Posts Tagged ‘MTT coaching’

One of my primary goals when coaching poker is to help my students think more creatively and situationally, to consider all of their options rather than just doing what they think is “standard”. They learn to find value in places they hadn’t thought to look for it by thinking through all aspects of a situation rather than focusing narrowly on their own holding. One common example of this is learning when and how to play unpaired hands for showdown value, usually but not always as bluff-catchers. Initially, many people are very uncomfortable calling with a hand like Ace-high. They might consider bluffing with it, but they usually have trouble recognizing opportunities to show it down as the best hand in all but the smallest pots.

I got an IM yesterday from a student who’s worked with me for a few months. He is originally from Paris, and though he now lives in Manhattan, he played this hand at a French casino while visiting his mother for the holidays. It couldn’t be a better example of what I’m trying to help my students achieve, and I am really proud both of this student and of the progress he has made:  Read the complete post...

I recently posted about Setting Effective New Year’s Resolutions for Poker Success. Today, I’m going to start sharing my poker-related resolutions.

Goal 1: Make Some Money

Dolla dolla bills, y’all.

Average At Least 20 Hours of Poker Each Week

This is a step up from last year, but I can do it. I’m going to cut myself some slack on a few other fronts (not that I hit those goals last year) to hopefully free up some more time for actually playing this silly game.

I’m also going to be more flexible about the types of games I can play. One thing I want to do is learn some new games, so as long as I’m playing, I’m not going to worry about which game or how big. There’s really no danger of me not playing enough NLHE to earn a solid living.

Average At Least 5 Hours of Coaching Each Week

I didn’t do it last year, but I want to try again. I make more money playing than I do coaching, but it’s something I enjoy. I’ve made some friends through coaching (hi guys), and it’s nice to occasionally be in a cooperative relationship with another poker player rather than always being out to take everyone’s money. I guess I could go the Stoxtrader route and do both, but that’s not my style.  Read the complete post...

I’ve never been a professional teacher, but I’ve done a lot of teaching, in a wide variety of settings, and I’ve observed and worked with a lot of professional educators. I’ve come to believe that there’s a lot more to teaching than being smart or even being able to explain things very clearly. Teaching is also about empathy. It’s about understanding where your students are coming from and presenting material in a way that guides them toward greater understanding. I think this is what people mean when they talk about “getting through” to someone.

This is especially important in one-on-one poker coaching, because it is a highly critical process. That is, I teach by criticizing, hopefully in a very constructive way, the play and thought processes of my students. Unlike my experiences teaching debate, where I was often dealing with audiences who would be the first to admit that they had virtually no prior knowledge of what I was teaching and so no pre-conceived notions to cling to or defend, when coaching poker I am dealing in a subject in which my students are already well-versed. My job is not to teach them something entirely new so much as to refine and in some cases correct things they already know or think they know.  Read the complete post...