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As coaches, do you guys ever do live sweat sessions where you would sit with a student (teamviewer or whatever) and offer advice or criticism in real time?
If so, how much would you charge? Would it be by the hour and/or a portion of the Tourn. winnings?
TY
Check out the Coaching link at the top right of the site for info.
TY Bill… Yes, I have seen the email links, but I just thought it would be a good question to answer in the forum instead of receiving a ton of “tire kicking” emails.
that's how i do the bulk of my coaching (teamviewer/mikogo+skype in real time).
one of my students recorded himself playing and we went through it together instead of a real-time seat, which i found to be pretty cool.
many coaches also offer the student the opportunity to sweat the coach in real time.
i personally offer both, and charge $100/hour. i'm pretty sure HITTHEPANDA charges $200/hour (and is a steal at that price), and i'm not sure what Wein charges.
Ty For the response HC…
What if it was a large tournamant, with a deep run that lasted hours? Would you just agree to sweat x amount of hours and stop it when time was up?
TPE Management
March 17, 2010
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just want to clarify that the coaches do not give advice during hands. That's against the rules.
RonFezBuddy said:
just want to clarify that the coaches do not give advice during hands. That's against the rules.
That is what a sweat session is isn't it? 
Obv. I got the wrong idea.
What does the coach do during a sweat if not offer advice?
TY
TPE Management
March 17, 2010
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They can comment after a hand but not give advice during a hand. Giving advice during a hand is considered “ghosting” and not allowed by the sites.
RonFezBuddy said:
They can comment after a hand but not give advice during a hand. Giving advice during a hand is considered “ghosting” and not allowed by the sites.
i'm actually not sure this is true after reading through the whole sorel mess. it seems that, although multi-accounting and ghosting are very similar, one is outright banned by the sites while the other remains in kind of a grey area.
that's not to say that we ghost. there are ways to help you learn without effectively playing for you. in fact, in the long run you're better off making your own decisions and then being given feedback on what we may have done differently and why than to just have us sit there and make decisions for you.
July 3, 2010
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Ghosting is really unethical and unfortunately a huge presence in online poker.
+1 for what Hagbard said, though … you won't really ever learn if someone better than you just tells you which buttons to click and when.
Reviewing hand histories in real time over Skype is good so you can reply to the advice you're given and get to the root of the decision making process.
A realtime sweat can definitely be helpful, it goes over table dynamic a lot more than just sifting through a hand history. However, not as many spots might come up so it's definitely good if the student can ask questions about everything and anything they're unsure of in the downtime, which would be as little as a preflop spot, a random hand they played yesterday, or bet sizing question. It's much better for the coach to know what the student has the most trouble with, in order to make the student familiar with why they're having trouble with it, eliminating the problem that causes the trouble, and adding in the correct play.
My favorite method of coaching so far, at least for new students is to go through a hand history where they go deep in a tournament, and start from the very beginning and do not leave ANY spot that they could have played, or added a light 3bet, or a light checkraise, or discuss something that is unneccessary and that can be avoided, etc etc. There are often times where the student will be thinking that they have to focus on another part of their game, when in fact they have a lot of deepstack/pre ante leaks or whatever. It's all very important
hope this helped
HITTHEPANDA said:
A realtime sweat can definitely be helpful, it goes over table dynamic a lot more than just sifting through a hand history. However, not as many spots might come up so it's definitely good if the student can ask questions about everything and anything they're unsure of in the downtime, which would be as little as a preflop spot, a random hand they played yesterday, or bet sizing question. It's much better for the coach to know what the student has the most trouble with, in order to make the student familiar with why they're having trouble with it, eliminating the problem that causes the trouble, and adding in the correct play.
My favorite method of coaching so far, at least for new students is to go through a hand history where they go deep in a tournament, and start from the very beginning and do not leave ANY spot that they could have played, or added a light 3bet, or a light checkraise, or discuss something that is unneccessary and that can be avoided, etc etc. There are often times where the student will be thinking that they have to focus on another part of their game, when in fact they have a lot of deepstack/pre ante leaks or whatever. It's all very important
hope this helped
like i said, an absolute steal for 200/hour
Here is an email I sent Stars to clarify what is ok and what isn't, and their response.
me:
I have a question in regards to coaching. Is it within the rules of Poker
>Stars for me to receive real time coaching (advice) with a coach watching my
>play as it happens? So long as that person was not involved in the same
>tournament or sharing card information?
PS:
Thank you for your email, and please note that it is perfectly legal for you
to receive this kind of coaching whilst you play – so long as your coach is
not at the same table sharing hole card information, or playing your hands
and making decisions for you.
Thank you for choosing PokerStars, and please let me know if you require any
further assistance.
My situation is that I won a sat into WCOOP which can't be exchanged/cashed out etc..it is a $320 buyin (I can choose any $320 event) obv. way above what I play. I felt it would help to have a sweat with an experienced high stakes player/coach to help me adjust to the game and not be total dead money. 
TPE Management
March 17, 2010
Offline
to be honest i think that's an awful response from Stars. It leaves so much room for interpretation. The way they phrase it implies that a coach can sweat you and give you advice and then leave it up to you to decide what to do. In reality, who's going to decide against what the coach advices. It's basically giving the green light to set up a situation that will lead to cheating 100% of the time.
This response leaves too much gray area and this ambiguity is part of the problem with MA'ing and Ghosting in poker today.
If Stars came out and said “you can never get advice from anyone other person/program in real time or your account will be closed” you'd have less ghosting. It wouldn't eliminate it because it's so hard to catch but at least a strict penalty would scare some people into playing straight.
I agree it is a pretty useless response, but not a surprise from PS support. I do believe they would have trouble enforcing it which is prob. why they don't have such penalties.
