Poker in Finland

It has (again) been a while since my last post. Mainly 'cause there hasn't been that much going on. Now the thing changed so I have yet another reason to post.

DC member D3rJack made a post a bit over a month ago where he was offering fee coaching because he wanted become a poker coach. Due to lack of coaching experience he offered 4 session for free to receive some feedback and to get his feet wet. I was one of the lucky members who he picked to coach. Anyone interested in getting coaching from him, here is a review of his work.

I'd like to start stating that I play mainly ~25NL. So the observations I made are from a micro grinder. Anyhow, the 4 session went as following:

- Vid review of my play

- HH reviews

- HH reviews

- Live sweat

So we started with a video review so that Adrian could get a quick grasp of my game and maybe spot some leaks. Due to the lack of huge, clear leaks we decided to spend the next sessions reviewing some hands that I found difficult or hands from a particular area that I thought I had the most problems with.

So the 2nd session we spent going through my 50NL hands where I had lost a bunch of money. I sent the HHs to Adrian before hand, he went through them and picked up hands where he thought I had messed up. It really boosted my confidence to hear Adrian say that I had run pretty bad during my shots at 50NL but he also made me realize that there were spots where I hadn't analyzed some situations thorough enough and that there's still a lot of work to be made in order to make my game better (like in everyone's game). He was able to point out a few bet-sizing tells from regs which will surely help me to handle them in the future.

3rd session was barreling/3-betting session.

4th session was live sweat where many times I would have done the exact opposite than Adrian. Those small mistakes that we didn't analyze during the HH reviews (opening and calling ranges, some cbetting situations etc.) got spotted during this session.

Then to the actual review of his overall coaching:

I'd like to start by saying that Adrian is a really nice dude. Even though he is from Germany his English is clear and well spoken (no offense to all Germans reading this!).

Adrian was able to logically explain his every action. Not once did we encounter a situation where he would be "Uhm, I don't know". Sometimes he said something like "Well I'd do this or that" and leave it there but when I asked "Why?" he explained his thoughts in a way that really made sense.

This applies to every coach out there: students, always ask why. I doesn't do you any good to just agree with your coach. Question him, make him think, change a card on the board and ask how does that affect your coaches action, "what would you do on a x turn or y river", "what is the worst hand you would vbet here", "what cards would you triple barrel", "what would your check/folding range be here or there". You can tell a lot of your coach from the way he answers these questions, more specifically, how does he answer questions related to ranges.

Adrian was more than pleasing with his answers. His explanations and logic where such that I'm sure I'll be following his reasoning in the future. I'm sure that I'll be re-watching my sessions with him many times in the future because I think he was able to really improve my game. His poker fundamentals are very well-built and he is able to pass that knowledge on understandably.

I felt really great working with him and it honestly felt like robbery to get those sessions for free. I'm really thankful to Adrian because of that. A huge plus in his way of coaching is a forum that he uses. He gave me the permission to post hands there on the private forum and he would look at them and reply. I think that every coach should use such a system.

I'm sure that working with Adrian will have an impact on my game and I'm sure that at least every micro player would benefit greatly from working with him. You could tell a bit from his style that he was new to being a coach but I'm sure that his style will improve/change in the future once he gets a bit more experience.

If you have any questions regarding my coaching experience with him I'm happy to answer.

Run good guys!