I’m going to use a fairly simple example to illustrate this point: The hand I will use is K9s in a game of Limit Holdem. Now, K9s is not the worst hand you could hold, but it is far from the best hand, and at best extremely marginal. So, suppose there is a limper, and you decide to limp along with this mediocre holding. Unfortunately for you, this is where things often go awry: The pot gets raised by another player, everyone else folds except for the initial limper, so you find yourself calling another bet, because the pot odds dictate you call getting 6.5-to-1. My friend, you have just been trapped!

The problem with this hand isn’t when you flop a flush draw or other strong hand; the problem is when you flop pretty-good, like a King, or a 9. This is enough of a problem when the pot hasn’t been raised and no one has shown strength (and could be sitting on a hand like A9/KT/KJ/KQ): When this happens in a raised pot you are in a world of trouble. Often times the pot-odds are such that you are almost forced to call the pre-flop aggressor down: your initial loose call has turned you into a calling station –calling the pre-flop raise because of pot-odds, and then calling when you catch a piece of the flop.

This is one of the reasons I feel players –especially new players—need to be very fastidious with their hand selection, and avoid hands that have a high domination factor like K9s or AT, or even A2-9s. The ability to play these hands comes with experience, and good reads on your opponents. For the up-and-coming player these types of hands will be your biggest profit eaters. Sure, you will do very well when they flop good, but it’s the times you are playing A6s and flop an Ace that will really deplete your chip stack. Very few players are able to let top pair go unless they are faced with multiple bets.

It’s a far better idea to play small pairs and suited connectors that are easy to fold after the flop; you either have something worth chasing, or you don’t! Hands like K9s and A7s leave you with more questions than answers when they flop top-pair.

For one thing, you’re not giving away information when you snap-fold pre-flop with a deuce-five offsuit, so just look at your cards and muck them. Additionally, you don’t have to pretend that every-single-time you get your hand caught in the cookie jar you actually have a tough fold to make; go ahead and pretend you’re making a difficult lay-down from time-to-time, but please don’t do it every single time.

Imagine a catcher who framed every single pitch for the umpire no matter how badly it misses the plate. It would drive you nuts right? Actually, it would probably lead to riots in stands. Well, this is exactly what this unnecessary tanking in poker is doing. To be honest, it’s actually worse than framing every pitch; for some players it’s more like a pitcher throwing over to first base five times in between each pitch when nobody is on base!

What aggravates the most about this is that virtually every hand –before you’ve even had a chance to collect your hole cards—the dealer is pointing at you or saying it’s on you, but after you look at your hole-cards you can basically take as much as time as your heart desires to act on your hand. It seems counterintuitive, we are rushing each player along when everyone has something to do –from collecting their cards to peeking at them if they desire—but when only a single person has an action to make we all get to sit there with our thumbs up our ass while they count to 30 before mucking their Jack-Deuce.

It seems as though poker players of the Internet generation have lost their way when it comes to creating a friendly, accommodating, atmosphere. In some ways it’s simply not their fault since they’ve never had to keep a game going, and know very little about the lean years –the term Prop Players come to mind—and why it’s sometimes more important to make the game fun and inviting, even if it means you might just possibly be giving off the slightest little piece of usable information to players who have 10,000 hands logged with you.

I’m not asking for a shot clock or anything of that nature; more so I want poker players to be aware that what they think is helping their bottom line (it may add a very minimal amount if looked at in a vacuum) is probably costing them a ton of money in the long-run by turning off potential players.

You see, while the kids have gotten looser and more aggressive, the TAG’s of the world have started to adjust as well, usually loosening up a bit themselves and ramping up their aggression to exploit other Tight and/or Passive players. That being said, old habits die hard, and when push comes to shove a lot of these veteran players (I’ll lump myself in with that crowd) have a tendency to fall back into their TAG ways when one of the young guns starts pushing back. Since we can’t out LAG a LAG, what we’ve done is almost ingenious in its own way and may very well have tipped the scales back in the tight aggressive players’ direction.

In order to out agro us, the LAG’s of the world have gotten so loose and aggressive that they are now exploitable to a particular style: The Tight, SEMI-Aggressive player. Basically instead of stepping on the accelerator and turning themselves into pseudo-LAG’s, by tapping the brakes a little a TAG can outmaneuver their ultra-LAG opponents by taking on the role of a calling station (a calling station that is playing good hands of course).  Essentially, we let the LAG overextend and concede the role of table captain to the LAG, and in doing so we gain the advantage.

