General Discussion Poker Forums

I'll say first that my coach is NOT a DC coach.

Let me give you some background:

I play on Stars and Full-Tilt with the same screen-name. My coach plays on both sites with two different screen-names. When I pay for sessions I always ship to the Stars account. My coach has kept his SN on Tilt secret, but I found out what it was.

My normal game is 0.5/1 NL FR. My coach is/was a winning player at 2/4-5/10 but PTR shows him having a long break-even stretch and has been playing as low as 0.5/1 recently.

Today on Tilt he sat in on one of my games at 0.5/1 and proceeded to play against me. He even took a decent pot off me before I left the table.

My feeling is, my coach who knows a lot about my game shouldn't be sitting in on my games. I saw him on a couple other 0.5/1 tables and actively avoided them.

Given that he thinks I don't know what his Tilt SN is I found his behavior a bit unethical, taking advantage of all the knowledge he has of my game. Especially since he could have easily just chose another table.

I could kind of understand if I was playing 5/10 and there are few tables running, but this is 0.5/1 so he could have easily avoided me if he's just playing that low to get out of a downswing or whatever.

Am I overreacting? What do you think?

Get an explanation. Kick him to the curb. Post his SN so he doesn't scam others.

Yikes, you are positive you know his screen name? If so this seems very unethical to me as well. Has his advice been helping alot? I don't seem any issues with him dropping down in stakes if he has been on a bad run and is building up a roll. I wouldn't necessarily let this sway my decision, however sitting in on your table with obvious info on your game seems unethical to me, I don't think youre overreacting.

First of all, I do think that if the coach game-selected your table, and tried to exploit your leaks, it is a bit unethical. Atleast I would lose my trust in the coach (relation-wise and skill-wise), and is definately enough of a reason for you to fire him.

However, I think you should begin by giving everyone the benefit of the doubt.
Your coach could have been playing you to find out your leaks live.
Or maybe he was mass-tabling and had no other choice than your table (dunno about 100NLFR, but I would assume there aren't 100s of tables open?).
Or maybe he didn't realize you were at the table till he got involved in a pot with you, and couldn't really do anything because the pot was already bloated or sth.

So yeah, let him explain, and if he just flames at you or sth, just out his SN for a warning to others.

If everything you describe is correct this is extremely unethical. If your coach wanted to test you he should have sought your consent first (you still wouldn't have known his s/n). There is no good reason for the coach to do this beyond exploiting his advantage under the impression you had no idea. If your coach is playing the same stakes as you on the same site and they refuse to give you that s/n you should be suspicious.

Wow!

if this story is the truth, then it's just too crazy.

fire him!

I certainly think this is very unethical. There may be a reasonable explanation behind it but I wouldn't really expect one. If I was you I would talk to him before you tell him whats up and try to get some information out of him. Tell him you're wondering what site to play on primarily and ask if he has any experience playing as low as .50/1 on FT or PS recently and ask which he would recommend or something. That way you kind of give him an opening to say that he's been playing on X site at X stakes and it would give him a chance to come clean with you. If he doesn't then the red flags should be waving. If you tell him your suspicions first it may give him a chance to come up with some cover story or something.

So I would try to do a little investigating yourself as far as possible, then give him a chance to explain himself, and if his explanation isn't good enough then make a thread on 2p2 and whatever site you got in touch with him through (if there is one) and tell everyone what you know.

I don't know that firing him out of hand is the answer, but you should definitely talk to him about this at the very least. It's pretty sketchy behavior.

I think some of my reaction and response would be dictated by my experience with the coach. If I had had an excellent experience with the guy, I think I'd be more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt to some degree (though I'd still ask him to explain his actions). If my experience had been less than excellent, I may approach the whole situation a little more aggressively.

Good luck. His behavior should certainly raise some flags, if nothing else.

The only thing I could imagine is that he has so many (which should be really many!) students that he just lost the overview and didn´t recognized it was you / didn´t really call off any reads on you instantaneously, thus thought he wouldn´t do sth. unethical unless he pulled out his notes.

But as dayoldhater mentioned - give him the chance to explain himself, if the answer is not satifying, tell him to go to hell and cheat someone else.

To answer a couple questions:

I 100% know his SN on tilt despite him believing I don't.

He is a good coach but I've only done 2 sessions with him.

He absolutely knows it was me. He was only on 3 tables at the time so I don't see how he could miss my SN when we are heads up in a big pot.

He doesn't have many students as he hasn't been coaching widely for that long.

This sounds premeditated to me.

you should consider releasing the 2p2 attack dogs IMHO...

How did you find out his SN?

Send him a HH and ask him about the hand and reads on the villain. Would be soooo funny if he is still acting and doesn't admit that it's him.

Yeah first ask him wtf is going on. And if the answer is not good just fire him.

you should consider releasing the 2p2 attack dogs IMHO...

LOL - probably not the worst idea.