Coaching discussion on Myth - Page 26

to respond to longple in myth's blog, you are working with a sample size of maybe 10s of thousands of players who use hold em manager or PT3 or w/e, they all play many many many hands and have independent samples of their own. To find a graph which is an extreme deviation as yours is, is nothing impressive. In fact it would be much more impressive or unusual i should say, if there were no such anomalies.

When we get into the world of professional poker coaches. We all of the sudden are working with a MUCH MUCH smaller number where the exhibition of players who have bad such results and or play on untracked sites, play live et cetera are much much higher. Is there a chance myth has been unlucky and is running bad, yes, as shown in the OP of this thread there is that change, is it significant, no.

If we take 10,000 players, and say none are marginal winners or losers but simply strong winners or strong losers... yes, we would misjudge a couple or maybe only based on volatility, but 99%+ chance we'd be right. That the prevalence of such 'anomalies' in the coaching world is out of chance and not deceit, is so statistically unlikely as a whole that I am probably more likely to get struck by lightning tomorrow than for there not to be a plethora (in numbers and %) of coaches who knowingly mislead people and misrepresent themselves.

posted in myths blog but posting it here too

"also

On September 06 2010 08:53 Steal City wrote: to respond to longple in myth's blog, you are working with a sample size of maybe 10s of thousands of players who use hold em manager or PT3 or w/e, they all play many many many

i dont understand anything from this can u reformulate, or reword or w/e the english word for explaining with other words is"


edit nvm u edited ur post

POSTED THIS IN HIS BLOG BUT IT LOOKS LIKE THE DISCUSSION HAS BEEN MOVED HERE:

Don't think anyone has mentioned the fact that he dropped 15k in 1 day (tilting?) playing 10/20. If not for this he would have a slightly positive account. Still doesn't account for the 1/2 or 2/4 samples.. but it wouldn't look quite as bad. Also because he is a winner over 22k hands at 3/6 and a loser at 1/2 over 27k that clearly isn't enough information to determine if he is a winning player at either limit. Highly subjective to variance obviously.

On the screenshot you posted here donald http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/5449/2010sofar.jpg It shows you being a LOSING PLAYER at .50/1 over 33k hands and a loser at 50nl over 14k. Now this is obviously just variance because your crushing highstakes over even larger samples. All I am saying is he probably doesn't have enough hands to definitively show if he is a winner or loser.

as one of myths skeptics in this thread after reading his blog i'd like to say big ups to myth. great blog post. i'd recommend copy & pasting it here.

On September 06 2010 11:03 Xervean wrote: POSTED THIS IN HIS BLOG BUT IT LOOKS LIKE THE DISCUSSION HAS BEEN MOVED HERE: Don't think anyone has mentioned the fact that he dropped 15k in 1 day (tilting?) playing 10/20. If not for this he would have a slightly positive account. Still doesn't account for the 1/2 or 2/4 samples.. but it wouldn't look quite as bad. Also because he is a winner over 22k hands at 3/6 and a loser at 1/2 over 27k that clearly isn't enough information to determine if he is a winning player at either limit. Highly subjective to variance obviously. On the screenshot you posted here donald http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/5449/2010sofar.jpg It shows you being a LOSING PLAYER at .50/1 over 33k hands and a loser at 50nl over 14k. Now this is obviously just variance because your crushing highstakes over even larger samples. All I am saying is he probably doesn't have enough hands to definitively show if he is a winner or loser.

this is because I inherently play the limits differently. I play a maximum of 4 tables generally at 5/10 and when I am on life tilt or playing very poorly or messing around I 24 table 100nl. It is not chance, it is not volatility it is worse play... and worse play period. If the entirety of my PTRs showed me as having a negative -bb/100 over a significant sample then that would be the case that I am a losing player. If I played on tilt all the time as I do when I play 100nl and am trying to get off tilt... then I would be a losing player.... but despite the fact that when I play 100nl I'm playing a ridiculous amount more hands per hour, my BB/100 is in the + on PS and on FTP much more so. Despite me being down tons at 5knl, my overall profit is in the + on PS and FTP, and on FTP it is more than 1$ a hand for 125k hands.

But yes it is not mere chance at all, it is that when I'm playing 100nl, I am playing a breakeven form of poker.