The ultra-LAG’s style depends on him putting his opponents to difficult decisions and applying constant pressure, so a player who is essentially playing a pot-control game when he has something like middle or top pair can thwart the LAG’s plans, keeping the pot small (or smaller) and avoiding that difficult decision of “does he have it, or is he pushing me around?”

Now, this tight/semi-passive style is not ideal for most situations, but it is ideal for a situation where one of your opponents decides they are simply going to out-agro the entire table, and they ramp up their aggression factor to a point where they can be exploited by a calling station. One situation where this style will pay huge dividends is when you have an opponent who will routinely fire two and three barrels. Generally, when these players get played back at on the flop or turn by a TAG they’ll just shut it down and wait for their next opportunity to bully them. By going into call-down mode early in the hand you keep them firing.

It may not be the prettiest style of poker, and it may give you fits when the LAG is actually hitting hands, but trying to out-agro someone who is already teetering on being a maniac is a terrible idea; the only real way to counteract these ultra-LAG players is to call them down.

What to Expect From a Poker Coach

Before you even pay for a session or join an online poker training site you should have a very firm idea of what you are expecting to receive for your time and money. If you’re hiring a coach for a one-on-one session you should explain your goals right from the get-go, so both you and the poker coach what you are expecting to get –and the coach can then agree that your goals are attainable or he can explain why you are being unrealistic.

As I stated in Part 3 of this series, the first thing you should expect is for your coach to be on time and be completely focused no you during the session. Remember, you are paying this person to show you what it takes to be a professional, and if their idea of being professional is showing up late with lame excuses or texting during your session you obviously have found someone who is not “professional” themselves, so how could they ever teach you to think and act like one?

Additionally, your coaching sessions should leave you thinking, “Wow, I never thought of that before!” If your coach is drilling you with “this is what I do here,” and similar statements, you may want to reassess who you’ve chosen to guide you in the poker world. Your coach should be correcting mistakes and imparting knowledge, but they should also be doing so in a way that is both interesting and leaves you thirsty for more.

Red Flags

• Looking for heaps of money up front
• Unwilling to provide results or testimonials
• Missed appointments or late for appointments
• Unprepared
• Showing up for a session drunk, high, or tired
• Doesn’t pay full attention to the sessions
• Answers questions with talking points
• Has trouble explaining their thought processes
• Doesn’t listen to your concerns

What to expect form an online training site

Poker Training Sites don’t have to live up to the lofty expectations of a coach charging hundreds of dollars per session, but you should expect a certain level of professionalism from them nonetheless.

Your time at online poker training site should begin with a free trial of some sort. I have a simple rule for online training sites: No free trial, no membership. Additionally, an online training sites active roster (the people who are actually making videos) should match the people they are advertising as coaches on the homepage. It’s great that you had one of the best poker players of all-time as a coach back in 2008, but the game changes so rapidly that the strategies used by the best players in 2008 could be LOSING strategies in today’s poker world.

Red Flags

• No Free Trial offer
• Spotty content schedule or a lack of an upload schedule altogether
• Spotty audio/video that speaks to a lack of quality control
• Hard to find results for their coaches
• Marketed coaches are active

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

What to Look for in a Poker Coach

• Experience

No offense to younger poker coaches who might be crushing the game, but there is a certain value that should be placed on experience. A good poker coach will have seen it all, and experienced many high’s and low’s in their career, be it poker related or personal. If you are a younger/newer coach you need to understand that your lack of experience is a detriment and you should be able to answer any concerns on this front and layout precisely why you are the coach they should hire.

That being said, a younger poker coach who is not as worldly as an experienced player is fine for online poker coaching or to plug leaks in your game, but if you are looking for a coach/mentor I’d definitely go with a player that has more experience… and by experience I don’t mean the person has to be 60 years-old, just someone who has been around the block once or twice, travelled the poker circuit for a few years, or been ensconced in the poker world for a half-decade or more.

