Zomg dude just stop.

LOL Pokerdemic. I'm not going to argue with you any more as it is quite plain to see that you are intent on using big words to support a ridiculous argument.

OP is spot on. Training sites need to take full responsibility for vetting their coaches, monitoring the coaches behavior, gauging students' satisfaction with the coaching, and periodically reviewing the coach's teachings and methodologies. Some of the sites seem to do this well, while other sites leave a lot to be desired.

Most newcomers can learn a lot from guys who were hot a few years back.

After being coached theyre not newcomers anymore and should be able to tell if a coach is worth it.

As long as they take in poker knowledge from other sources as well: videos, 2+2, e-books, etc.

Its not scamming people. There should be some feedback system sure, and they exist in several forms already, but lets not forget that poker is a negative sum game.

Its brutal but the guy who made the point in the other thread that bad coaches are good for the game isnt too far off the mark. Sooner or later market forces win out and its hard to have sympathy for people who dont do a lot of research before giving thousands of dollars to a random name on the screen.

We dont need a thread saying the training sites need to "fix the problem". Im sure they are well aware of the problem but there is only so much they can do. Sooner or later you need to cut the apron strings and realise you are responsible for your own choices in who is coaching you.

Who cares why they dont. A coach losing at 25/50 who can teach a lot to a 1/2 player is still a guy who can teach a lot to a 1/2 player. There is no link between the two.

Throughout history there has been a constant trend that against all logic being good at something and being good at teaching that same something have almost zero link.

Are there coaches out there who have no business teaching, of ****ing course. This is a constant in life and frankly the only shocking thing is a Jason Ho style scandal didnt blow up years ago. The guys who got scammed can point out the failings of Stox poker, i mean they are obvious, but at the same time they also did some seriously dumb **** to get scammed like that.

People need to get past the one for all bull**** that we inhabit some kind of isolated community on 2+2, CR, DC, Leggo etc. Not all scammers online are Nigerians and not all coaches are worth the dollar value they place on their time.

On another note, I have received coaching from a well-known coach and am quite satisfied with his teaching methodology. I won't mention his name in this thread since I don't want to seem as if I am shilling for him, but anyone who wants to know who it is please PM me.

Prior to sending my coach any significant amount of money, I did some fairly serious homework on him. I asked for testimonials from other students, watched quite a few of his videos, and paid for sessions individually before I got too heavily involved with him. EVERY potential student should take the same steps.

hahaha i love it

I wouldnt put a lot of faith in PTR.

Have you considered life coaching?

I like the point you make about sharing results as a mechanism for cleaning up the industry, i've always been reserved with my graphs/etc because it just feels like personal information I shouldn't share.. but i'm convinced I'll probably start sharing more now

still think the primary mode of evaluation should be qualitative though... we are dealing with a game based almost entirely on logic.... if what you are learning from your coach doesn't make sense its either A) Bull****, or B) he's not good enough at coaching to imbue his knowledge on others... in each case.. he's weaksauce and not worth your money, end of story.

If a coach isn't willing to prove his services are valuable in this way I'd steer clear. All my students get a free 60 min silent sweat where I take notes on their game and leaks and we discuss it prior to first lesson.. this is the way to sell your product imo...

How good a golfer is tiger woods coach?

None of the world's top golf coaches are champion golfers. Why should poker be different?

Op,

not like i disagree totally, but your "moral reasoning" makes me throw up a bit.

When you´re playing somebody HU, do you rly "charge" him as much as the entertainment is worth?
this analogy might seem weird at first glance. But if you look closer, its more like a combination of what he is willing to pay (the fish, in $ in terms of loss) and what you can get away with (in terms of winning before he leaves).
Do you educate your opponent, telling him to clearly think about before paying for the pleasure to be playing you?

You probably don´t, and so should the coach not care if a potential student looks him up. As TC said, its part of the homework of a STUDENT to find a reputable coach. Same as it could\should be the homework of the fish to find out who he is up against...

