This blog post is going to detail my experience as an online poker coach, touch on my customer base and try to give some insight in to what the industry is like.

I’ve been coaching poker for three years now, after my results from the PartyPoker era and consequently my play on the iPoker network have gained me plaudits for the competitive community as I’m a proven and consistent winner at the mid-high stakes level 6-max cash games. This is not meant as a self-advertisement, it’s just that I feel you should have a little background on my career.

A ton of guys coming to me for help are the guys desperate to make it, most of them are hard working micro-small stakes grinders trying to surpass the 100NL 6-max level and really take their game to the next level. Most of the guys I teach study, but the common thing I fail to see from many of my students is the ability to think outside the box, and constantly remind yourself not to fall in to the common pitfalls and stereotypical plays which are present in today’s game. Poker coaching is not about telling a player what to do in a certain hand, it’s about teaching someone how to think about the game, how to think about what they’re doing and not just making up a passable answer as to ‘why’ they’re doing something.

In most of the poker coaching videos available today, a coach will constantly preach the importance of having a plan, and thinking about ‘why’ you’re doing something before you do it. The problem is, this leads to many players saying ‘well I’m doing this because of this’ and they’ll loosely make up what they feel is a plausible reason as to why.

I’ll give you an example – You’re on the river with area in position and your opponent has called you all the way down. The river card completes a ton of draws, and you’re considering whether to bluff all in or check. You decide to go all in, citing the reason as ‘Well even he calls it’s good for meta-game and I’ll win money in the long run from it’. The problem is, you’ll easily find yourself using reasons like this more and more, and actually in the long run it won’t make you all this magical money, you’ll end up losing as a result of it.

More to come in the next post, but you really have to think on a multitude of levels and constantly think to yourself ‘Which decision will earn me the most money right now?’.

For more information regarding Poker Coaching, please visit iPokerVIP.net