• Results & Testimonials

This pretty much goes without saying, but your poker coach should have trackable, provable, results, both as a poker player and as a teacher of the game. If the person is just getting into coaching and doesn’t have references and testimonials they should at least provide links to any forum posts or other writings they have done and should be able to verbalize why they are equipped to be your poker coach.

Testimonials are also a huge asset, and any coach worth his salt should have multiple testimonials.

• Free trial

I’m a big stickler for standing by your product, and there is no better way to say “I’m worth the money I’m charging” than to offer a free consultation or even an abbreviated session. If a person isn’t willing to offer some type of free consultation it could simply mean that they are super-busy and don’t have the time, but it could also mean that they don’t really believe in what they are selling, or are unsure about their ability to coach you, and want the money up front.

• A Good Communicator

This is extremely overlooked in poker coaching; your coach has to be able to verbalize their thoughts in a clear concise way. This is not only a matter of the person being taught absorbing the coaching, but it’s also cost-effective. Think of it this way, a coach that has to explain things with 200 words instead of 100, or explain the same concept six different ways before you grasp it, is wasting half the session (which could be hundreds of dollars), which means less information passed from teacher to student.

• Empathy

A good poker coach should be able to put themself in your shoes and see things from your point of view. If your coach is having trouble figuring out why you are not improving, or where your sticking points are you may want to find a new one.

• Punctual, accommodating, and true to their word

Another quality you should demand in a poker coach is that they live up to their word and make good on their pledges to you.  A poker coach should be on time and ready to start the session, every single time. They should also be prepared and stay engaged throughout the session, avoiding phone calls and other distractions.

• Positive attitude and pride in their work

A poker coach should also be energetic and positive during your sessions. When you are paying a premium hourly rate for someone’s services they should be happy to be there.  Furthermore, a poker coach should also be proud of the progress you are making, willing to share it publicly (if you agree that this is ok of course), since your progress is a reflection on their own skills as a poker coach.

Read Part 1 Here: /blog/an-in-depth-look-at-poker-coaching-part-1-the-basics/

Read Part 2 Here: /blog/an-in-depth-look-at-poker-coaching-part-2-types-of-coaching/

Read Part 4 here: /blog/an-in-depth-look-at-poker-coaching-part-4-expectations/

Types of Poker Coaching

• Live 1-on-1 Coaching

Live 1-on-1 coaching is probably the most useful, but it is also usually the most expensive. With face-to-face coaching you’re going to get the most out of your sessions. These sessions generally involve hand history reviews, theoretical and strategic discussions, and sometimes sweat sessions or heads-up matches.

• Internet/Phone 1-on-1 Coaching

Similar to face-to-face coaching, 1-on-1 coaching via Skype or over the phone will also give you a lot of bang for your buck as you have the coach’s undivided attention (as far as you know). The MO for these sessions usually involves a flip-flopping between sweat sessions and review sessions.

• Group Sessions

Group sessions are where a coach will meet with you and several other players and have some type of roundtable discussion or Q&A session. Unlike 1-on-1 coaching you’ll have to share the coach during these sessions, and some of the discussion may not be pertinent to you.

• Poker Training Boot Camps

Another form of poker coaching is where players register for poker boot camps. These sessions are usually a day or two days, and involve lectures from several different speakers, followed by a Q&A session of some sort.

• Poker Coaching Websites

The final option for players in search of poker coaching (especially players on limited budgets) is to join an online poker training site. Poker training sites offer their customers videos and other content designed to improve their game. This type of coaching is not as individualized, but most sites also offer forums and other live sessions where players can ask more specific questions.

What Kind of Coaching Do You Need?

There will be two main factors that go into your decision making process when you decide that you want to further your poker education and pay for some poker coaching of some sort. The first consideration is money: More precisely, how much money you want to invest in a poker coach. The second factor will be your current skill level: After all, if you haven’t even read a poker book than paying $1,000/hour for Phil Galfond to teach you the basics of position and blind-stealing is probably not a wise investment.

Money

Obviously if you have about $200 to spend on poker coaching than a live one-on-one session with Phil Galfond isn’t an option, but you still have to decide if you think two sessions with an untested poker coach (who charges $100/session) is a better option than registering for a WPT Boot Camp or subscribing to a poker training site for six-months.

The deciding factor should be what precisely you are trying to get out of your poker coaching session (which I’ll talk about more in Part 3) and whether it’s something that can only be ironed out by a solid winning player giving you two hours of one-on-one coaching, or if the more cookie cutter approach of a poker training site will suffice.

