Poker Coaching

dvdfan

Hello,

I remember reading this before but i cant find it through searches and i also want to get fresh opinions. Looking for online training but dont know whats the best way to go about it. Is video tutorials good enough or should i get specialised training where they review my hand histories and give me advice?

Ive read a few books, Skalanskys theory of poker, harrington 1&2, etc, i understand position, pot odds (although not my strongest asset) and most of the basic stuff but id like to get proper coaching

Im currently playing 10/25 level and im slightly down after about a week or two of play and i know i should be easily beating this level and want to improve my game and i definetely think it does need alot of improving. Maybe i dont have the discipline but id like to at least give it a try.

Would i be required to play at a specific site if i got coaching or can you usually play anywhere you like???

rag2gar

Why not get some coaching with hectorjelly, he'll sort you out

BigCityBanker

dvdfan wrote:

Im currently playing 10/25 level and im slightly down after about a week or two of play

play 10k hands then see how ur fixed..

phantom_lord

i hope you're not playing cash on full tilt.

shoutman

phantom_lord wrote:

i hope you're not playing cash on full tilt.

Nits of the century Ugh so unproductive at lower levels.

valor

getting coaching is a very good idea

its usually done thru desktop viewing software so what site your playing on is irrelevant

on the bankroll to play 25/50c you wont get a very good coach though

valor

nor on 10/25

ianmc38

Hectorjelly does coaching at an affordable price. Well worth it. You should pm him. I'm sure you'd be beating the micros in a matter of weeks.

dvdfan

Well, ive played 10/25 before and 25/50 and even 50/1 here and there and other than pkr.com where i was playing 25/50 and 50/1 against the king of all donks ive never made a consistent profit. I think i might be able to turn a small profit over 10k hands but i still feel ive alot to learn and nows a good time to start. For some reason my search function is gone wonky so i cant find them old threads.

Too often i feel i could have played a hand better, or im not sure what i should have done. Posting my HH on boards etc is more often than not very good for learning but alot of the times the information isnt detailed enough for me to learn properly, this is where coaching could help me alot.

For example alot of the times youll just see someone post KK on A high board type of hand and see advice like check call down the hand but no details giving of why. Id think to myself why would i check/call, why shouldnt i bet it to see if theyll fold.

But if someone said check/call because if you bet and someone has AK-AJ theyre going to call you with the better hand and if they have middle or bottom pair you might be forcing a better hand to fold and not give them the chance to bluff. This is just an example and im not saying you wont get good advice on boards and 2+2 but alot of the times the HH just get 1-2 quick answer replies and disappear because theyre standard for more experienced players and theyre probably sick of giving the same advice over and over again week after week and month after month. More interesting hands often get great replies and make very interesting threads but i feel coaching should improve my game alot.

Ive so many what if's that id like to be answered like:

Should i be open stealing much in middle position
When my raises get called by shortstacks how often should i continuation bet
When and where should i 3 bet and lots and lots more

A few coaching sessions and he should be able to quickly spot my weaknesses

dvdfan

phantom_lord wrote:

i hope you're not playing cash on full tilt.

Why do you say this??

edit, just seen shoutmans reply, i was playing there for the last 2 weeks and i just started playing GJP yesterday.

RasTa

Because it's the toughest site out there.

What happened to the STT's?

valor

fullt tilt cash games are the hardest on the net

dvdfan

valor wrote:

getting coaching is a very good idea

its usually done thru desktop viewing software so what site your playing on is irrelevant

on the bankroll to play 25/50c you wont get a very good coach though

So whats the going rate for this type of thing, my bankroll is sufficient to play higher its just i know im not good enough so theres no point me playing higher till i can beat this level.

phantom_lord

toughest site I ever played on.

valor

i charged $100 an hour when i was coaching 1/2

i cant imagine anyone being worth the time doing it for less than $50 which considering its 2 buyins is alot in relative terms

shoutman

I think HJ was doing it for $50 per hour, it could be €50.

I am going to give poker a good go over the summer to see if I can get to P_L's level of things by the start of next year and I've no doubt at some time I will be looking for coaching.

dvdfan

RasTa wrote:

Because it's the toughest site out there.

What happened to the STT's?

Wasnt doing the best with the STT's,i used to play $20 on the the old tribeca and maybe i was running good but i beat the levels pretty easy from $10 to $20 and built a bankroll of 20 buyins to play $50 with the plan to take a weekly wage if i was doing well at the $50 level. I depleted my bankroll after a few days the first time and then built it back up again and had another go but after about 10 games and a small loss i knew i wasnt ready and needed a bigger bankroll.

