Coaching Poker Forums

Hi Otis,

Just a suggestion but do not get coaching from tubasteve, and do not watch his videos. There are plenty of other options.

-Joe

I addressed this point already:

By not saying something I'd be letting other suckers get taken basically and encouraging people to waste their time.

Do you disagree with the statement: "If someone doesn't play at poker but is trying to sell you coaching the most likely explanation is that they aren't good enought to make money at poker."

Heh, just read the whole thread. Props to otis_nixon and spino1i imo, most people aren't willing to talk **** about anyone.

You can see how many past students of breathweapon came into the scandal thread saying "Yeah I thought he wasn't a very good coach but didn't want to bad mouth him/thought it might have just been me/etc". This coupled with the fact that students will generally find it very hard to gauge the quality of new information makes it very hard to identify a bad coach or identify when a coach isn't up to scratch anymore.

There's huge flaws in the coaching industry, there have been since it's beginnings, its a faulty model, and each time a scandal comes up it just brings more and more light to the problems with it.

Just read whole thread.

I definitely agree with some stuff otis and spino said. I think coaches should give out some sort of proof of whatever is said in their bio/posts related to their poker career.

If your bio says you're killing the small stakes, you should prove it with your sn or database stats. If you want to be a coach but are not killing your regular games, don't have them write that in your bio, that's pretty low and basically fraud.

It's really not that easy for a beginner poker player to confront a coach and ask him for his SN and graphs. If the coach can come up with any excuse (like my database is lost or I play in untraceable games/sites), the student probably still doesn't want to miss out on a 'coaching bargain', considering he might not have a ton of options, price-wise and with the seal of approval from a training site.

edit:

Actually I can't be bothered.

Go grind your axe elsewhere.

I don't think anyone in this thread said don't voir dire your prospective coach.

OK, good idea.

1) Way back in the day. This is before DC existed. My first coach was a huge name on 2+2 and is still real famous this was 2006. This person charges like 500+ / hr now but at the time only charged $50 or $60. I had no referral except the name and posting history, no vids to go on or anything, this was a mistake. I got sweated over AIM, no TV, no skype, no theory talk no in-hand advice that would be "unethical." I felt that this person was doing other stuff while coaching me and really basically didn't care about whether I got any better.

Mistakes made: No referral, signing up because this was a big name that everyone thought was awesome. Even though there was a great poker mind there that's won lots of money and still does, that's not enough.

2) Also no referral. But I loved this guy's vids. He didn't sweat me, we talked theory, he was smart and it was sorta helpful. He was an OK guy, $1k / 4 hrs was too high a price, you win some you lose some. A couple things he said to this day stick with me.

3) Guy from a major training site. Did not tell the whole truth about how much money he had made. Claimed to play 5/10-50/100 yet was coaching for $150 / hr. 1 session and I was done, this guy was clearly not on the level. He's no longer with the site but no major drama in public. I bet they realized it and cut him.

Mistake made: Trusting a training site to have done the due diligence for me. Thinking a guy who beats HSNL would coach for $150 / hr. See breathweapon scandal on 2+2, same sort of thing. That guy was a huge fraud claimed to beat HSNL but was cheap. Guess what though he had nothing but awesome reviews from all his students and Tri Slowhabit Nguyen also said he was awesome. Learn from that.

4) Got referred from a friend who I trusted was good at poker. Guy said "this guy really wants you to get better is a great player and a great teacher." Looked into his poker background, I knew who he was anyways. Watched a couple vids of his and was impressed. My friend had clearly made some big jumps in his game too, so I got started and got way way better. The guy really did want me to improve and just did everything right. So what made the planets align here:

1) Referral from a friend that he was a good teacher and a solid guy
2) Referral that the guy really cared about his students progressing and wasn't just showing up for the $$
3) Proof that the guy wins at poker and is better than just good at poker (it's even better if he wins more at poker than he does coaching, that's a really good sign and was clearly the case here.)
4) Watched some vids as well and talked with my buddy to make sure I liked the teaching style

All 4 of these are required IMO.