Xervean though, thank you because this is a good case in point to clarify the difference

and notice how I don't have anything to hide and was able to abruptly answer the question at hand without hesitation, ambiguity and without providing a strawman argument

Also, i know for recent sessions PTR makes how many hands you play. Is there anyway of looking at past sessions, this will verify that what i'm saying is true that I play a ridiculously higher number of hands per hour than when i'm playing 100nl then when i'm playing 1knl.... a ridiculous amount more. Mostly it's me trying to get my game back on track, but relaxing and autopiloting, being happy with 200$ a day in rakeback while I wait for my interest and focus in the game to come back.

this thread isnt about how you cant beat 100nl donald

i had a dream last night that stephen costellos name was on a list for some reason.. pretty weird cuz u cant normally read in ur dreams... i duno what the list was for tho.. hopefully it was future lottery winners or somethin.

d_zoo for president!

On September 06 2010 15:07 mrpav.com wrote: d_zoo for president!

i think ive seen u write something similar about d_zoo maybe 10 times the last couple of weeks

I have a hard time understanding why steal city's ability to beat a certain limit has anything to do with this discussion.

+1. And I will repeat...If Myth has anything to give a 2/4 to 3/6 player while himself being unable to beat the limits over large samples due to tilt control and lack of focus, why should he be automatically qualified as a bad coach for those limits?

The only way how to use PTR as a proof of his coaching abilities would be to get a good random sample of Myth's students' PTR before and after his coaching....

I don't see the merits of this thread tbh, just people randomly speculating

in his series The Big Difference there is some talk about focus, tiltcontrol, puting hand volume and all the things you ppl have named to be his problems
so i think there are no problems in this area... or his videos are fos
and I kinda liked one video from that series

the last thing i will say is that the huge majority of my coaching program IS very in-line with what tommy angelo does, which you could call "life coaching" if you wanted. i do my best to help people with technical things but here's how a typical coaching session goes:

1. student says "check out this hand, here is a big pot i lost. i felt like i was beat, but i thought about it and called anyway because i thought he can't really have a flush here, i mean why would he play a flush like this? it seems so bad to play a flush this way."
2. i point out that "there are two really important errors in this thought process. first, you are not trusting your instincts, and your instincts are usually correct when you have a lot of experience. you can learn to trust your instincts through a visualization exercise [i won't describe it in detail here] and through some basic information about the left- and right-brain composition of the human brain, to help you understand WHY your instincts get overridden sometimes when you make decisions. all of the great players i have ever watched play trust their instincts and make very sick calls, folds, and bluffs because of that. for the next month, once per day, i want you to play a very short session ONLY for the purpose of finding a spot where your instincts make you 'feel' something (like you are beaten) that is hard to describe, and just go with them, no matter what. even if you have to make a ridiculous-looking call or a ridiculous-looking fold. nobody's instincts are 100% correct, but when you are reviewing your HH and saying to yourself 'i knew i was beat, i shouldn't have called' then you need to work on trusting your instincts more, and this is a good way to achieve that.

second, you are assuming that people play their hands in smart ways too much. clearly you think that this opponent played his hand badly, because you saw what he had. thinking that he would have played his hand well is what made you lose the pot. in general, you are playing with people who you assume to be bad players, otherwise you wouldn't play with them, right? so you always must make your reads based on what you KNOW, or at least what you can reasonably guess from REAL knowledge/showdowns/notes, NOT from what you think would be a 'smart' play. i want you to spend a few minutes every single day playing a short session, even at much lower stakes perhaps, where your ONLY goal is to witness somebody playing a hand very badly. you can also do this by looking at forum threads or anything like that. just see somebody play a hand badly and then write it down, what it was and why you think it was bad. and keep a journal of these entries so that in the future you are consistently seeing that people play their hands stupidly, not intelligently, in a lot of circumstances, so that you can stop leveling yourself into thinking that you should call just because somebody 'shouldn't' have a big hand."

