Looking for coaching and to join a discord strat group

Hi wazzbot,
Welcome to PokerStrategy.com

Originally posted by wazzbot
Please feel free to PM me. Unsure of what I'm willing to pay but I guess it depends on what I get. Looking forward to hearing from you.

As a new member you're assigned "basic" status — this helps protect us from spammers. You can read about the points system here.
Perhaps if you put a separate post in the "Private Coaching" board one of the coaches could add you as a friend — from there you can DM each other. Unfortunately basic members cannot initiated Friend requests or DMs. Otherwise, you could reply to one of the coach's threads and they may then contact you.

I was pretty sure that we had a promotion in association with Raise Your Edge, but I could not find it.

Normally I would just move this request to that board, but I left it in "Omaha" in case any aspiring coaches notice it there.

There is also a monthly online coaching session hosted by kyyberi.
See: https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=403175&goto=firstnew
kyyberi also does private coaching. Perhaps you could put a reply in that thread.

All the best,
VS

Thanks for your response.

Looked briefly at kyyberi but a little in shock at the idea of even a professional gambler wanting to pay 1% juice to the house to reduce variance minutely, let alone a coach, so I could not in all conscience bring myself to give him money that he's going to give to the house, let alone respect his advice. So I'll need someone else.

Yeah, I raised my eyebrows on that too but hey, if someone wants give points of his action freely it's up to him. I know from kyyberi's history that he's struggling with some mental game issues related to variance I think.

A Coach doesn't have to be better than you. His job is to help you to become better you.

I took few hours of kyyberi's coaching years ago and I was happy with it. Though, I quit in the middle of paid coaching because I went through first wave of serious burnout after too much regular work, raising stakes too quickly on poker and pushing through sick downswing. Sry about ghosting then, I simply was too depressed to contact anyone.

But frankly, I was arrogant too and I have seen the same on many occasion on different forums during the years especially considering Kyyberi's micro/small-stakes -coaching. I played higher stakes than him at the time so I didn't give him respect. Poker players often are that way, we respect strenght. It's quite natural thing I think since we have to rely on our own judgment and confidence day to day. And you have to be hungry to take them down, challenge them, bully them. Always. Then comes this microstakes mf who hasn't made his first real big steps and offer coaching. No way. I understand it.

But it's wrong.

A coach doesn't show you the magic tricks you've been missing. I even used to think they always withold some deeper secrets to themselves. Truth is as you know it, you're the one who's gonna work and sweat their ass off. A Coach is just a great tool to go with. Kyyberi has a coaching experience off poker too and education on teaching if I remember correctly. That's something mahy higher stakes coaches don't have btw. At some point im gonna give it a another try with right attitude this time and get myself update on softwares, gto and concepts I need to learn. Kinda pointing on right directions, doing the heavy lifting is up to me.

We all are free to make our choices. But I am not sure how using cashout on certain games has anything to do with my strategical knowledge and coaching capabilities. Yes, it is -EV, but so it byuing a beer. I had two of those today, could have made 40bb profit if I had just water.

I have explained the cashout quite many times, and even posted a public Youtube video as everyone was wandering about it in the streams. But here it is, one more time.

There are two things that can prevent me from making profits at small stakes. Variance and mental game. My mental game danger zones are tied to bad variance. I know for sure, that if I run really bad it can easily affect my game. I have seen it multiple times. It might lead me to play my C game, or I might need to close the tables. Both are bad options. Also, running bad affect my lifeEV outside the tables. For a cost that I estimate as reasonable, I can remove big part of the game that causes me moneyEV and lifeEV. Probably the most important of those two is the lifeEV. Some people buy beer to increase lifeEV, some goes to movies. The price for those is about the same that I pay per week for cashout.

One might think that it is a good thing that I have realistic view of myself as a player. One might think I am a bad player cos I do it. We all have opinions. I just dont see the connection with my coaching abilities and using a cashout.

Also about coaching, as JoePlotter said. There are no secrets. Compare poker to football or ice hockey. There are mystical coaches with secret trainings only in movies. In reality, most of them know the same stuff. And all the stuff is available free at internet or libraries. It is no secret how to become a good hockey or football player. Just do the right things enough. In real life sports coach is also a motivator. In poker, it is a bit different. As everything is done online, it is up to the student to do the work. Coach can be a guide in all that information, and make the learning curve a bit faster. But without a hard work from the student, no coach can make one a better player.

Coach can also open up the concepts and strategies in a way that student understands them better. This has nothing to do with the poker skills, this is just didactics (teaching skills). I have seen some higher stakes players do coachings, and they lack the very basic fundamentals about teaching. Being a good player doesnt make one a good teacher. But as in any teaching relationship, student has to trust the teacher. Without that, its a waste of time. If wazzbot doesnt fully trust my coaching, he shouldnt get one from me. I hope he finds a coach he is happy with.