Your Current Skill Level

Once you’ve narrowed down your options based on money you should look at your current skill level. New and/or losing players would be better off with more volume like poker training sites or boot camps than one or two sessions with a coach. For instance, there is no sense hiring a calculus professor to tutor you in long division; it’s unnecessary, it will cost you far more money, and the professor is going to be disinterested to boot!

Stay tuned for Part 3 where I’ll discuss what to look for in a poker coach.

In this series I’ll layout everything you need to know about poker coaching beginning with what precisely a poker coach is. In Part 2, I’ll talk about the different kinds of poker coaching that are available; in Part 3 I’ll go over what you should look for in poker coach; and in Part 4 the emphasis will be on what you should expect from your poker coach.

In today’s poker world, with competition and information at an all-time high, poker coaching is practically a must if you have any aspirations of making a go at living the life of a professional poker player. That being said, the quality of poker coaching has needed to keep pace with the rise in general skill level. Effective poker coaches are fewer and farther between than they were in 2006 for the simple reason that the games are far tougher to beat.

I’ve dabbled in coaching myself, mostly helping friends and acquaintances get their feet wet in the poker world, but I also have some real-world experience as a personal trainer (which is merely the exercise version of a poker coach) as well as having the opportunity to work with a professional consultant who taught me many things regarding the client experience and meeting and exceeding those expectations.

In this series I’ll try to layout everything you need to know to get the most bang-for-your-buck when you hire a poker coach, and hopefully any poker coaches who read this column will learn a thing or two about improving their own service and understand what is expected of them.

What is a Poker Coach?

A poker coach is the equivalent of a business consultant; think Restaurant Impossible, Salon Takeover, Bar Rescue, or Hotel Impossible. Their “job” is to turn around your poker game, beginning with the biggest problems, and if possible ironing out all of the little kinks in your game. Another important part of their job is to find problems you don’t even know about. They are basically players who have accomplished what it is you are looking to accomplish in the poker world; theoretically allowing them to walk you through the in’s and the out’s of the game, and avoid the usual pitfalls.

Beyond that a poker coach can also be a mentor, someone who can not only help you grow as a poker player but as a person capable of surviving in what is perhaps one of the most cutthroat professions you can choose.

What type of poker coach you need is dependent on your own goals and what you are hoping to get out of the coaching –which I’ll go over in more depth later on in Part 3 of this series, but next up on the docket in Part 2 of this series I’ll take a look at the different kinds of poker coaching available.

Hero Calls and Hero Folds

When I’m talking about making Hero call or a Hero fold I don’t mean folding the second-nut flush or calling with Ace-high, I’m talking about the situations where you feel your opponent has a very specific hand or range; a range so narrow that you have them down to specifically one or two hands. I’m also not talking about situations where a person plays their hand face-up and everyone at the table knows what they have; the situation I’m talking about is making a huge call or a huge fold when 99% of your peers would do the opposite, relying on basic poker principles to guide them through the hand. Here are two examples of a real “Hero Call” and “Hero Fold”:

Folded Quads in the Big One for One Drop

The Big One for One Drop tournament at the 2012 WSOP had plenty of drama well before an early hand became the talk of the tournament –After all, the event had a $1 million buy-in, the best poker players and top business moguls, and the largest prize in poker history. But it was a fold that captured the minds of the poker world early on when Michail Smirnov folded Pocket 8’s face-up to the all-in raise of John Morgan on a board of Js-8c-7s-8s-Ks.

Smirnov later explained his thinking: “For me, it was a very easy fold. If he had two kings before the flop he would have re-raised Dwan, because he’s been active and raising a lot. So, two kings was impossible. Two jacks, in theory, was possible.” Adding, “He was like all-in, no problem. Before he had been playing very carefully and tight.”

We still don’t know if John Morgan had the 9sTs or not.

Stu Ungar’s Ten-High call

An older story that may or may not be true has to do with the late, great, Stu Ungar, and an unbelievable call he allegedly made against Mansour Matloubi. According to the legend, Ungar was leading the action with T9 on a 3-3-7 board; the turn brought a King and both players checked; the River a Queen which prompts an all-in bet from Matloubi which Ungar calls, saying aloud, “you wither have 45 or 56, I call.”