I built it again to around the 20 buyin mark but i wanted to build to around 30 buyins and 20 buyins at $20 level as backup too but around that time tribeca passed away and since then i started playing ipoker, full tilt and ultimate bet and although i had a hot streak at ultimate bet everywhere else i just wasnt turning a profit -13% roi on FT at $20's after a couple of hundred games, ran hot at Ultimate bet over a few days only to lose all my winnings over 2 days, so i dropped levels to $10 stts and moved back to full tilt and was barely making a profit over a couple hundred games and so i gave up on them for the time being.

This also made me think was my game as good as i taught it was or was i just running hot at the time and from reading on 2+2 people including well respected memebers say its getting harder to make a profit playing higher stakes stt's so i taught cash might be a better alternative and this latest run on Full Tilt playing cash made me think i badly need to improve my game. I never played poker in my life before last October so maybe now is a good time to get coaching before i get too many bad habits

phantom_lord

shoutman wrote:

I think HJ was doing it for $50 per hour, it could be €50.

I am going to give poker a good go over the summer to see if I can get to P_L's level of things by the start of next year and I've no doubt at some time I will be looking for coaching.

lol, i think u should try to aim a bit higher than that!



edit: hj is definitely worth 50yoyos an hour btw. i really should go back for more when I start playing again.

Macspower

HJ is the man if he has the time......... you'll have your money back 1000 times over....

dvdfan

What about them subscription sites where you can view tutorials and watch poker videos and stuff, i remember a thread a while back but i cant find it under coaching keywords, think R.Lacey recommended one of them??

Ste05

Cardrunners.com is good, I think it's something like $99 initially and then $25 a month or something, but I'd say HJ would be a good bet too...

There's a free sample video by Green Plastic you can watch which is a good idea of what you'll get.

EDIT: Here's a link to it...

http://www.cardrunners.com/cms/index.cfm/path/84140/86391/89194

phantom_lord

cardrunners.

dunno, I haven't seen any of their videos, meant to sign up to it .

RasTa

dvdfan wrote:

Wasnt doing the best with the STT's,i used to play $20 on the the old tribeca and maybe i was running good but i beat the levels pretty easy from $10 to $20 and built a bankroll of 20 buyins to play $50 with the plan to take a weekly wage if i was doing well at the $50 level. I depleted my bankroll after a few days the first time and then built it back up again and had another go but after about 10 games and a small loss i knew i wasnt ready and needed a bigger bankroll.

I built it again to around the 20 buyin mark but i wanted to build to around 30 buyins and 20 buyins at $20 level as backup too but around that time tribeca passed away and since then i started playing ipoker, full tilt and ultimate bet and although i had a hot streak at ultimate bet everywhere else i just wasnt turning a profit -13% roi on FT at $20's after a couple of hundred games, ran hot at Ultimate bet over a few days only to lose all my winnings over 2 days, so i dropped levels to $10 stts and moved back to full tilt and was barely making a profit over a couple hundred games and so i gave up on them for the time being.

This also made me think was my game as good as i taught it was or was i just running hot at the time and from reading on 2+2 people including well respected memebers say its getting harder to make a profit playing higher stakes stt's so i taught cash might be a better alternative and this latest run on Full Tilt playing cash made me think i badly need to improve my game. I never played poker in my life before last October so maybe now is a good time to get coaching before i get too many bad habits

There is still hope yet....


Although I would kill myself if that was my average stake after that many stt's.

Chucky the tree

Get small stakes holdem by slanksy and miller. Very good read. Dunno if it works though.

ianmc38

I signed up with cardrunners recently. Some good videos though i think Im way ahead of alot of their target audience in terms of poker knowledge/strategy. GreenPlastics ltest 10/20 video has soe good stuff abut double and triple barreling as well as a nice 4-bet, but thes things look standard to me where as they'd be totally new ideas fro many CR members.

I've done some sessions with Daragh and found alot of his advice really helpful. He also helped me become far more aggressive preflop which is essential at 6max.

I went back to FUll Tilt 2 months ago, played for a week and left immediately. The 1/2 games there play like 5/10 on Tribeca.

hotspur

Chucky the tree wrote:

Get small stakes holdem by slanksy and miller. Very good read. Dunno if it works though.

It's a limit book, totally useless for no limit I'm afraid, course they have written No Limit Hold 'em: Theory and Practice which is for no limit.

DeadParrot

ianmc38 wrote:

. Some good videos though i think Im way ahead of alot of their target audience in terms of poker knowledge/strategy. GreenPlastics ltest 10/20 video has soe good stuff abut double and triple barreling as well as a nice 4-bet, but thes things look standard to me where as they'd be totally new ideas fro many CR members.

I had a look at these and some other things myself and I felt quite the same.

