No it's not an interesting point. It's unbelievably ******ed logic.

Poker is a game. What you do in the game, or any game, has absolutely nothing to do with what you do in real life. Just because you exploit players' leaks in the game does not then somehow justify trying to exploit people in real life. How in the world can you call that an interesting point.

I think Barry Greenstein made the point in his book that when he walks into an electronics store or a car dealership he is the fish.

We are all fish in many facets of life, that's why we pay people to do things for us.

Drawing on what Taylor said, the honus is on the student/customer to spend their money wisely. It's no different than any other business. Do your homework and research, talk to trusted experts, sign up for free samples/videos.

Meant it as a provocative question, not as logic I was in love with or believed.

But can you explain how what you do in "any game" has nothing to do with "what you do in real life?" That seems to rely on the logic that games are not a part of real life, which is logic that is just as stupid. You don't leave real life when you play a game, and what many people do during the game has deep consequences for real life. Did you mean to meet stupid logic with stupid logic?

+1

Also I think coaching sites are bull ****. I lean towards group discussions and learning from mistakes etc not the watch my "beat this guy at 500/1k PLO HU" video.

LOL @ predatory.
1. Player A decides he has something to offer for a price.
2. Player B meets Player A and evaluates the costs/benefits of the services. 3. Player B hires player A for an agreed upon price.

Following the coaching, Player B decides if the coaching was worth the cost and either pays for more or stops the service. Then Player B is free to go on any poker forum around to let his evaluation be known.

It's called capitalism people...sheesh.

god this thread is so fail, i just hope that anyone who reads this who actually knows what they are doing is like LOL fish ill never give my secrets away to you ahahhaa

I don't get why ppl thinks that people have to play on a certain limit to be a certified coach to beat that current limit. Alot of the players out there is playing what they percieve as close as GTO as they can play. With that said, leakfree and unexploitable is the keywords. You really doesn't have to have certain limitvalidiation to teach this to rookies. 'nor do you have to play a limit that your coachee plays, some swedish coaches have been tutoring players even playing higher than themself due to hotstreaks/goodruns/bigger rolls in general.

Someone made a parallell towards golfing, and got flamed for it, I just don't see why there cannot be people that see things the actual player doesn't and thus can help them improve, physical or not.

Example a) Coach spots a tendency you got in poker that you really do not realize yourself because you have been doing that pretty much your whole career ,it isnt that big of a leak but longterm it damages your winrate.
Example b) Tiger does something wierd with his shoulder when he drives, coach says this, he lols and replies: "well can you take the ball farther than me? If not. stfu ***** ****er.

As for taking it into mental games only: I bet even the best chess-wizards in the world, Kasparov etc got sidekicks helping them studying the game.



HOWEVER I do also suspect there is alot of goodrun "i got this feeling that he is bluffing in this spot like always"-style of coaches that really doesn't tell you why or how he came to this conclusion except based on some random gutfeeling and because he played somewhat high in 2007 he had a big score and on that way he became a coach and now he is getting killed in todays games because he is just to ****ing dumb for todays standards. Be very careful when you pick your coach, as always... the wrong coach in sports can also ruin your career.

I know of a coach who hasn't made 100K in the last five years playing, has never beaten a single game online, and yet gets paid almost five figures for a few days "coaching".

Not the most elegantly made point, but a good one nonetheless.

I think OP's main point is that players seeking coaches are best off seeing up-to-date stats when deciding to hire someone. It doesn't follow that just because someone is beating today's games that he will be a good coach, but it at least ensures that he has the skills to be a winner.

My advice to anyone seeking a coach is to get referrals. In fact, getting referrals before hiring anyone to do anything gives you the best chance to get your money's worth.

for which site does he work?

If you mean Tommy Angelo you truly deserve to be called NVG regular.

CTS, Krantz, Raptor and Galfond i know for a fact have had coaching whilst beating nosebleeds. I suspect durrrr, Barry G, Ivey and basically everyone worth their salt has had coaching for the game on some level. Even if it is just with Tommy Angelo who coaches in poker everything but the game itself.

The only thing more ******ed that making a blanket statement that all coaches are scammers is those who say coaching is pointless.

