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[vital]Myth  United States. Sep 06 2010 01:52. Posts 12159 | | |
This post is being made later than I originally intended. There has been a lot to talk about regarding the thread entitled "This is Wrong" by Steal City, who decided to call into question whether or not my coaching is worth the money I charge for it, which rolled into a lot of other questions directed at me as well. I'll address relevant and public issues in order, and I will not be talking about anything that has to do with my private life or my financial situation.
First and foremost, I apologize to all of the poker community for the fact that my CardRunners coaching profile was out-dated and misrepresentative of my current poker play. It said that I had been beating $5/10 and $10/20 online when I made it, which was true at the time, but is no longer true. If there is any person anywhere who has paid me (by the hour) for coaching since April 2008 and wants any type of refund, I will be happy to issue it. However, I am confident that nobody will (primarily because I am still in touch with almost every person I've ever coached). When it was pointed out in Steal City's thread, I changed my CardRunners coaching profile, and it is now up-to-date.
In that thread, I said that I would log some volume online playing non-rush games so that I could salvage my PTR, which you can find here: http://www.pokertableratings.com/fulltilt-player-search/diagonals. However, I have played far less than I would have liked to. With the release of $2/4 rush, it just hasn't been worth my time to play purely for the sake of having a prettier PTR. Not that that's of any particular value anyway, but it would save me from a lot of flaming. I'm currently on vacation from Sept 1 to Oct 13 and do not have access to my database on my desktop at home, and haven't logged any hands on my laptop since I posted my recent results in the original thread. Things haven't gone well in regular games since then (as you can see with a recent ~3k decline on my PTR), but rush has been great. So, for anyone emotionally invested in seeing me play online and post my results (I don't know why anyone would be anyway), I also apologize for not having logged the volume of hands that I said I would.
As my PTR shows and as everyone knows, including all of my students, I play far more live poker than online poker, and that is what I have done for the past 2 years. There are a variety of reasons for that, and one of the most important is that I have never been good at multi-tabling, regardless of past successes and failures in online poker. I've always played 2-4 tables when I was playing my best, spent a fair amount of time and money donating when playing more than that just due to the fact that I can't do it very well, and been at my sharpest in live games. I've still been playing live throughout this year and doing well. Not nearly as well as I would want to, but well enough that I don't miss online poker much.
I am the only person who plays on Diagonals and Tecknowledgy (my FTP and Stars accounts, respectively). Besides occasionally playing just to sit with some fish at mid-stakes on Stars, Tecknowledgy has been inactive for a long time. I shouldn't even say that I play on that name because nobody does. The action recorded on PTR for that account is from these sporadic fishing sessions as well as some NL50-NL200 play for videos. I've dumped a lot of money on FTP as you can see when you look at my graph on Diagonals. Nobody plays on these names but me, and I do not play on any other names on FTP or Stars.
Now, let's talk about my coaching. People have brought into question two basic concerns: (1) that I am not a winning player and therefore should not be coaching, and (2) that my coaching is overpriced at $350 per hour. Here's what I can say about that.
First, over 90% of all the lessons I give are under my profit-sharing program, for which students do not pay any money upfront and do not pay me unless they are winning under my instruction. If they never succeed, I never get paid. I don't get paid out of their rakeback, bonuses, or income from things like coaching micro-stakes players, ONLY from their direct NLH profits. So if they breakeven and just make rakeback, I get nothing. I absolutely stand by my coaching philosophy and the efficacy of my program, and that's why I offer a deal where people will never pay if they don't win due to my coaching. Furthermore, my long-term coaching program begins with a FREE 60-90 minute interview lesson, so that people can get a sample of how I coach before they decide whether or not to proceed. This is also an opportunity for me to get to know them and find out whether we will be compatible in a coach-student relationship. In this interview session, most students ask me about my PTR and ask about what I am currently doing in terms of poker, and I of course am always upfront and honest about all of that (it's public knowledge anyway, so it's not like I could lie credibly if I wanted to). Nobody who has entered my long-term program has ever been misled about me, or about the way I coach, or about what I play, or about what my strengths and weaknesses are, in any way, ever.
When I do offer by-the-hour coaching, it is ALWAYS issued with a complete refund for anyone who feels that the session did not help them, and that offer is even valid retroactively. Anybody who feels that they did not benefit from paying me by the hour for coaching is welcome to ask for their money back and I will happily refund it. I will cross-post this guarantee on my CR blog as well. I have never had any student ask for any money back, and I will be very surprised if I ever do. I did once have a student cancel the final 2 hours of a 5-hour package, because I had missed two of our originally scheduled lessons, forcing him to re-schedule for me. That was hugely irresponsible on my part (I just forgot to add them to my BlackBerry calendar) and I offered to give him the remaining 2 hours for free, but he declined and instead said he appreciated the first 3 hours but did not want the remaining 2.
