About me:
I started playing poker seriously in 2003, and I currently work for DC, coach, and play poker for a living. I have created over 200 videos on DeucesCracked as well as coached dozens of aspiring poker players. It has taken some trial and error, but over time I have learned what it takes to be a good poker coach. I believe my teaching ability, preparedness, generosity with my time, and genuine interest in the success and progress of my students sets me apart from other coaches. Coaching is not cheap and I take my obligation to provide my students with a positive ROI very seriously.
Back in 2003, many people believed math was not critical to poker success. I believe most people now acknowledge that is not the case. As you know if you’ve watched my videos, I focus primarily on the quantitative aspect of poker. I use math and software heavily for my analyses. I believe I am one of the most well-versed people in the world at using CardrunnersEV and ProPokerTools Odds Oracle, and Excel (or OpenOffice) for poker. I have spent many hundreds of hours studying game theory and I don’t hide what I know from my students.
More about me: I graduated from Columbia University in 2006 with a Bachelors of Science in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. I am tentatively planning on going for my Masters in fall 2013. I currently live with my wife and 2 chihuahuas (you might occasionally here some yapping on video) in NYC.
Coaching packages:
All coaching sessions are recorded, produced, and sent promptly to the student (unless there are computer problems). I offer several kinds of coaching:
1. Mentorship: this is most common and I will slightly lower my rate slightly if a student books several sessions ahead of time. Note that the rate listed is much higher than the rate you get for my time.
The main component of the mentorship program is the sessions. The sessions are what the student pays for. They are nearly always booked for 2 hours. I bring the same level of preparedness to my coaching sessions that I bring to my videos. As such, I usually prepare more than 2 hours worth of content and we nearly always go over 2 hours. The primary goal of the sessions is to help the student work out problems on his/her own, so he/she eventually won’t need a coach at all.
There is no pressing need to schedule sessions every week or every other week. We book sessions when the student has had time to review the video from the previous session, and is ready to take on new information. Sessions are not often as mundane as a sweat or video review. I believe there is little benefit to doing this unless it is used sparingly. I work toward finding and addressing the leaks of my students.
What a student doesn’t pay for is the time in between sessions. I am frequently available on Skype to chat about anything from tough hand histories, tilt/emotional issues, bankroll management, or helping my students work on their own mathematical models using CardrunnersEV or other software. This time also helps me to plan the best sessions possible for my students.
Ensuring all my students have a positive ROI is of paramount importance to me and I put in the extra time needed to make sure that is the case.
If and when I get the seminars going, mentorship students are granted free access to any seminar (below).
2. 1-on-1 coaching (1-2 hours): If you’re interested in specific things like CardrunnersEV scripting, need help building a model, need Excel help, understanding basics of game theory, or just have a few hand histories bothering you, we can work out a small number of sessions to accomplish this. I am happy to chat on Skype at any point about the topics from the session.
3. Group coaching: depending on the size of the group, we can figure out an appropriate price point. Most of the above, regarding mentorship remains the same. I will give individual attention to members of the group just as I do for my mentorship students. The goal of group coaching is to keep the cost to a minimum. If you’re interested in group coaching but don’t have a group, please PM me. We might be able to build a group.
4. Seminars. This is something I am planning. If you’re interested in a specific seminar, let me know and I will post about it in the coaching thread to see if there is interest. Seminars are similar to group coaching, however they are individual sessions and I will plan them for a specific topic. The seminar will consist of roughly 1 hour of the topic, and a Q&A; afterwards for as long as we need until the questions are all answered. I would guess seminars will start at $40 and go up depending on the value of the information. The goal is for them to be affordable and packed with information. If you attend a seminar and would like coaching, we can work out a discount.
Possible seminar topics:
- Winning the 3-bet/4-bet/5-bet/6-bet battle
- Using Flopzilla to construct ranges
- Using CardrunnersEV to construct ranges
- Getting started with CardrunnersEV
- Scripting in CardrunnersEV
- Examining equilibria on the river to learn about cappedness and polarization
- Building and solving toy games
- Studying polarized equity