On a similar note those who charge 4 figures an hour charge 4 figures an hour. Why do you care if you think that is too much. I suspect its rare these guys are coaching people playing lower than 5/10 nl and the lifetime value of their coaching is more than the 1 buyin (or even a fraction of a buyin) they are charging. Money is relative, poker players amongst any group of people should understand this concept.

Also whilst i probably wouldnt have Brian Townsend teach me about ethical choices in the grey lines of poker rules i sure as hell would hire him as a poker coach if i could afford him and its not even close.

Fwiw and I wont mention names so not to come off as a shill, I belong to a well know training site. If you belong you are probably aware of who I am as I'm a regular poster.

I will without a doubt say the coaching I received from a well known coach on the site was very beneficial to my game. I have also learned a ton being a member watching videos and participating in the forums. That said, I also put a ton of effort and time studying on my own with the resources available on the site.

The training site, coaching, and probably most importantly my own hard work combined I most certainly would not be remotely close to the player I am today and will be in the future without it.

A lot to say here, I'll try to keep it short: (edit: fail)

Directly Related

Very good thread OP. I think with two changes, most of the problems in the coaching world can be resolved to the average person's satisfaction (there will always be people that think coaching is god's gift and always be people that think coaching is a complete scam, I'm more interested in the sane people though):

1) Coaching sites making sure that they have verified stats on every coach they hire. If the coach blocks his stats, fine, but make sure that you are aware of his stats and can defend his hiring beyond any reasonable doubt and are not advertising false claims.

2) Coaching sites and poker sites (such as 2p2) can make sure that prospective students are being strongly advised to do their homework and make sure that they find the right coach for them. How can we all accomplish this?

Training sites can add a disclaimer/headline (I'm working on one myself) about coaching, highlighting a very clear feedback forum for questions/concerns/reviews.

Sites such as 2p2 can sticky some good threads about researching coaches in the proper forums (coaching advice/coaching directory imo). This is probably best left to the type of people in this thread: people like OP that see a reason for concern and are probably as good as anybody at vetting a coach. Somebody needs to write a guide, we can edit it and make sure it addresses every aspect of coaching research so that newer and naive players alike are not taken advantage of.

I think that those two changes, made system wide, will cut down on most of these coaching situations. The Jason Ho issue is a good example, I believe. If Stox had vetted further, they may have realized that Ho was not what he claimed to be or he was doing some things that were malicious. If the students were more aware of how to properly vet a coach, they may have also realized that Ho was not worth giving 15k to for coaching.

Regardless, I believe taking those two precautions will help everybody avoid situations like this in the future. If students properly vet coaches, bad coaches won't get business and they won't get money on training sites or on 2p2. If training sites properly vet coaches, bad coaches will not exist on training sites.

---
Indirectly Related (if all you care about is making changes to improve the coaching world, stop reading here)

Now, I want to address Bronx Bomber directly.

The Leggo thread about boywonder looks to be a completely different subject than the StoxPoker Jason Ho thing.

Unfortunately, after arguing objectively with Bronx Bomber for several days, it is clear to me that he has some other intentions that he is not making clear to anybody in his posts. How can I tell that?

Well, take his post in this thread. He mentions Stox in a bad light. He doesn't mention that they have refunded over 150k in money to the students in this situation. That's not to say that Stox are the good guys, but it should probably be noted when bringing up the situation.

He also doesn't mention that several students flat out lent their accounts to Jason Ho, engaged in some crazy deals where they kept sending Jason more and more money even though Jason was changing his stories, and that some just sent the guy 15k without much thought.

Now, that is not to say that the students were not taken advantage of. That's not to say that some students did their homework. That's not to say that Stox wasn't at all responsible (I'm not naive enough to think that Stox would just refund 150k for no reason). But it's worth telling the important aspects of the story if your goal is to just inform people of what happened, am I right?

Instead, Bronx wants to post links to the story talking about how bad of a coach Jason Ho is/was. That's fine, but stop stating that you want people to be aware of the situation and tell us what you're really trying to do.