I'll try to keep it short. I'm sure you're a clever guy and probably a great poker player and great coach too, and I could probably learn a lot from you. But your whole 'poker players underestimate variance and don't recognise the importance of the mental game' shtick is a bit silly and reeks of you trying to stake out your place in the market by throwing other poker players or coaches under the bus. Many pros recognise that the whole reason that they're in business is because poker is naturally incredibly high variance. They might try to reduce the hard edges of variance by playing tighter, but ultimately in recognising that variance can be a b*tch, and facing up to that with good mental game strat. The equation for me is simple: on top of an already very high rake, 1% is waaaaaay too steep a price to pay, and it only reduces the variance in all-in spots. And that equity cashout doesn't account for the variance in getting to that all-in spot in the first place.

It's not doing as much work to reduce variance as you're giving it credit for, there are other ways to reduce the impact of variance in general (e.g. having hobbies outside of poker, staying fit and healthy, being overrolled), and the 1% dribbling out of poker hurts all our winrates, most of all those who choose to give up that 1% for some incredibly flaky peace of mind.

And that's before we get to the idea that equity cashouts change the game: I am no longer gambling with you, I am gambling with the poker site. That's not what I signed up for, not what I want to do. In live cash at the casino, it's an enforced rule that you can't just take money off the table that's not going into a poker pot. No matter that sometimes the opposite happens, it's still 1% coming off the table, for spurious benefit.

Cashout doesn't remove variance, but it lowers it a lot. Variance itself is good, it's the only reason that makes poker profitable. More variance, more edge, more value. Cashout doesn't affect opponent's variance, so it doesn't hurt the games imo. If it was normal table, it definitely would affect the dynamics and meta as it affects possible stack sizes. In fast poker, especially when you can rathole and reset stack back to 100bb at any time, it doesn't.

I have said that poker players in general underestimate mental game and I stand by it. I have seen it so often in the tables and even in streams. We all have our thresholds when things start to affect our game. And on my experience, most of players (not talking about just pro's) overestimate their abilities in mental game. Pro's are different, as they wouldn't probably be pro's in modern PLO if they had significant mental game leaks.

And it's not just poker. I also see in every day life, people think they can decide their emotions. Most of us have even fell for that trap ourselves. Example of getting angry. How many of us have decided "not to get angry of something"? Or if you have said or done something you regret, you decided not to do that again? But still it happens and you regret why did you do it again? We can't really decide our emotions. If you are sad, you can't decide not to be. You can mask it and pretend you are not, or you can think positive stuff and therefore lower your sadness. Same thing in all sport, including poker. If something makes you upset or angry, you can't just decide not to be. You can work on your emotional skills, but it's a long journey.

If you think that there is a person on this planet, who doesn't have mental game threshold, you are wrong. 100% of poker players will drop from A game at some point. Poker is also very delicate game, the cost of one bad decision often enough can have a huge impact on our winrate. One call based on emotions instead of rational logic can be -30 to -50bb on the river. Now we come to pure math. I estimate that cashout can prevent me from making feeling based errors on sessions where I run really bad. In a 3k hand session the cashout might cost 20-30bb. It wouldn't have to prevent that many mistakes to become actually +EV investment.

The thing that amazes me is how strong some people react to it. I understand your point of view. Not sure if you understand mine. You can disagree with my reasoning, and it's all good. If paying few bucks for cashout makes me happier, so what? I also drink soda and energy drinks when I play, and they probably cost more than cashout. No one complains about them.

And to clarify, I haven't threw anyone under the bus. I am just saying, that most people underestimate the importance of mental game. I could actually write a longer post about performance level and what affects it and how it affects our EV. But here is my favorite example:

John plays PLO, and plays it well. His winrate is +5bb/100. When he plays for 1K hand session, his EV is 50bb. Sometimes he gets annoyed if opponent plays bad and wins the pot or sucks out on him. Then he makes an aggressive move "to show him who's the boss". John tries to win a pot with bluffing, cos he wants to. Not thinking about strategy that much. He also cools down quickly, so he thinks it's not a big problem. But if John makes one bad bluff (each worth of -20bb) three times in a session, his winrate drops below zero. He played 997 hands well, and thinks that it's not a big deal to spew couple times in a long session. It's part of the game, as they say.

In reality poker is far from that simple. In classic mental game thinking we divide our performance level to A, B and C game. There are no such things, our performance level is constantly changing and it's affect on our EV is affected by a lot of things outside our influence. We also have feelings 100% of times. And we can't choose or directly control them. Every feeling also affects our ability to use rational thinking. I have hear so often players say that "yeah it upsets me but I won't let that affect my game" which just means they don't understand how feelings and rational thinking are linked, and they over estimate their mental game skills. It might not affect a lot, but having a feeling WILL affect the game. Often we don't recognize it or we are subconsciously blind to it. Or the effect is so little it doesn't affect EV at all. But saying "my feelings won't affect my game" is just bullshit.