or

1. student shows me a video and he takes a note on somebody that he pot controlled some good hand on the turn, where the student would have expected his opponent to value bet instead.
2. i ask if he has any thoughts on how to exploit that opponent using that note. he says "well now i know that he can have stronger river ranges when he checks back the turn, compared to most people." and then i ask how he will exploit that. he says, "i don't know really." so i point out that "if the opponent pot controls too much, then you have a hard time getting value from your big hands when you are playing trappy, right?" - "yeah" - "so part of your adjustment is that you have to just lead into him for value sometimes." - "yeah....that makes sense." - "so this points to a bigger error as well. whenever you take a note, you should think about all the adjustments you can make. this week, every day, play a short session just until you take a note. then, stop and take 10 minutes to brainstorm on the ways that you want to adjust given that note. keep repeating this until it becomes natural and occurs EVERY time you take a note, without you having to break and think carefully."

and so on

coaching is VERY much about guidance, accountability, support, and practice/exercise. i draw from tommy angelo's books, articles, and philosophy very heavily, as well as the work of other mental game coaches like Jamie Glazier and John Wray. my students like me because i give them direction and tools for SELF-improvement. i have NEVER been a coach who says "this is what i do, you should do it too." that would ensure that none of my students ever became a better player than i am, which is not what i want. i hope that all of them become better players than i am, through using the exercises that i teach them.

i've never claimed to be a technically great player, and my results show that my strengths clearly lie in live games and to a lesser degree in tournaments. that doesn't change the fact that i can see when people are only making mistakes because they have no clue how to do something like combinatorics, and i can teach them combinatorics, and hold them accountable for practicing combinatorics until they get good at it. people who get coaching from me want direction and guidance and to be held accountable for their laziness/mistakes, which i can offer very well. they know what i am capable of and what i am NOT capable of.

and this will be my last post on the subject, until i have logged more hands and have more midstakes results to show.

On September 06 2010 16:39 [vital]Myth wrote: the last thing i will say is that the huge majority of my coaching program IS very in-line with what tommy angelo does, which you could call "life coaching" if you wanted. i do my best to help people with technical things but here's how a typical coaching session goes: 1. student says "check out this hand, here is a big pot i lost. i felt like i was beat, but i thought about it and called anyway because i thought he can't really have a flush here, i mean why would he play a flush like this? it seems so bad to play a flush this way." 2. i point out that "there are two really important errors in this thought process. first, you are not trusting your instincts, and your instincts are usually correct when you have a lot of experience. you can learn to trust your instincts through a visualization exercise [i won't describe it in detail here] and through some basic information about the left- and right-brain composition of the human brain, to help you understand WHY your instincts get overridden sometimes when you make decisions. all of the great players i have ever watched play trust their instincts and make very sick calls, folds, and bluffs because of that. for the next month, once per day, i want you to play a very short session ONLY for the purpose of finding a spot where your instincts make you 'feel' something (like you are beaten) that is hard to describe, and just go with them, no matter what. even if you have to make a ridiculous-looking call or a ridiculous-looking fold. nobody's instincts are 100% correct, but when you are reviewing your HH and saying to yourself 'i knew i was beat, i shouldn't have called' then you need to work on trusting your instincts more, and this is a good way to achieve that. second, you are assuming that people play their hands in smart ways too much. clearly you think that this opponent played his hand badly, because you saw what he had. thinking that he would have played his hand well is what made you lose the pot. in general, you are playing with people who you assume to be bad players, otherwise you wouldn't play with them, right? so you always must make your reads based on what you KNOW, or at least what you can reasonably guess from REAL knowledge/showdowns/notes, NOT from what you think would be a 'smart' play. i want you to spend a few minutes every single day playing a short session, even at much lower stakes perhaps, where your ONLY goal is to witness somebody playing a hand very badly. you can also do this by looking at forum threads or anything like that. just see somebody play a hand badly and then write it down, what it was and why you think it was bad. and keep a journal of these entries so that in the future you are consistently seeing that people play their hands stupidly, not intelligently, in a lot of circumstances, so that you can stop leveling yourself into thinking that you should call just because somebody 'shouldn't' have a big hand." or 1. student shows me a video and he takes a note on somebody that he pot controlled some good hand on the turn, where the student would have expected his opponent to value bet instead. 2. i ask if he has any thoughts on how to exploit that opponent using that note. he says "well now i know that he can have stronger river ranges when he checks back the turn, compared to most people." and then i ask how he will exploit that. he says, "i don't know really." so i point out that "if the opponent pot controls too much, then you have a hard time getting value from your big hands when you are playing trappy, right?" - "yeah" - "so part of your adjustment is that you have to just lead into him for value sometimes." - "yeah....that makes sense." - "so this points to a bigger error as well. whenever you take a note, you should think about all the adjustments you can make. this week, every day, play a short session just until you take a note. then, stop and take 10 minutes to brainstorm on the ways that you want to adjust given that note. keep repeating this until it becomes natural and occurs EVERY time you take a note, without you having to break and think carefully." and so on coaching is VERY much about guidance, accountability, support, and practice/exercise. i draw from tommy angelo's books, articles, and philosophy very heavily, as well as the work of other mental game coaches like Jamie Glazier and John Wray. my students like me because i give them direction and tools for SELF-improvement. i have NEVER been a coach who says "this is what i do, you should do it too." that would ensure that none of my students ever became a better player than i am, which is not what i want. i hope that all of them become better players than i am, through using the exercises that i teach them. i've never claimed to be a technically great player, and my results show that my strengths clearly lie in live games and to a lesser degree in tournaments. that doesn't change the fact that i can see when people are only making mistakes because they have no clue how to do something like combinatorics, and i can teach them combinatorics, and hold them accountable for practicing combinatorics until they get good at it. people who get coaching from me want direction and guidance and to be held accountable for their laziness/mistakes, which i can offer very well. they know what i am capable of and what i am NOT capable of. and this will be my last post on the subject, until i have logged more hands and have more midstakes results to show.