For a bad coach i like to think "you can fool one person at one time, but not all people all the time". Time and business (like PTR these days).
And if a coach (and loosing player) gets business, then probably for a reason, no?!
Bad coaches get wiped out by bad recommendations. Good coaches get personal references. If people listen to NVGtards advice, well, so be it.
I don´t buy though that you´re seriosly worried about it, since you´re making most of your money of people with a similar charakter trait.


Its like "Africola" complaining that their product is way healthier than CocaCola.
Its not always about having the best product, but longterm, you for sure need at least a good product.

Nope, i dont think OP disagrees with you on this.

If i understood its more about bad, but famous coaches "taking advantage of uneducated players"

(i´d rephrase it and say "OP is angry, cuz other people sell a worse product better" )

I can totally understand him from a human perspective, but for me no *problem* exists with that.

Poker is not a sport

Ug, there's stupid, and then there's this argument.

Hahaha nh. Shoulda known when you said 'as a serious life coach i am seriously offended', I just thought you were a tard. gg

you fail to see that poker is a business like coaching and that challenged people (or those who dont care) will get taken advantage of everywhere either way in any way possible.

In poker, at the car dealer, with women...


And since you dont see this, you might wanna start to think which part of the food chain you belong to.

Thanks for the amazing advice. I'm particularly impressed with the amount and quality of the logic exercised in the reasoning behind advancing that incredible analogy. I'll start thinking about that food chain you speak of.

Is this a sincere question?

The obvious difference is that poker is a mental activity, golf is a physical one. And coaching is an entirely mental process.

I have always hated the "those that can do, those that can't teach" epigram for a number of reasons, but I think it applies to poker pretty well. (Though I do really like "a sucker is born every minute".)

Outside the core CardRunners stable and Phil Galfond most of the "coaches" I see on 2+2 have very dubious credentials. Some of them I know to be straight up bad players.

Admittedly the worse games get the more it makes sense for a latecomer to poker (who therefore didn't get to build up his roll in the fat years) to supplement his poker income with coaching. There are other plausible scenarios as well.


This is just another buyer beware situation. If people are foolish enough to throw money at someone with an insufficient track record, well, it's like P.T. Barnum said.

I only skimmed the thread so forgive me if this is rehashing...but this topic is a big reason I'm not opposed to PTR.

maybe its to late, because your whole reasoning was an ironic "good logic"

OK, for a better analogy: most top chess players have coaches/seconds that are often a lot weaker than they are.

this

Also, from experience, none of the "1k/hour" coaches are actually worth that. In SOME of the cases (Very very few, I can only think of CTS), the opportunity cost for the coaches is just that high, but in most cases it's just overinflated prices for playing nosebleeds.

The worst mistake in misjudging people and their actions that the general population makes is to assume that physical activities rely on natural ability and mental activities rely on acquired knoweldge and control.

Both rely heavily on natural ability and training. In particular, impulsive decision making is a natural talent that is almost impossible to change with training. If you are good at making impulsive decisions, you always will be. If your impulsive dicisions are bad, then they always will be. YOu can control your impulses to a degree by setting up patterns but they do not take you to the level of the person who cna make good impulsive decisions.

Internet Poker is VERY strongly waited towards those that make good impulsive decisions. THis is a proven natural talent and no amount of training or coaching can change this.

I always find it funny whenever a coaches credentials are questioned some clown always drags out the "Well, he probably sold off a piece of his action, so his losses aren't that bad". WTF does this mean exactly.

I also question the integrity of the larger Coaching sites. You have Brian Townsend losing his Red Pro status on Full Tilt TWICE for breaking the sites rules and then you have this disaster from Stox:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/10...-post16874606/

For those not familiar with the Stox thread Jason Ho submitted an unsolicited coaching video-Stox posted it and hired him. They did nothing to verify his claims and then he proceeded to scam his students out of over 100K. Thread is worth a read.

If you can't trust the two largest sites to do the right thing-who can you trust?