So the real EV in the end is combination of ourself and variance (not just poker variance). Every human being is different, and we all have different emotional skills and self control abilities. I have talked with a LOT of players, and there aren't many who had viewed mental game in a depth and perspective it should be imo. Most of them have thought mental game as tilting, and if they don't tilt they don't have a mental game flaws. Some have even thought that tilting is part of the game that you can't remove.

So in the end, I estimate that using cashout at certain times is a good investment. I understand why most people won't use it. And I don't really advice anyone to use it, unless they really understand the cost and effect, and how it links to their game. But I would also ask that even if you don't use it, please respect my point of view. My cashout doesn't hurt you nor the games, so wouldn't it be just up to me to use it or not?

That can be, probably is, all true. But it doesn't change the fact 1% that's going straight into the pockets of the poker site, never to be seen again, is too steep a price. You wouldn't pay 50%, would you? I might pay 0.1%, but probably not, just out of stubbornness. Clearly the number is important, and 1% is such a small number that it feels insignificant, until you remember that it's coming out of every all-in pot, something that happens a lot in PLO, and it's added to an already high rake.

When you say something like 'most people underestimate the variance' you're positioning yourself as having better access to better information than others by virtue of rubbishing them. It's trying to make a name for yourself by saying 'everyone does this thing badly, but I don't'. It is promoting yourself by throwing others under the bus, the implication being that if I choose not to equity chop, I'm overestimating my mental capacity and underestimating the variance in poker.

Thinking that cashout only affects you is being short-sighted. Surely you can see that it affects everyone. Ecosystems are always completely interconnected.

You can ask me to respect your point of view, but I don't have to do it just because you asked. I don't respect those who cash out. It's running from variance. If variance is a b*tch, we stand up to it, puff our chests out and say 'today is not a good day to tilt', we don't try to fob them off and ask them nicely if they please won't blow our house down.

Originally posted by wazzbot
if I choose not to equity chop, I'm overestimating my mental capacity and underestimating the variance in poker.

That's not what I said. There are tons of players who have better resilience for getting sucked out or coolered multiple times in short period. There are a lot of players who don't do big mistakes based on feelings. And I have never suggested to anyone that they should use the cashout.

I have studied mental game from the competitors and coaches perspective in sports. I have studied psychology how feelings affect our behaviour and decision making, and I have worked for years with people who are below average on emotional skills and abilities. And I stand behind this: at least 99% of people (all people, not just poker players) REALLY underestimate the effect their feelings have to their decisions and performance.

Cashout is away from ecosystem. But so is withdrawals and rake. Rake is different on sites, but I have never heard anyone complaining playing on site A instead of site B cos the rake is 1bb/100 more. In reality, the actual rake is quite many bb's different based on site and playing style. If that 1bb/100 for cashout is so damn significant, why not arguing that playing on site X is just stupid as the rake is 3bb/100 more?

Originally posted by Kyyberi
Cashout is away from ecosystem. But so is withdrawals and rake. Rake is different on sites, but I have never heard anyone complaining playing on site A instead of site B cos the rake is 1bb/100 more. In reality, the actual rake is quite many bb's different based on site and playing style. If that 1bb/100 for cashout is so damn significant, why not arguing that playing on site X is just stupid as the rake is 3bb/100 more?

For the record I have complained a lot about the rake on different sites.
For a 'serious rec' like myself who has and will always be struggeling with mental health in poker it's clear cut that cashing out is just to take money out of the eco system. If cashing out was a solution their ould be no books about the mental game of poker.

As a coach I do think you have a function people look up to and think oh I can dodge the mental part by cashing out. Reality is most players are barely BE and 1% extra rake/fee is a huge deal. Specially because the winrates (in NLH) are becomming very marginal.

And yes I know variance as Short Deck is more variance than PLO.

I also think it's strong to admit this is an issue for you but I think working on it (bigger BR, meditation, warm ups, cool downs) would add to your abbility as a poker coach.

That's why I have put an effort to explain why I use it sometimes. So that no one gets an idea that it can be used to fix or dodge mental game.

At the moment I play for income 2 months a year. During those 2 months my income is partially dependable on poker. For past 2 summers it has been the same, and I know that running dozens buyins under EV during that period hurts my mental well being a bit. So in this specific situation I am happy to pay the price. And I don't recommend playing for even partially for a living for short periods of time, despite myself doing it.

I think that my responsibility as a coach is to be as transparent as possible. But I don't really see how this has anything to do with my abilities as small stakes PLO coach?

Originally posted by Kyyberi
I think that my responsibility as a coach is to be as transparent as possible. But I don't really see how this has anything to do with my abilities as small stakes PLO coach?

