Hi guys,

I'm currently considering paying for some coaching. From what I see your looking at paying around $150 for a session. I'd initially be looking at getting around 4 sessions.

I've played a lot of tournament poker and have started playing cash. From my sample so far I'm a losing player at 50z seem to be capable of holding my own at reg tables.

My question is what sort of value could you expect from 4 sessions of coaching? Of course, I understand it is person dependant, and I would have to be willing to work away from the sessions (which I am). But can you expect a notable increase in win rate from such a short period of coaching? I have come across comments before saying that receiving coaching is essential.

Thanks in advance

Depends upon the coach, your skill set, and how you learn. Think of a coach as an extra pair of eyes to identify your issues and help you deal with them. For some they are essential. For others a group of poker buddies studying together will get the same or better results.

Thanks for the response.

I guess I wanted my question to be more what is the value in a limited number of sessions? Ie, if im only able to invest in 4 sessions right now would this provide me with much value, or is it something that would need to be ongoing to see worthwhile results?

Depends upon what your leaks are and how much homework you will do. The difficulty being if you are going to be good about homework often a set of books will give you most of the benefits of a coach. If you have a good set of people you can discuss hands/strategies with and are diligent about study on your own you will likely get most of the benefits from your first session. Standard 90% of the progress takes 10% of the work. It will help a lot of you know your game well enough to be able to ask the right questions.

Hi there,

This is a very good question, I've had coach sessions with few professionals and what I can tell you is that you are not looking for people to show you simulations and talk about random spots, the best value you can get is to hire someone to teach you how to generate good data and how to study if properly, other than that you'll always feel that you'll need another session and another and never really become a indepent learner which is your ultimate goal as a professional. Once you learn how to study then the kind of coach you are looking for is the one which can answer the question you couldn't by yourself and the value would be huge but the costs will be much more than 150/h for sure.

Hope I could help, have a nice week.

Start with one of the From the Ground up courses from Run it Once. $150, best bang for the buck, IMO.

I think this highly depends on the person getting the coaching. I would guess that every person is different and will respond differently to various types of coaching (1-on-1 coaching, poker courses, books, videos, etc...).

For me personally getting a 1-on-1 coaching was the best. It always gave me good value (just make sure to pick a good coach - somebody who is not only good at poker but also somebody who is a good teacher and a person you communicate well with) and it is also sort of "mentoring" that helped me.