If you were just concerned about bad coaches, why did you only mention Jason Ho in the BBV thread that you posted in here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...4&postcount=89 As I clearly pointed out in that thread, OP is in a worse spot than Jason Ho students (contrary to what you posted) because Jason Ho students are receiving some refunds, OP in that thread has received nothing, not even any contact with his coach. How is your post at all relevant or helpful or even correct? It's not.

I mean, I don't care if you're out to just slam Jason Ho, the guy is obviously a scumbag, but you're not even doing that correctly! It's clear the only people in that story with malicious intent were Jason Ho and possibly a few ride on former students that were NOT the ones that brought this up on 2p2 in the first place and just were looking to pile on some refund money. But it's not like Stox or the students that felt scammed/taken advantage of had malicious intent. Do you really think Stox knew or planned any of this? How could it in any way help them?

To address what Bronx said in this thread about the Boy Wonder versus Jason Ho incidents:

Two completely different stories. One is a guy with a personal vendetta attacking a coach that seems to be qualified, a big winner with great feedback (boywonder) and the other is about a coach that completely lied about what he did and cost his coaching company 150k+ for his actions and their lack of checking up on him fully (Jason Ho and the Stox situation).

The Boy Wonder thing is something NVG mods can handle on their own. The Boy Wonder thread does contain some good content about a larger issue, but the actual issue itself doesn't appear to be scam/money/victim related at all on first glance. NVG mods have decided to leave it up thus far, and I highly doubt anybody higher up has really gotten involved over a thread like that. Unless something serious happens, admins are very hands off on 2p2 and let forum mods use their own discretion. If a problem is brought up by a user or another mod asks for help, then that can change, but usually it's extremely hands off and runs well.

The Ho situation, however, warrants a higher up approach, as there were some really big accusations in that thread and 2p2's higher ups were most likely concerned with making sure that those students complaining in that thread were in constant contact with Stox to resolve the issue. That is after the initial verification to make sure that the story was even real. Regular users probably don't realize, but there are literally dozens of false/malicious attacks posted on these boards every week. So when something serious is being said and it is a coordinated effort with a lot of new 2p2 accounts the admins probably want to make sure that these users are making serious allegations and are not just out to slam somebody's name. I think they did a good job of verifying that and a good job of keeping the discussion going and helping Stox resolve the issue with a majority of the people involved.

If you want to argue that the thread should be moved back to NVG now that the issue is more or less resolved, that's fine. But to accuse people that actually helped get the situation mostly resolved of what you're accusing is ridiculous and ignorant. You don't give a **** about the students, you obviously don't care for 2p2 and you don't care for Stox, so what do you even care about? Making noise.

Anybody that cares about the students, their number one concern would've been making sure that the students are in contact with Stox and that they receive a fair resolution. The number two concern should be making sure that it doesn't happen again. That requires procedures to help educate students on how to research a coach and procedures to get training sites to research and hold their coaches more accountable. It doesn't require a bunch of spamming a link and the subjective version of the events that happened in a previous situation. You're helping nobody here Bronx.

I'm sorry if this sounds a bit mean, but I was under the impression when I began debating with Bronx about the Ho thread roughly a week ago that he was coming at me from a concerned community perspective. When I see him posting subjective links about the Ho story all over the place, I see his true intentions and it has nothing to do with the community or helping anybody.

Now, I said a lot here, and there are a lot of details in this post, so if a few things appear subjective, I'm human and they probably are. I firmly believe what I wrote, however, and if you need me to discuss this further PM me and I will reply specifically to what you want. We've all talked and debated about this issue enough on 2p2, it's about time we actually make some real positive changes. Many of the people who get ripped off or receive poor coaching don't read NVG a lot like the people posting in this thread. They go right to the coaching forum or right to a training site or they get advice in the strategy forums from 2p2. We need to find a real solution for those people, because any 2p2 regular that reads NVG/BBV/strat forums is going to have a good idea of how to actually vet a coach. A lot of people that need these changes are not going to read this thread, so this thread is not enough to make a real impact, we need to get ideas out of this thread and implement them. My ideas are in the original portion of this super long post, sorry for the off topic Bronx vent, but I think it's better to address him publicly than via PM. At the very least, he can't accuse me of trying to bury him behind the scenes or cover up any issues.

