While there may have been huge coaching benefits, it is just as possible that with your increased win rate you go on a huge downer as a huge upswing. That's the reality of poker. Something happens in short term correlated to something else? That's definitely coincidence, by the nature of the game. Give up the illusion of control, you don't play better and then get to go on a massive tear as a result. It is the underlying win rate that improves and then results happen on top of that.

Everything else you posted seemed totally reasonable. Giving a short term result as evidence of coaching working? That's suspect. Fun story, but it was entirely possible that someone gets great coaching, fixes some leaks, becomes better, and then breaks even for 20K hands of soul crushing beats. Given the variance of NL (I assume you play that) knowing the difference between 3bb/100 and 5bb/100 with any certainty would take a long time. Or you pick the numbers, but even big improvement will take a while to show. At the same time, you can feel better Day 1 and your self session reviews can clearly show how much better you play.

Went on my tear almost 1800 hours ago. It still continues. Just poasting up my experiences

1800 hours of live poker is still a pretty small sample tbf

~80k hands is a pretty good sample live tbh

You realise that would be him playing 45 hands per hour?

Getting coached by a good coach is pretty much priceless. However I very much doubt that this works without some sort of coaching for profits / staking deal, coach just has way too much incentive to hold back.

He can point out your mistakes.

A book will teach you good practices, but it will not always help you get rid of your leaks - because you don't know where they are.

At least this is what I would expect from a coach (never had one)

Does that matter? Would you care if your goal was to run a 4:30 mile when you MIGHT be able to run 4:00, but you're currently at a 6:00 pace? It's all relative.

Coaches aren't necessary but they are definitely a big help on improving your game.

this is a beginner forum - i came over here to poast up my experience cuz im a nice guy. If you read my initial post you will see that i am a full time pro who has played an absolute shytload of winning poker and my experience with coaching has been quite positive. I think that 1800 hours is plenty to say weather or not it was worth the price. For me it was.

People in these forums love debating the minutia...yada yada yada.


Fact is coaching is a great way to improve cuz most of us dont know what we dont know.

I did not have a staking/profit sharing deal with my coach cuz I got a healthy bankroll and neither want nor need a stake. I paid him straight up cash and it was well worth the investment.

that's only around 40k hands. some people play that many in a week online.

Not sure what it is that you are referring this to in my post.

What does it matter if a coach "holds back" information if you still improve a lot?

here we go again - on line and live (is apples to oranges)

best of luck to all of you - officially done here/

The problem is it's really not. The relevance of the sample in either online OR live is dictated by the same statistics: observed winrate, posited winrate, standard deviation and sample.

This is, according to these LLSNL players, 40bb/100 is pretty standard crusher winrate. FR LLSNL winning strat typically plays pretty low variance too.

So 40k sample is more than enough if you actually win @ 10bb/hr. I still think this is a pretty deluded WR though.

More than enough to show that hero is a winner, but what is posited is a significant increase in winrate for someone who was already a winner, which is significantly tougher to show.

I posted earlier in this thread and said that people learn different ways and that is true. My usual way is to plug leaks. I choose an area where I'm weak, concentrating on that area for a month. My current project is getting better at bluffing, with Bluffs by Jonathan Little and Albert Hart as my study text. After that, my next area of concentration will probably be check-raising.

That said, I realize that I have had coaching of a sort since I started playing in 2005. I mostly read poker books, but when I found 2+2 I posted almost every day in the Beginners Forum, and it seems like every day I got nothing but 15 versions of "your doing it wrong." I hated it, but they were right, I was indeed doing it wrong. My study is still very book-heavy, but I still ask and answer questions in this forums. I ask questions of pros at every opportunity, such as webinars and in threads set up after a new book comes out.

Although I still mostly use books, I am on Little's coaching site. I must admit that after I've had more than 10 players tell me that I should at least have someone to talk over hands with (I don't have that) I wonder if I'm really missing something.

All, that said, what makes me think that poker coaches are more important than I give them credit for is my experience in other areas.

I am a retired army musician. I played in the band and had an occasional vocal solo over a span of 20 years. I didn't consider myself a great clarinet player. I had taken a few lessons but I was mostly self-taught.

About 15 years into my time in the band I decided to learn oboe. I took private lessons (you could call it coaching) from players in two different orchestras. I knew that I had some bad habits as a clarinet player, so I went to my first lesson and said, "I've never taken this oboe out of the case. I don't want to develop any bad habits."

Two months in, one of my teachers said I was the best student she ever had. Fast forward to 2017 and local bands in which I played clarinet are now trying to recruit me--as an oboe player.

I could have learned to play oboe by myself, but I never would have been great at it. I could look at fingering charts, read books like "The Art of Oboe Playing" and pick up tips here and there. But I had "coaches" and I was better on oboe after one year than I ever was at clarinet.

When I think about that, I think that maybe coaches are important. But I would advise caution.

Most people have an idea what it means to play an instrument. They have a friend or family member that has done so. But poker is different. You can lose a lot of money and if your winnings can't cover the cost of a coach it's pointless. You do not want to be in debt to a coach or backer.