As for my $350/hr price, the huge majority of those hours are priced at a discount by the time we agree on a deal. Lessons that are paid by the hour often come from people who just want to get some coaching before they are able to enter my long-term program, and of course I give them a discount if they book those sessions in bulk. Regarding how people find me as a coach, everyone who asks me for coaching does so because they have seen my CR videos, and never for any other reason. Before I joined CR people from LP asked me for coaching because of my posts in LP. Every single person who has gotten coaching from me has done so because they have already had a sample of what I have to say, and they like it and want me to tell them more. When they start working with me, they always ask me what I currently play and other questions about my poker life (during interview sessions), and they always get the exact same answers that everyone in this thread is getting: I play mostly live, I play a lot of tournaments, I coach sometimes over a hundred hours a month, and I play sparingly online, and have had some epic money-dumping sessions in the past couple years online. They know that, they keep coming back, and they are satisfied with both the coaching that I give and the price that I charge.
In fact, yesterday I sent the following survey out to every student that has paid me by the hour in the past 2 years:
| | Hey guys,
All of you are the people who have paid for coaching in some way other than purely through profit-sharing, in the past year. I always want to improve my coaching program, and I also want to give the community some testimonials, because my abilities as a poker coach have been called into question by a few people. So, if you could take the time to answer a few questions, that would be very helpful for me and beneficial to the community. You can be brief or detailed, whatever you like.
1. What stakes and game types (6-max, 9-max, RUSH) do you play?
2. Do you feel that you learned important and useful information in your sessions? Can you name one or two things in particular that stuck out for you?
3. Have your sessions made you (or are they currently making you) a better player?
4. In your opinion, has your money been well-invested for my coaching?
5. Is there anything you can suggest that I can do better?
Thanks a lot guys! |
If it ever occurs, then for ANY person who answers "no" to question 4, I will refund them ALL of their money AND donate a matching amount of money to a charity chosen by a poll to be conducted in this thread. I haven't gotten any replies yet, but will post them as soon as I do.
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| Eh, I can go a few more orbits in life, before taxes blind me out - PoorUser | |
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Maynard! United States. Sep 06 2010 01:55. Posts 4453 | | | |
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| Now I really am a busto. Thanks FTP. | |
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Jubert69 United States. Sep 06 2010 02:24. Posts 3191 | | |
I did read. Never lost respect from you Myth, you seem like a stand up guy. |
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| | On September 06 2010 01:24 Jubert69 wrote:
I did read. Never lost respect from you Myth, you seem like a stand up guy. |
+1 |
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thewh00sel United States. Sep 06 2010 02:32. Posts 2734 | | |
i lost all my respeck for you. Give me ur hulk-protector or suffer the consequences. |
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| A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. - Ayn Rand | |
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wobbly_au Australia. Sep 06 2010 02:43. Posts 6540 | | |
I was a student, you charged me 150$/h and we went for 1 hour.
Hey guys,
All of you are the people who have paid for coaching in some way other than purely through profit-sharing, in the past year. I always want to improve my coaching program, and I also want to give the community some testimonials, because my abilities as a poker coach have been called into question by a few people. So, if you could take the time to answer a few questions, that would be very helpful for me and beneficial to the community. You can be brief or detailed, whatever you like.
1. What stakes and game types (6-max, 9-max, RUSH) do you play?
9max
2. Do you feel that you learned important and useful information in your sessions? Can you name one or two things in particular that stuck out for you?