GREAT post.

On September 06 2010 15:44 rednalluk wrote: I have a hard time understanding why steal city's ability to beat a certain limit has anything to do with this discussion.

It was an example to illustrate my belief that 30-60k hands is not enough to definitively say if Myth is a winner or loser long run. There are obviously really good players who have broke even or lost over 100k hand samples and then in the next 20k hands they run like god and made a ton of money. Variance is real IMO and many people underestimate it.

all those that say myth isnt winning due to bad run or variance, should know that for a long long time I've disagreed with alot of advice myth offers in threads on LP.

Regardless of his ptr i think he is terrible at poker.

edit:
what im trying to get across with this point is that, i think my advice is almost definitely better than myth's in cash games and i dont rate my advice over 350$/hour. Infact I think alot of his posts are misleading.

O and btw i have a 250$/h winrate over 5mil hands and even so I feel like I can only charge 200$ when i coach because its 0 variance.
Furthermore, myth always says his students are mostly profit sharing so he makes money based on students success. So who are there ANY successful students? He coaches 100hours a month, surely there are some success stories, although I highly doubt it.

I dont claim to be the best coach, but i've coached 3 people ever, first one is babs1337, he was playing 50nl breakeven for 3 years, after coaching and playing alot of games together with him he was a winner at 2/4 to 5/10 over 1mil hands at 2ptbb. My second student was kiwikaki, he was wining at 1ptbb over 2mil hands, he paid me 12k at 200$/hour rate and after i was done he increased his winrate to 2.5ptbb. My third student was a IRL friend who i taught to beat 100nl in a month and he made 10k in that first month, he was happy with his skill and thus has not progressed.

Can you name any of ur successful students myth?
I would say im just an above avg player and thus an above avg coach, but i've had 3/3 success, what about you??

How do you charge 350$/hour when i charge just 200$.

On September 06 2010 17:08 wobbly_au wrote: How do you charge 350$/hour when i charge just 200$.

this is not even relevant. there are some posts here that keep saying 'WELL I CHARGE (insert arbitrary amount like $200 with no justification of how said person came up with arbitrary amount [and to be honest wobbly was probably just like yeahhhhh i guess to me $200 seems fair for an hour]) SO YOU CAN'T CHARGE MORE'

what all sensible people have come to realize in this thread is that it is the coaches decision to set the price for coaching and it is the students job to pick a coach. this, like anything else, involves looking into a plethora of things not limited to feedback and references, history and results of coach etc. as long as all of this information is provided honestly and openly then its the students job to pick the coach. in this thread it was reasonable to point out possible discrepancies in things like myths cardrunners profile etc.

what is not sensible is to make an argument to say that 'this is what i charge and i think is fair (with absolutely no definition of what fair is or where magic number of cost is derived from no less) therefore it must be so'