I wanted to check turn and give up on river as villain was a fish, but the guy coaching me told me to 3-barrel.


Coach told me x/c turn was a mistake and it should be a 2-barrel. He also said he would prefer to bet JJ on turn instead of QQ because JJ has a gutshot. I usually wouldn't bet either of them on the turn. I only check/called because the bet was so small.


Coach said this was a clear cbet and ship on the turn; my default would be to check back flop and usually check back turn also.


Coach told me I should have shipped the river. My thoughts were that shipping (or betting at all) is spew as all draws got there. No worse hands call a shove.


Coach told me to check/call river with overfull because he thought only Jx (which I chop with) calls a x/r and 66 ships over and stacks me. My thoughts were that villain would not fold 77+ to a x/r especially as I have underrepped my hand up to this point. Villain very rarely has 66 here. He actually snap-called with KK. Anyway, I felt like a lot of the advice he was giving me was reckless and counter-intuitive. What do you guys think about these hands?

With the AK hand, if you check flop and turn that's just horrendous. 54 hand is meh, if villain is actually a fish I don't like it. Against an unknown I would take this line though.

First off was there any reads? And yeah the AK we're always cbetting there.

I agree with you on the 54 hand (assuming you knew beforehand villain was a fish), and the AQ hand looks a little spewy. I don't really disagree with anything else though. Was there any information you knew about any of the villains that your coach didn't when he gave you the advice?

Agree with some, disagree with other. Any of them could be correct with the right reads though. AK and JJ hands depend strongly on how wide the ranges are. 54 hand again depends on what kind of fish. Some fish will almost always have a Q there and fold it to a big bet, so it could be a cool play. Or it could be terrible spew.

I disagree with not checkraising QJ on principle. His range is wide enough where he would have to call with worse. Don't really like your sizing though. Make it smaller and probably fold to a shove (which would be for 3 times the pot BTW).

The AQ hand is probably close. Maybe it's a defensive shove. Probably check/fold though.

the last 2 hands seems questionable to me

the thing is that you're very likely not competent to judge your coach's advices

In the hand 54o. The K ott is a big reason for 3barrels. V has very few Kx hands in flop calling range as he does not have AK, we are putting strong pressure on 2ndpairs and worse. K is the far best runout for bluff, we shouldnt miss it.

As it happens, I actually know the guy who coached you on a personal level. He said you were a very stubborn student who was unwilling to listen, that you were deluded into thinking your approach was the right approach all the time. He said he thinks you need to actually take on board advice from players with considerably more experience than yourself (you even admitted he was a "pro")

It actually all boils down to this:

This doesn't surprise me at all

One of those "coaches" with no fold button.

They spew their money first, and then they`re up for yours.

What a horrible thing to say

54 fold pre, cbet too big

JJ fine as played

AK x flop without club, cbet sizing way too big

AQ xf river

QJ wp

My experience, in poker as well as elsewhere, is that some people can be very good at something and very bad at teaching that something. If you disagree with him it could be that he simply hasn't explained it in a way that you can relate to.

It could also be that you're a poor student.

It could just be a personality clash and he's not the right coach for you.

In fairness to him, a lot of advice will seem reckless and counter-intuitive. It should make sense with an appropriate justification. If passivity and intuition made good poker players then all those fish would've crushed the game long ago.

your coach clearly is a redline player and you are a blueline player so sometimes you think hes approach is alot more spewy, but some of his advise could work alot of times unless you have specific reads.
1. alot Qx call river and fold to a river bet on that board. when he called you on river I think he either has AQ or KQ
2. JJ hand I would also bet then turn and check the river. You have a gutshot on the turn, board is double suited you need to bet to protect your hand. You want to maximize value when you are ahead of his draws, and bluff catching the river when a brick comes. He has less Kx that bets the river when you checked to him compare to his missed flush and a pair with flush draw type of hands. You are blocking his nuted type of hands on the turn with 2 jacks. Unless he calls you with 5s6s(at least I won't in this situation) So I would always go bet turn and check river and make decision on villain type and his bet sizing and what hits the river.
3. Its pretty close, slightly +EV with the shove I think.You want to bet and maximize fold equity compare to calling it off with AK as you have literally <20% against his whole range. you fold out 99,JJ, some AK , getting called by TT,QQ. AQ, AcJc,KcJc,and you have roughly 19% equity against his calling range.
4.I agree with you. take AQ to cheap show down. Bet larger on the turn tho if he has 2pair, made straights he would proly reraise you on that type of board. If villain bets on the river we are literally never good. calling off is spewy.
5.Button is a fish, you got lucky he snapped you off. If I bet small on the river with that type of board I either has a J trying to get small amout of value from a 6 or some underpairs from JJ-77, even sometimes A high would call. But if you raise on that board, most of time 6 will get away from the hand if they are stupid enough to bet it on the river. J is chopping and you are only paying more for rake, I won't even call with overpairs for a raise. They just always have it, least 9/10 times. And 66 could be inducing you come over the top too tbh. He knows you can't have a 6 on that board so if you have a J he shoves over you you just have to puke and call it off. I would just call tho.

I asked about these hands on reddit before I posted on 2+2. The majority opinion was that the advice the coach gave to me was terrible.

Link here. Here is a selection of responses from the thread.

Did the coach explain why you should have taken these lines?

Long and short, your coach's advice is too aggressive for your stakes and you play too passive for your stakes

All depends on villain stats. Most regs at 25nl are nits though and you just have to outnit them and then steal all their monies at the right time.

I dont think your coach has played at micro stakes in a long time.

^Yeah, the best way to steal a nit's money is to be even more nitty than her.

This title is just incredible

I hired a person with better decision making than me but I had to fire him because his decisions didn't match mine.

If you believe you can acquire accurate and insightful analysis of hands through this site or reddit then there is no reason to hire a coach to analysis said hands. If you dont believe you can get the correct information/strategy through forums then why hire a coach and then ask for reviews of his coaching on the same spots through the same forums.
What research did you do into this guys results before hiring him. Without knowing anything about him Id hazard a guess that his results are better than the majotiry of people who posted in this thread and on reddit.

My guess is you didn't listen to his explanations and think them through afterwards, you just saw your cashier bleeding like a sieve and immediately dismissed everything he was telling you. It looks a little too aggro on face value but there may have been very good reasons to take some of those lines. i.e he realised what type of player each villain was, what range they have and how to deal with them, something you may never think about, other than "oh, he's a fish, and he's a reg."

Although it might well be subobtimal to play those hands in that way at 25nl, it doesn't mean there weren't great nuggets of advice. He may even have been trying to open your eyes as to not be so damn nitty, so he pushed it really far so you were out of your comfort zone. It seems like it may have done more harm than good, but I suspect he was in the process of working on your passivity.

When you play without the nuts every hand you're going to have sessions where you lose a fair amount of money just by randomly running into it every hand, on the other hand, you're going to have more than enough winning days to offset those sessions. You'll get those folds, and you'll get paid off a LOT more often when you hit hands.

Probable leak.

You missed all the people that more or less agreed with him.

r/poker in a nutshell.

Man, you could have paid some homeless guy 1 sandwich a day for listening to your bad beat stories (nodding his head to your tps) and you would have made 3 persons happier on this world.