There are a couple coaches I'm leaving out here because I made some mistakes a couple times and repeating myself is boring.

Thanks. That was helpful.
I assume none of these guys was tubasteve or you would've said so.

I haven't posted it, but if you really look hard you could find at least one of them. I'm not gonna out my names here but as far as tracked hands there are 135,000 hands mostly from 1/2-5/10 HU (mostly 1/2-3/6) at a little over 8 PTBB / 100 on average. PTR usually underestimates HU profit, so actually my rate is a little higher. I also play on other smaller untracked networks. If you don't believe me feel free to prop bet me on the results and I'll have a 3rd party we both trust verify.

I'm not trying to brag either I just think it is very important that I don't totally suck at poker because I'm saying some pretty judgmental stuff here. I'm not the next coming of durrrr or anything but I'm at least half decent at poker.

I don't want to argue about this because I don't care and it's beside the point, but not giving out a screen name and only revealing by prop betting only provided we find someone we both know is not exactly 'backed by results'. Just saying.
But that's neither here nor there, and I appreciate the info above.

I assume none of these guys was tubasteve or you would've said so.

Nope, I don't know tubasteve.

I don't want to argue about this because I don't care and it's beside the point, but not giving out a screen name and only revealing by prop betting only provided we find someone we both know is not exactly 'backed by results'. Just saying.

Then take the bet! I said someone "we both trust"... there are a lot of people that fit that bill for sure.

Then take the bet! I said someone "we both trust"... there are a lot of people that fit that bill for sure.

You know very few people are dumb enough to bet even a nickel over some internet posturing, that's why I put backed by results in quotes. And I don't need your results (my original point). They don't matter, you're entitled to your opinion whether you're good or you suck, and I'm entitled to ignore it.
I'm done here. Tks again for relating your coaching experiences.

Say what you want about Otis, he has posted some really good info both in this thread and in the 2p2 thread he linked.

I have nothing against Steve, and really enjoy his posts and the vids he did with Baluga. Despite the fact that he probably got unfairly singled out here (and the overall tone has been a little too argumentative), this has been a really interesting discussion. It's good to go further than the standard "PTR is inaccurate. Phil Jackson coached Michael Jordan even though he couldn't play in the NBA at the time" response. Personally, I'm in the "prefers a coach who plays a lot and wins" camp, but I can certainly see the merit for working with someone who used to be a winning player and has moved on to other things.

One final point - even after the Jason Ho scandal broke, there was a thread on Stox where many micro players essentially begged Stox to repost his vids that they had pulled. This could support either the "micro players can't properly evaluate a coach" or the "you don't have to be a winning player to make good vids" argument, on which I can see merit to both sides.

Interesting discussion. We will work to be more transparent about who our coaches are, why we hire them, and why we choose them to make the kinds of videos they do. Keep in mind that all our coaches represent DeucesCracked. We do not just put videos up from anybody, we do not allow any Joe Schmoe to coach. Many "great" players with pretty graphs get turned down. It is clear we have to do a better job of making our process public but at the same time we are very, very happy with our team.

Otis, ty for the feedback and discussion. Your coach has taught you a lot.

Just a question OT, I don't see any way to unsubscribe from the mailing list on this thread (or any other thread.) How do we do that?

I'd also like to point out (and push people towards using this) we have a feedback mechanism where students can review coaches. We use that feedback to evaluate and help our coaches get better: http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/19-Coaching/87761-Review-your-DC-Coach-

Tubasteve in particular gets a high volume of reviews and has been maintaining a very high average score. In the future we hope to make our scoring criteria and the scores public, assuming we receive enough data.

Could there possibly be a video series made out of 'testing' the coaches? A small/mid stakes coach records a session and is joined by someone like Krantz, WoT, whitelime etc. to review it and they use the video as a kind of a test from the senior coach in which the 'junior' coach primarily expands on theory discussions which come up from his play, and to a lesser extent explains his play, explains possible alternate lines and why they weren't taken, and critically evaluates his own play?