The key to making these types of reads is to be correct 100% of the time, because being wrong even once in 25 times can make these types of non-standard plays incorrect. Your hand-reading has to be beyond doubt in these situations in order make these types of calls and folds profitable, and if you find yourself making these otherworldly reads more than once or twice in your poker career then you are probably doing it too often and losing more money because of your misreads than you win from your correct decisions.

Even though these situations do not come about all that often, when they do it is usually in a key spot, with a lot riding on it; otherwise the decision wouldn’t be all that extraordinary now would it! In this 2-part series my focus will be on these situations and detail why it’s sometimes correct to fold Pocket Aces or with a Ten-high.

Folding Pocket Aces pre-flop

The age old forum question of, “Would you ever fold Pocket Aces pre-flop?” has been discussed for years. With so much time and discussion devoted to this seemingly once-in-a-lifetime scenario you might think it is more an exercise in micromanaging than in solving any real-world poker problem. That being said, the one time that you may find yourself pondering folding Pocket Aces pre-flop will be when the decision is incredibly important, so it shouldn’t be seen as a useless exercise: What you eat for breakfast is a decision you make every day, but it pales in comparison to something like who you marry –a decision you make only once… ok sometimes two, three or four times!

So when you do find yourself in a spot where folding Pocket Aces is correct you better not screw it up!

Life-Changing money

People will often say that if the money means that much to you than you shouldn’t be playing in the game. But there are times where we find ourselves in a situation where life-changing money is on the line; not because we risked too much to buy-in, but because we lucked into the situation.

For instance, there was an episode of the PokerStars Big Game where the “Loose Cannon” (the amateur player chosen by the show that is staked $100,000 and can keep any profits) was up $150,000 and folded Pocket Aces pre-flop. Now, you might be thinking, “What are you doing!?!?!?!” but for a person who makes $40,000 a year a guaranteed $150,000 windfall is far more important than potentially losing it all or doubling it; this is life-changing money.

Satellite bubble situation

Another situation where folding Pocket Aces pre-flop is the “correct” play is when you are virtually assured a satellite seat. Suppose there are 10 WSOP Main Event seats up for grabs in a satellite and there are 11 players left. Four players have only a couple of blinds each (say between 500 and 1,000 chips with blinds of 100/200) and you are second in chips with 9,000 chips. In this case you should just fold every single hand, Pocket Aces or not. You can’t win a better seat, and where you finish (1^st through 10^th) makes zero difference.

In Part 2 of this series I’ll take a look at anther rare situation in poker: Hero Calls and Hero Folds

Understanding Your Strengths and Weaknesses

You’ll notice all of the poker players I listed above are pretty damn successful, so don’t think that if you’re a hedgehog you are at a disadvantage to foxes –we’re human after all and not woodland animals, so knowing that you are hedgehog can keep you from rolling up into a ball when a truck is bearing down on you!

That being said, you have to understand that strength lies in your mastery, whether it’s a specific game type (6-max instead of Full Ring tournaments) or whether that means implementing a hyper-LAG style of play. But, understanding your weaknesses is also important and will keep you out of tough spots that other hedgehogs may not be able to avoid.

Foxes on the other hand will have fewer weaknesses, but they will also not have the same level of expertise in one area like a hedgehog. So, while you may be better at adjusting than a hedgehog, or look at situation with a more open mind, you also need to realize that a hedgehog could teach you a thing or two about their particular area of expertise.

Adjusting to Foxes and Hedgehogs

So what do we do when confronted with capable foxes and hedgehogs in a poker tournament? The key is to realize where the danger lies and be very aware that foxes can be unpredictable and hedgehogs do what they do at a very high level. For both adjustments (foxes and hedgehogs) I will use the same basic scenario, a blind steal.

When you teal the blinds of a fox there is no telling when they will attempt a re-steal, it will be more random and calculated, relying on surprise to achieve their ends. Conversely a hedgehog may be more predictable, perhaps letting you steal once, shooting you a glare the second time, which should basically tell you they are about to roll into their ball. Their way of dealing with a blind-stealer isn’t as calculated as a fox; it’s more a matter of doing what they do best.

 Read Part 1 HERE

Read Part 2 HERE