And I'm sure you play nosebleeds right? Coaching is typically about helping your thought process and being able to discuss concepts/ideas with someone that has a solid understanding of the game. Sure most micro limits coaching will be plugging leaks like don't open limp 34s UTG and I think most of the time just watching vids and talking strat on forums and stuff can get you to pick that stuff up, but when you move up there's a lot of stuff that just doesn't come naturally, and it's just nice to have someone to bounce ideas and help you out in tough spots and how to exploit different lines. I'm sure if we all just did independent study for math in high school one of us could derive calculus given enough time. But it's a lot easier to have a teacher to show you how/why that stuff works. But once you get past basic arithmetic all of math could potentially be derived by someone intelligent enough. So why do we have math teachers beyond the teaching of basic arithmetic?

It's over guys
we need to find a "real" job now.

I ever wanted a coach, I would not want a nosebleeder. Those guys are playing beyond any sane idea of bankroll management.

Find me the guy who quietly beats NL100 for 3BB/100 over a million hands.

I have my issues with Dusty Schmidt -- and was willing to risk getting banned to express them -- but at least he is savvy enough to avoid nosebleed poker.

what happened to you at BF? That was so fail.

I wish people would stop going on about how the coaches who made a load of money a few years ago still have relevant advice and how they have great 'conceptual' knowledge of the game. FFS, everyone who plays .50/1 and up knows the concepts these days. Everyone knows the odds and equities, ranges, keeping in worse hands, not being too exploitable in various situations. It's the correct execution of these concepts by keeping a level head and avoiding tilt that makes the difference these days.

Results from a few years ago mean jack sh*t these days. I made about $180K in 06 before I decided to quit and return to college. I wasn't playing anything near optimal poker. Games were soft as hell back a then. It can't be overstated how soft they were, seriously 5/10 then is probably equivalent to .10/.20 now - that's no joke. If you were one of the guys that made alot of money back then like myself , unless you are still playing and beating the games you shouldn't be coaching. Games are exponentially tougher these days, the landscape has completely changed, just cos you won big a few years back doesn't mean you are that much of a player. All that was required to win a few years ago was hit a set or TPTK and go allin and get paid. You know it as well as I do.

I would love to see these coaches who command big fees based on ancient results put in 100K hands at 2/4 or even 1/2 and see how the fare. A large majority of them would likely these stakes and I imagine some of them would get ass raped pretty badly. The reason these guys hardly even play anymore yet are so into coaching is because they know the games is up and they have no edge on the tables, their only edge is in marketing themselves to guys who are chasing their dreams. If they were still decent players they would be on the tables pulling in several hundred K/1 million+ a year like nanonoko or boywonder.

I figured out it was a stupid idea and now you rugrats can't steal my secrets

you were battling it out with Don Nguyen for worst coach there, don't kid yourself

lol. does that mean no second edition of the ebook?

Ya, this is the thing. Think of head coaches in NCAA and pro leagues. How many of these guys played at some podunk school or simply dedicated their careers to learning how to coach without any playing experience after high school? Of course, just like OP, plenty believe that being great or having been great at a sport translates into being a good teacher. Just as some people don't have the mental make-up to be a good player, plenty of great players don't have the mental make-up to be a good coach.

I'm sure there are plenty of poker coaches that are just not good, but the correlation between skill as a coach and skill as a player isn't as great as OP seems to think. Knowing "how to beat games" isn't that unique of a skill. knowing how to get through to a student is much more unique.

i agree with cftw for once. I have alwasy handpicked my coaches, making sure they were currently beating the games at a very good rate and had good references.
A lot of coaches are clear scam artists imo, and I'd bet that a decent amount know it.

I also think it's a good idea to give more transparence to the coaching industry, especially to the new/lowstakes player pool. I once posted a comment on a blogspot of someone who is actually good but probably not as good as he once were relatively to the field at his stakes, saying his rate was outrageous, and a lot of people, probably micro or low stakes dreamers/fanboys flamed me and told me he could charge whatever he wanted etc cuz welle he was who he is.