It could kill 2 birds with one stone, in that it produces an interesting video series and goes some way to 'checking up' on the coaches. It would also ensure that coaches are on their game and actively play at least some amount at the stakes they coach for.

Another idea may be to introduce a series where coaches who have good results in recent times make videos, call it "Coaches Currently Crushing" or "Everybody's Solid" or something. The coaches can only get into it by submitting their recent results/graphs (which must be over a pretty significant sample) to the higher ups at DC and have to be approved by them. The coaches who play well enough to get into the series would gain great publicity and coaching traffic while the coaches who don't will be motivated to pick up their performance to get those benefits. It could be a monthly series made by the winningest coach in the previous month or something.

Just some thoughts.

Just an aside, this is quite naive. WiltonTilt has said himself there were coaches on DCs roster that he felt were not up to scratch and they were removed at his behest.

That has nothing to do with Tuba or any other particular coach on this site, but automatically believing a coach is good because he is on DCs roster is very silly.

I'd also like to point out (and push people towards using this) we have a feedback mechanism where students can review coaches. We use that feedback to evaluate and help our coaches get better: http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/19-Coaching/87761-Review-your-DC-Coach-

Tubasteve in particular gets a high volume of reviews and has been maintaining a very high average score. In the future we hope to make our scoring criteria and the scores public, assuming we receive enough data.

This was what I was trying to say in my post. That there is a review process and that DC tries to actively weed out or not list coaches who aren't up to par.

Interesting discussion. We will work to be more transparent about who our coaches are, why we hire them, and why we choose them to make the kinds of videos they do. Keep in mind that all our coaches represent DeucesCracked. We do not just put videos up from anybody, we do not allow any Joe Schmoe to coach. Many "great" players with pretty graphs get turned down. It is clear we have to do a better job of making our process public but at the same time we are very, very happy with our team.

Otis, ty for the feedback and discussion. Your coach has taught you a lot.

Krantz you said you wanted to make the whole coach vetting thing more public.

I am curious about one part. You said "many 'great' players with pretty graphs get turned down". Im not sure how you define a pretty graph, but why do they usually get turned down? They arent as good as their graph suggests? They really suck at teaching? I mean I would think you guys would try to get as many really good players as possible. Maybe you and me define what qualifies as really good differently though.

Have you ever turned away anyone with a graph showing a $1/hand winrate or better over a significant (200k+ hand) sample?

Krantz you said you wanted to make the whole coach vetting thing more public.

I am curious about one part. You said "many 'great' players with pretty graphs get turned down". Im not sure how you define a pretty graph, but why do they usually get turned down? They arent as good as their graph suggests? They really suck at teaching? I mean I would think you guys would try to get as many really good players as possible. Maybe you and me define what qualifies as really good differently though.

Have you ever turned away anyone with a graph showing a $1/hand winrate or better over a significant (200k+ hand) sample?

Yes, we have. Reasons we've turned away players like this: they have bad attitudes, they only want to make videos for the money, they are poor teachers (sample videos demonstrate a clear lack of fundamentals or obvious bad play), they have no interest in participating in the community, or we don't think that they will be able to bring anything to the table that we don't already have. We always, however, encourage these guys to get involved in our community and check back later in the year. The ones who really want to be part of what we're doing, they get involved, they check back, we give them critical feedback, inevitably some of them may make it onto the roster. We are constantly evaluating our roster, both in their contributions to the growing strategy community here and in the quality of their videos, and in their recent results. But no one factor will dominate as they all service different, niche audiences (for example, tubasteve doesn't make midstakes NL videos, just like FWF isn't going to make microstakes videos)

When I recruit, I look for the great player and the great teacher. That is the ideal man for the job and I am always looking for him. All our major signings fit that bill. MagicNinja is a great example. If you note our Executive Producer roster, the only addition in the past 2.5 years has been Ansky. We are huge nits about who we work with!