Its horrible and serves no purpose but I constantly find myself going, If I had the bankroll......

Regarding coaching...would anyone feel it would hurt their game, I mean while being coached, they wouldnt play as they normally would, not exactly afraid of what the 'coach' might say but kind of?

Hectorjelly

hotspur wrote:

It's a limit book, totally useless for no limit I'm afraid, course they have written No Limit Hold 'em: Theory and Practice which is for no limit.

the book is excellent and explains the basics of poker so well that its very useful for a no limit player

hotspur

Hectorjelly wrote:

the book is excellent and explains the basics of poker so well that its very useful for a no limit player

Personally I hate the book and think it's bad even for limit hold em at any reasonable level, but then again Sklansky annoys me. What's their NL book like do you know? I haven't read it yet.

The Sheriff 101

Currently in the same situation as you im moving to dublin for a few months and plan on getting as many hours of coaching from HJ as i can same stakes but just moved to 6 max also just been doing a bit of reading on 2+2 its really a gold mine also ive just started reading the theory of poker

Ste05

hotspur wrote:

Personally I hate the book and think it's bad even for limit hold em at any reasonable level, but then again Sklansky annoys me. What's their NL book like do you know? I haven't read it yet.

It's excellent, the best NL book I've ever read. And Sklansky also annoys me.

Hectorjelly

I thought it was rubbish

Ste05

No Limit Hold 'Em Theory and Practice Rubbish, but SSHE excellent for a NL player???

RacingSilver

Hectorjelly wrote:

I thought it was rubbish

So did I (admittedly I stopped after about 100 pages thinking I could use my time better).
I have found the best material in the 2+2 archives; it requires a lot of work to filter out the best stuff but it's a goldmine if you're determined to put in the time.

Bandara

I went to Hector Jelly and found him to be really excellent and would recommend him to anyone wishing to improve.

I'll definitely be going back to him when I get more time to play. Money very well spent.

except the time he felted me with a massive suck out all in preflop with 55 against my Pocket Rockets !!!

He hit a straight

:rolleyes:

ianmc38

Hectorjelly wrote:

I thought it was rubbish

I just finished it recently and thought it was terrible. So much bad advice. 2 that come to mind are open limping J9s on te button in a cash game and minraising A5s on the button in a 5/10 cash game after 2 or limpers as a pot sweetener.

Some of the ideas he has in the second half of the book are good, but on the whole i was really disappointed.

Ste05

Hmmm, I don't remember those parts.... I thought the concepts were quite well explained but as with all Poker books I only skimmed through it so maybe with an in depth read there'll be stuff like that in it. Might go back and give it a re-read... but probably not.

Chucky the tree

SSHE is doing a good job for me so far.

Hectorjelly

Ste05 wrote:

No Limit Hold 'Em Theory and Practice Rubbish, but SSHE excellent for a NL player???

its a strange world we live in!

NL theory and practice was badly organised and had tonnes of stuff that either made no sense or was just wrong, Sklanksy got laughed out of HSNL last year a few times. There was some good stuff but it was buried at the back. On the other hand SSHE is an excellent book that explains some of the key concepts of poker really well, I wish I had read it as soon as I started playing. They arent really directly comparable though, a very good player is unlikely to learn anything from SSHE even though its by far the superior book.

Gholimoli

Hectorjelly wrote:

I thought it was rubbish

i thought it was ok,i didnt think it was rubbish but i expected alot more since both of them have books that are regarded as the best in the subject.

Mr.Plough

P_L's thread on low stakes nlhe is fairly decent


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055053966&referrerid=&highlight=

phantom_lord

Mr.Plough wrote:

P_L's thread on low stakes nlhe is fairly decent


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055053966&referrerid=&highlight=

i cringe when i read back over that tbh.

Mr.Plough

phantom_lord wrote:

i cringe when i read back over that tbh.

lol the big heading


CONTINUATION BETTING

dvdfan

Hectorjelly wrote:

its a strange world we live in!

NL theory and practice was badly organised and had tonnes of stuff that either made no sense or was just wrong, Sklanksy got laughed out of HSNL last year a few times. There was some good stuff but it was buried at the back. On the other hand SSHE is an excellent book that explains some of the key concepts of poker really well, I wish I had read it as soon as I started playing. They arent really directly comparable though, a very good player is unlikely to learn anything from SSHE even though its by far the superior book.

I have this book but ive not read it, do you think that reading it now when im trying to make at lower stakes cash games would be contradicting and confusing and am i better off waiting till i have a better grasp as im sure some hands are played completely different in limit than they would be in NL so i may be overvaluing certain hands in NL that dont play so well in limit