dominate poker is one thing, having the skills to teach your poker dominating skills to students is another thing.

This was definitely too complicated for him and he won't get the point. Who cares though, lol @ someone thinking what he did in the first place

Why don't they drop down to smaller stakes and stop the bleeding?

I think another issue is for the community to be more receptive of negative reviews instead of everybody pretending to be best friends.

I agree 100% about the poor strategy posts of some 2p2ers who have/used to have the "Verified Coach" undertitle. Some of them had that undertitle having registered fairly recently and having made fewer than 300 posts. I don't understand this.

2p2 management needs to make a statement about exactly what certain "Coach" undertitles mean, if they have not already.

Too often I see players pay a few thousand dollars for poker coaching and $1000 for life coaching. It is way out of whack, your life is bigger than poker and spending more money on poker coaching than life coaching is way - life ev.

Even if poker is 100% of your life, you still break even getting life coaching.

Most people get it pretty easily when i explain it but it is amazing how hard it is with some people to get them to see the light and get them to give up poker coaching and replace it with additional life coaching.

since i was referenced in OP, what i posted was this:

background (guy claims i'm bs'ing about an hourly rate from years ago)

my reply:

hey, sorry, haven't been following this thread.

i don't really feel like doing the exact math, but what is 8 bb/100 and 6 bb/100 multitabling 25-50 and 50-100 nlhe? that was the only time i seriously considered being a coach of high stakes players, and it was back in 2006-ish when i was putting in good volume.

my situation has since changed, i've focused on building a business in the industry. i've long thought that it's not appropriate for someone like me to be trying to teach players to beat 5-10+ when i don't put in nearly enough volume to be considered a true reg these days.

if you'll recall, the only true students i've ever had were daut44 and hookem148, both guys i spent hours teaching/talking with and both who have become successful players in their own right. oh, they also paid me nothing.

----
Now, onto this topic:

to reiterate, i've long worried about people getting good value on their money for private coaching from me. for one, i have 100+ videos on cardrunners. if you want to hear what i have to say about poker, that's where i recommend you go. i've said that since day one, and for the first 1.5 years of the business, it was completely built around my videos.

in 2010, i am a few years past playing seriously (meaning, 15-20 hours+/week), so private coaching is not something i'm interested in doing. i make almost a video per month on average, only at heads up (which is my best game) and typically at midstakes or 5-10nl. to be clear, i think i have a lot to teach anyone who isn't regularly playing high stakes, i just have always been concerned about making sure i give good value in whatever i do and for the rate i'd charge for private coaching i don't know if that would be the case.

btw, i don't think that because this is my situation that it is applicable for every other high stakes coach. i am sure there are coaches that actually coach more than they play and are worth the money they charge. it's sort of like, i bet there are guys who know a ton about strength and conditioning who were never champion body builders. i don't know if that is a good analogy but what i am getting at is in the end, it depends. the best thing you can go off is recommendations from reputable people and from doing your homework on a potential coach. most coaches should either have tons of strategy posts or some instructional videos going through the way they approach the game. take some responsibility yourself, you should be doing your homework on a potential coach just like he should interview you ahead of time to make sure you are likely a good fit.

No one deserves to be ripped off. Businesses have the responsibility to vet the products that they sell and to either stand behind the product when its effectiveness is called into question or to assist their customers in gaining compensation when the product is proven to be faulty.

By this logic, it is the responsibility of rape victims to stop rapists.

Fail

You guys all think that the online poker ecosystem is something "new"... and that it will evolve in unique and unpredictable ways. No. "There is nothing new under the sun." Ecc 1:9

It's more or less following the evolutionary arc of the various financial markets...the options market might be a good parallel. Now that we are approaching a high level of "market efficiency" in online poker... most "experts" find it MUCH more profitable to teach pretty much worthless lessons to hopelessly untalented Mooks... than actually play the Zero Sum Game for a living. There is even talk of various designations to "differentiate" an "elite" group of Mook Skinners from a "fraudulent" group of Mook Skinners.

What ever happened to the Good Old Days... when Poker Pros cruised bus stations to offer "free poker lessons" to wayward girls?

While OP is on to a good point. Really, it is just one part of the equation. For a new coach, results really matter. For an established coach, the results of the coaching on the most recent players and also lifetime results of players they coached matter more.

Actually nobody said this.

The product these companies are selling is knowledge and teaching. Assessing the effectiveness of teaching accurately has proven to be incredibly hard under the best of circumstances.

I think I got levelled really hard by digby fml

my logic had an element of time to it, something your preposterous analogy does not.