A point can be made in your approach to certain spots where either way a high variance play can be made in stead of an other play based on reads, stacksizes, position or anything. Tbh I think on micro stakes it does not make a huge difference though and as I said being honest, transparant is way more valuebal for me.
Maybe I also want to point out that getting a coach is by far the best investement anyone can make. Even when you are a rec (like myself) I wish I would have done it 15y ago in stead of training stites etc.

just never do "cash-out" its not solid strategy . Have to work on understanding why you feel what you feel when those coolers are coming and slowly feel more and more indifferent about it. This is advice if taking poker seriously , for someone who plays as hobby and doesn't want to sort of dig deep into things and is ok with bad mindset then thinking cashout is like beer money makes sense as for many people gambling is also just fun money thrown away to casinos and marginally to pro-players too.

Lot of stuff Kyyberi wrote somewhere on how to approach poker study sounded sophisticated, pretty sure his coaching is very +ev for beginning plo players.

For long term playing for living, I agree 100%. I am not.

Also worth mentioning that I have had a lot of mental game struggles in the past and I have put a lot of effort in fixing and improving them. So for these 2 summer months I am happy to take the short route.

Did these same problems occur when you played lower like plo10 or is it just after certain limit like plo50? How many buyins effective bankroll do you use if you dont mind me asking? How much can you let yourself lose without lowering stakes?

I have same kinda mental game issues but it's more mistake-related in day-to-day game and losing money affects me only when i'm moving up stakes because it emphasizes mistakes and failure, grinds confidence. Usually I can lose it without a thought. It just money, chips whatever. That's why I prefer piling up a hefty 100-150 buyin bankroll before making my shot and drop down to 4 tabling first weeks to maximise the winrate.(Works great for spotting reg/recs and taking notes too.)

My bankroll is very dynamic. Sometimes I withdraw everything and use the money, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I play a bit more, sometimes I get 0 hands for a month. Can't even remember when I have played PLO10 on regular basis the last time. One component in the mix is that now my bankroll is always very short. Which leads to a situation where few lost big pots have big impact on it.

I am an old fart, who makes living from a dayjob and has normally very limited time to play poker.

my numbers were off since you dont play that much but my point was did the problem faded or reduced with the time spent on plo10 or plo25. Are you expecting the same with your current level. Im surprised you have chosen to not deal with it or just wait it out to reduce with time because this prime example of mental game issue for skill/mental game coach to deal/train with.

It’s probably grinding your winrate too beside that 1% too since those kind of problems tend to be more complex than just a one issue. For example, if your regs spot that change in your gameplay -and I do not see why observant player shouldnt- they are gonna start inducing those tricky showdown leading spot where you cannot 1% it. It’s heads-up 101 and bread-and-butter too to get otherwise decent player to tilt. You just have to find the right spot to tickle. Technically superior playing isn’t the only way to win. ♠_love:

Other reason being ofc it will just reoccur next time you movie up even if you get it to tone down by getting accustomed to the stakes.

But bet this is old-hat stuff for you. I got the feeling that you used old fart/im busy little as an excuse. I mean you spent time doing technical analysis and work all the time, why not mental? Also, I think problems caused by playing with shallow bankroll is something many recreational players in this forum can relate to. It’s a great learning case and good advertising too.

Quick question regarding "Equity Cash-Out"-Option:

Which other Poker Sites besides Pokerstars do offer this kind of option?

GG poker and Partypoker, with the same 1% fee.

@JoePlotter

I have spent a lot of time with mental game, trust me. It's a whole different thing to learn a skill than to change your brain's emotion-creating system that has been built since you were born. Some things are easier to change, some are really hard. I mean, if it was easy we wouldn't need therapists. No one would be aggressive, no one would say or do something they regret later. But instead we have people who spend hours and hours ni therapy without results. We have people who get aggressive when angry, and they can't help it even if they try or want to.

I haven't been able to change how my brains react to certain triggers, but I have learner to understand and recognize it. Shallow bankroll, short time span, some sort of need to make profits is the triangle of danger. In that situation, running bad hurts emotionally way harder than normally. Of course the optimal strategy would be that I wouldn't be in that situation at all. But I would take +EV playing with a seatbelt to my negative emotions happily, instead of not playing at all. Yeah, having 1bb/100 bigger winrate would be better, but then the risk of negative emotions go up a lot. All insurances in our lives are -EV, but still we take some voluntarily.

As I have said before, the thing that amazes me is how big deal that 1bb/100 difference is to some. We all make probably dozens of -EV decisions per day, cos we like comfort. If I would stop drinking energy drinks, in terms of bb/100 I would gain a lot more than I have spent on cashout. But if I say that I drink those, no one comes so hard telling me that it has big impact on my bankroll.

But it all ended happily, now when at dayjob I play around 500 hands a week on average. No need for cashout.