I do get what you are saying though, that no coach (TPE) will give advice on a hand in play…and that's not what I'm looking for.
My goal is to improve and move up, taking shots when available through satellites.
Sad thing is…I wish I had 100 or maybe 200 bucks atleast 1 hr.
I am a broke ass…lol
RonFezBuddy said:
to be honest i think that's an awful response from Stars. It leaves so much room for interpretation. The way they phrase it implies that a coach can sweat you and give you advice and then leave it up to you to decide what to do. In reality, who's going to decide against what the coach advices. It's basically giving the green light to set up a situation that will lead to cheating 100% of the time.
This response leaves too much gray area and this ambiguity is part of the problem with MA'ing and Ghosting in poker today.
If Stars came out and said “you can never get advice from anyone other person/program in real time or your account will be closed” you'd have less ghosting. It wouldn't eliminate it because it's so hard to catch but at least a strict penalty would scare some people into playing straight.
how in the world will that decrease the amount of ghosting? just because they choose to try and scare the customer?
the unfortunate fact is that ghosting is near impossible to stop, or rather, if made explicitly against the sites' TOCs, it would be near impossible to prove/enforce.
it's not like M/Aing where the site can sometimes prove that someone other than the owner of an account was playing the account, ghosting can pretty much never be proved.
i'm torn. i mean, to me it seems clearly wrong, and i wouldn't do it myself. but in the end there's really no way to stop it so why waste our time worrying about it? just focus your energies on getting better.
TPE Management
March 17, 2010
Offline
I disagree. Stricter penalties would have a non-zero reduction in ghosting which is better than this vague stance from Stars that would actually encourage ghosters.
Notice I didn't say it would eliminate or even have a substantial impact on the level of ghosting. I'm with you on the fact that it's unenforceable but if there's NO penalty then there's nothing stopping anyone from doing it.
However, if there was some sort of real penalty I think some of the offenders might think twice about participating. The best course of action would be criminalization. If regulation passes and ghosting becomes illegal with criminal penalties then I think people might actually be persuaded to comply. At least someone who has the idea of ghosting or getting ghosted would have to weigh a real consequence which makes it a more difficult choice.
Even though it's difficult to enforce, I don't think it's a waste of time worrying about it. It's not fair if a great player can get the opportunity to make 2x or 3x his normal FT frequency by ghosting others. It damages everyone's equity. Why should we sweep this under the rug and “focus energies on getting better”. In fact it makes those of us working hard to get better feel less motivation to do so.
Hagbard Celine said:
HITTHEPANDA said:
A realtime sweat can definitely be helpful, it goes over table dynamic a lot more than just sifting through a hand history. However, not as many spots might come up so it's definitely good if the student can ask questions about everything and anything they're unsure of in the downtime, which would be as little as a preflop spot, a random hand they played yesterday, or bet sizing question. It's much better for the coach to know what the student has the most trouble with, in order to make the student familiar with why they're having trouble with it, eliminating the problem that causes the trouble, and adding in the correct play.
My favorite method of coaching so far, at least for new students is to go through a hand history where they go deep in a tournament, and start from the very beginning and do not leave ANY spot that they could have played, or added a light 3bet, or a light checkraise, or discuss something that is unneccessary and that can be avoided, etc etc. There are often times where the student will be thinking that they have to focus on another part of their game, when in fact they have a lot of deepstack/pre ante leaks or whatever. It's all very important
hope this helped
like i said, an absolute steal for 200/hour
You sound like your his pimp hagbard…..lol
July 3, 2010
Offline
Ghosting can't be regulated and never will be. Sucks but it's true.
It's such an uphill battle for the average mtt'er … if you aren't using a HUD you're already crippled. There are a small handful of people who can achieve a lot of success without a HUD and any outside assistance and not only are these people the top ranked players in the world but they have extensive history against a small pool of other players so the HUD isn't as important to them as to someone who plays mtt's with an ABI of $20 where there are thousands and thousands of players.
Add ghosting and MA'ing into the mix and there are just so many unethical things in online poker.
Even a HUD is unethical in a sense.
It's not like your brain could remember all this info in real time at a single table, let alone several tables – but the sites condone one and I'm not an idiot so I'm using one, too.
TPE Management
March 17, 2010
Offline
I really don't have a problem with a HUD. I know some people do but the HUD doesn't make decisions for you. It aggregates data that is already on your hard drive. I can see how purists are against them but I feel like they are in a different class than ghosting.
July 3, 2010
Offline
Agreed. They are in a different class. I just remember that first year I played online poker and not knowing all the stuff that was out there and already being used by so many.
I never looked at a forum or thought to look them up and didn't know HUD's even existed.
Then I saw all this stuff like training sites, forums, the PokerTracker website and was like… wtf is a HUD? Ohhhhh. Well. Damn. I guess I'd better get in on this if I want money.
i never said that the sites could have zero affect on ghosting operations. sure they can manage a non-zeero affect, but who cares? just get better. that's really your only defense against cheating of this type until the game is legal and regulated in the US.
I personally always try to wait til after a hand is over to discuss what I would have done differently… it's just way too sketchy if someone was only asking for advice when they were deep in a tournament, and then paying me $200 an hour. I'm essentially taking over the account if that was the case.
TPE Pro
TPE Management
July 20, 2010
Offline
obv multi accounting is a complete no no but “ghosting” is still very much a grey area. ive been in hotel lobbys on tour stops both wsopc and wpt where ther will be fifty people using the wireless internet in the lobby and in the same tourneys so its clear to me that these sights would never open up a this can of worms and make this illegal and fwiw been in several hotel rooms where 4 or 5 guys hammering mtts and the same ones so who knows
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