None, you mentioned position which was some what useful
3. Have your sessions made you (or are they currently making you) a better player?
Yes obviously
4. In your opinion, has your money been well-invested for my coaching?
No, and thats why I never went back for #2 lession
5. Is there anything you can suggest that I can do better?
Stop coaching
Thanks a lot guys! |
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palak United States. Sep 06 2010 02:53. Posts 4601 | | |
wobbly trolling for the charity donation |
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| dont tap the glass...im about ready to take a fucking hammer to the aquarium | |
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ggplz Sweden. Sep 06 2010 02:59. Posts 16784 | | |
stay classy San Diego
good post myth but you still need to show some kind of results so i guess we'll have to wait for another blog post in the future |
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| if poker is dangerous to them i would rank sports betting as a Kodiak grizzly bear who smells blood after you just threw a javelin into his cub - RaiNKhAN | Last edit: 06/09/2010 03:00 |
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thumbz555 United States. Sep 06 2010 03:07. Posts 3281 | | |
no refunds for trolls  |
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idk if the refund policy is the best thing ever, 150 or 350 bucks is 150 or 350 bucks after all, and I am not sure if it is wise to let people recall their money whenever they want
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BigRed0000 United States. Sep 06 2010 03:42. Posts 3554 | | |
Wobbly why are you such a douche? You could have made all your points without coming across like a pretentious asshole. |
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[vital]Myth United States. Sep 06 2010 03:49. Posts 12159 | | |
wobbly, your request for a refund obviously doesn't count and there is a reason why you didn't get an email - nobody has ever or could ever bring into question coaching that i did prior to the time when my CR coaching profile was out-of-date. if anybody feels wronged after the time when my CR profile was out-of-date, then they are entitled to ask for a refund. NOBODY who has absolutely ZERO reason to feel that i misrepresented myself at the time when they asked for coaching has any right to do so |
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| Eh, I can go a few more orbits in life, before taxes blind me out - PoorUser | |
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wobbly_au Australia. Sep 06 2010 03:51. Posts 6540 | | | |
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[vital]Myth United States. Sep 06 2010 04:07. Posts 12159 | | |
also, wobbly got coaching with me once, we continued to talk after that, he met up with me in vegas and we hung out for a fair bit of time well AFTERward
and then i didn't like him as a person and didn't talk to him anymore and obviously that was mutual
and THEN this vendetta against my coaching/reputation came up
just so that everyone's clear on the backstory. |
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| Eh, I can go a few more orbits in life, before taxes blind me out - PoorUser | |
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mnj United States. Sep 06 2010 04:16. Posts 3848 | | | |
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mrpav.com Canada. Sep 06 2010 04:26. Posts 3069 | | |
D_zoo is the best coach in the world!  |
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Steal City United States. Sep 06 2010 04:28. Posts 2537 | | |
In the thread you had said you would answer all questions posed to you in the "This is Wrong Thread"
Do you believe you are a winning player online at 3/6?
Most fish believe they are winning players, how can you prove you are a winning player at the highest stakes and game types that you teach. (I think you will agree live and online are two different things)
Would it not be profitable for a 25nl player who has played extensively for many years and is well versed in poker lingo and a good speaker to adapt a coaching profit sharing program? Because of the scientific studied effects of authority and because even if you had selected people and never coached them they would still likely make profit since presumably they were already 100nl winning players or the like... how can you justify that, just because they have to perform for you to make money that you are indeed the cause?
Do you think that the psychological idea of congruence and rationalization could completely bias your student's opinions about your coaching program? For instance, if you take a bunch of fish poker players, if they win money they will very often attribute it to their skill in the game despite semi set ups and preflop run goods et cetera or even just too many hands holding up. (Your students are not fish but they are capable of misjudging the cause of their performace, ie they may perform well because of their already 3 years experience and understanding of the game but may attribute it to your coaching)
If Neilly replicated your coaching program, would you think that would be ethical of him? Why or why not?
How is your situation different?
Can you name a 3/6 or higher online winning player who gives 100+ hours of coaching a month ever?
Would you think it ethical if you were to never play a game of poker again but live off coaching for the next say, 3 years?
Since you have sometimes been teaching a game you do not play and you live play and tournament play are irrelevant, how is your situation different from the last question posed?
How professionally do you believe you have handled the criticism that have been made public of you with the start of my thread?
Why were you being secretive during out AIM conversation and why have you been so slow at providing answers to the community? |
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| Intersango.com intersango.com | Last edit: 06/09/2010 04:31 |
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ggplz Sweden. Sep 06 2010 04:29. Posts 16784 | | |
| | On September 06 2010 03:26 mrpav.com wrote:
D_zoo is the best coach in the world! |
does dzoo still play poker? |
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| if poker is dangerous to them i would rank sports betting as a Kodiak grizzly bear who smells blood after you just threw a javelin into his cub - RaiNKhAN | |
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Steal City United States. Sep 06 2010 04:32. Posts 2537 | | |
| | On September 06 2010 03:29 ggplz wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 06 2010 03:26 mrpav.com wrote:
D_zoo is the best coach in the world! |
does dzoo still play poker?
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I think he's a professional poker coach teaching 100 hours a month maybe even, so to answer your question, probably no
not sure about this but i think there he is brought up in the 2p2 thread about predatory coaches... |
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| Intersango.com intersango.com | Last edit: 06/09/2010 04:33 |
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BigRed0000 United States. Sep 06 2010 04:40. Posts 3554 | | | |
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