If you're 20 and haven't had at least a year of solid winnings, think about whether you can really afford a coach. Are you willing to do the work to make some serious money? I spend 40 or more hours every week on poker, and at least 25% of that time is study. Would you do that? Most of the big winners are doing something similar.

I've recently retired (I applied for social security last week) and I plan to make poker money part of our retirement income, playing full time. We're not strapped for money. My wife has had a retirement account of one kind or another while working for 48 years in the local hospital system.

I like poker and I want to get better at it, so why not make some extra retirement money doing what I love? As I am retired from the military I can catch a free military plane ride on any flight in the country that has space available. I have never played poker more than 50 miles from my home, and now I can get to just about any casino in the country at little cost. My wife doesn't play poker but she loved the atmosphere the one time she was in a casino.

At some point I will hit a level where I can't build a bankroll to play higher. At that point I might consider getting a coach to get me over the hump. I have to be prepared, my wife said that if she gets bored at the casino she'll just go shopping.

Also I would love to get on TV someday (Heartland Poker Tour maybe) so that my children and grandchildren can see it.

I posted earlier in this thread and said that people learn different ways and that is true. My usual way is to plug leaks. I choose an area where I'm weak, concentrating on that area for a month. My current project is getting better at bluffing, with Bluffs by Jonathan Little and Albert Hart as my study text. After that, my next area of concentration will probably be check-raising.

That said, I realize that I have had coaching of a sort since I started playing in 2005. I mostly read poker books, but when I found 2+2 I posted almost every day in the Beginners Forum, and it seems like every day I got nothing but 15 versions of "your doing it wrong" even day. I hated it, but they were right, I was indeed doing it wrong. My study is still very book-heavy, but I still ask and answer questions in this forums. I ask questions of pros at every opportunity, such as webinars and in threads set up after a new book comes out.

Although I still mostly use books, I am on Little's coaching site. I must admit that after I've had more than 10 players tell me that I should at least have someone to talk over hands with (I don't have that) I wonder if I'm really missing something.

All that said, what makes me think that poker coaches are more important than I give them credit for is my experience in other areas.

I am a retired army musician. I played in the band and had an occasional vocal solo over a span of 20 years. I didn't consider myself a great clarinet player. I had a few lessons but I was mostly self-taught.

About 15 years into my time in the band I decided to learn oboe. I took private lessons (you could call it coaching) from players in two different orchestras. I knew that I had some bad habits as a clarinet player, so I went to my first lesson and said, "I've never taken this oboe out of the case. I don't want to develop any bad habits."

Two months in, one of my teachers said I was the best student she ever had. Fast forward to 2017 and local bands in which I played clarinet are now trying to recruit me--as an oboe player.

I could have learned to play oboe by myself, but I never would have been great at it. I could look at fingering charts, read books like "The Art of Oboe Playing" and pick up tips here and there. But I had "coaches" and I was better on oboe after one year than I ever was at clarinet.

When I think about that, I think that maybe coaches are important. But I would advise caution.

Most people have an idea what it means to play an instrument. They have a friend or family member that has done so. But poker is different. You can lose a lot of money and if your winnings can't cover the cost of a coach it's pointless. You do not want to be in debt to a coach or backer.

If you're 20 and haven't had at least a year of solid winnings, think about whether you can really afford a coach. Are you willing to do the work to make some serious money? I spend 40 or more hours every week on poker, and at least 25% of that time is study. Would you do that? Most of the big winners are doing something similar.

I've recently retired (I applied for social security last week) and I plan to make poker money part of our retirement income, playing full time. We're not strapped for money. My wife has had a retirement account of one kind or another while working for 48 years in the local hospital system. We own our home free and clear.

I like poker and I want to get better at it, so why not make some extra retirement money doing what I love? As I am retired from the military I can catch a free military plane ride on any flight in the country that has space available. I have never played poker more than 50 miles from my home, and now I can get to just about any casino in the country at little cost. My wife doesn't play poker but she loved the atmosphere the one time she was in a casino.

At some point I will hit a level where I can't build a bankroll to play higher. At that point I might consider getting a coach to get me over the hump. I have to be prepared. My wife said that if she gets bored at the casino she'll just go shopping.

Also I would love to make a TV final table (Heartland Poker Tour maybe) so that my children and grandchildren can see me on TV.

I dont doubt that there are good coaches out there.
Knowing which ones are reputable is the trick.
75% of the players in any poker room are the best player in the room "in their mind" if you know what I mean.
Also The very best players can probably make a lot more money playing then they can coaching.

Most decent players can figure out the skill level of other players pretty quickly. Poker income is very volatile, so many players look to stabilize it through coaching. Nobody can ultimately avoid a major downswing and they can be horrendous.

+1, every starting player should read this

Thanks, I appreciate that. I got so much help from this forum that I'm happy to help others. Plus, it keeps me grounded in the fundamentals, which is something I understand as a musician. I know great musicians who practice scales every single day.

I was gonna ask, I red your thread and you make it sound like you are okd but you then talk about poker in a way that most 20something year olds do. How old are you if you dont mind me asking?

I am 61.