When Should I Get a Poker Coach?

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When Should I Get a Coach?

One of the most difficult decisions poker players have to make is what kind of time and money they are willing to put into their poker education. There are books to buy, training sites to join, coaches to hire, software and programs to purchase, along with all of the free information available online at forums and at poker websites. In this column I’ll give you the groundwork you’ll need to make these decisions, especially when it comes to taking the final step of hiring a poker coach.

I genuinely feel bad for poker players who are just getting their feet wet, having never had the chance to experience the Golden Age of poker known as “The Boom Years” which lasted from about 2003 through about 2008/2009, when the games were easy to find and super-soft. But I also envy poker players of today because they have so much poker knowledge and information at their fingertips. This envy comes from my own experiences learning the game in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, when all available poker strategy came from about five to ten books, and the little bit of theory and strategy talk that would take place on the rec.gaming.poker (RGP) forums.

The games may have been much easier to beat in 2001, and even in 2004, but skilled poker players were few and far between because skill came from self-examination and trial and error. Basically you were given your groundwork from a book and from there you were on your own. Looking back at these years you realize just how far the game has come, and why it’s no longer an option to skimp on your poker education now that advanced theory and strategy is readily available –albeit, at a price.

Before I get down to the nitty-gritty and discuss when and why you should consider hiring a coach, let me first take a look at the typical steps a player will take on their poker journey.

Your First Steps

The simplest and easiest step to take on your journey to becoming a serious poker player is the first one. The Internet has become a veritable central-data-location for poker information, and even though the free information you’ll find in articles and on poker forums isn’t going to be game-changing, it will certainly point you in the right direction and help you get-off on the right foot. Anything that was available in books is now easy to find on the Internet, and forums have some incredibly advanced discussions, although they can be hard to piece together and compile, especially for new players.

Picking up the Pace

Once you read some strategy articles and spend some time browsing forums you’ll understand that there is more to poker than making a good hand, and you’ll see why you need to start expanding your knowledge base (which will also help you understand and filter through all the craziness you read on poker forums) which means spending a little bit of money. The best investments early on in your poker career are some relevant books and perhaps even some poker tracking software.

In addition to spending a little cash, you’ll also start forming relationships with other like-minded poker players and probably start participating in poker forums (instead of “lurking”) and even start study session groups or simple strategy talks on Skype.

Learning to Run

Now that you have a solid base of poker knowledge you can start thinking about turning yourself into a winning poker player(not just a micro-stakes or low-limit winner), and to be a winner you have to put in the time, the energy, and also the money. At this stage of your poker career you’ll start to see books and software and other expenses as just another form of ROI.

Buying a high-level e-book for $200 is no longer a “What the hell, $200 for a book!” moment, instead you judge it on how many Big Blinds it will gain you in the long-run, and the same is true for poker coaching, be it one-on-one poker coaching or a subscription to an online poker training site.

Poker Training Sites

When it comes to getting good bang-for-your-buck there are few investments that will reap more rewards than a subscription to a good online poker training site. Sure the $30/month fee and possibly a one-time registration fee will sting, but in the long-run having some of the best players in the game constantly supplying you with content via strategy videos and other interactions is a no-brainer.

Any player who has designs on being a semi-pro player, or simply wants to be a solid winner at the poker tables, will need to join a poker training site. The real question, the question I posed in the title of this article is the hard one: When should I get a coach?

Poker training sites will turn you into a winner if you listen and apply what they are teaching to you, and because they are constantly updated with new content you should be able to continue to beat the lower limit games, maybe even into the mid-limits. That being said, online poker training sites are not going to get you to the point where you’re playing in Bobby’s Room, or have a 100% ROI in major tournaments, or even for most people, beat middle-limit games. For that you will likely need one-on-one coaching.

One-on-One Coaching

When I say coach, what I mean is one-on-one coaching. And any coach worth their salt isn’t going to come cheap. Think about it this way, an effective poker coach needs to be a solid winner, and if a person is a solid winner at even mid-stakes games they are likely making at least $100/hour. So don’t expect to get instructions from a person who makes $500/hour for $100; it’s simply not worth their time.

Because of this, when you are toying with the idea of one-on-one coaching you need to ask yourself two important questions:

1. What kind of poker player do I want to be?
2. What am I willing to spend on a poker coach?

The first question is the most important, because if your plan is to play some $2/$5 NLHE a couple of times a week for some extra cash you really don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on one-on-one coaching – you can if you want, as your investment will eventually be paid for through your new skill, but it’s not a necessity to beat these games. On the other hand, if you have designs on being a tournament grinder you most certainly need to consider the benefits of one-on-one coaching.

When it comes to setting a price-point on coaching think about what other professions spend on continuing education: A personal trainer usually has an up-front cost of a couple thousand dollars, and maybe a couple hundred dollars a year after that, all to make somewhere between $30 and $100 an hour… So is paying $1,000 for five sessions with a top-notch poker pro really an over the top proposition if it’s going to turn you into a $50+/hour player.

Essentially, when you are considering one-on-one coaching you should be looking to hire someone who is going to make you better, and help you achieve your end-game goals. You don’t need to overpay, but realize what you are getting for your investment, high-quality training. If you’re not interested in tackling $10/$20 or $25/$50 NLHE games or playing four-figure tournaments on the regular then sticking with one or two training sites in lieu of one-on-one coaching may be the way to go for you.