Beyond the Cards: Unleashing the Power of Poker Coaching

30 Jan 2024

Discover why having a poker coach is not just a luxury but a strategic necessity for anyone looking to master the game. Explore the key benefits that a skilled coach brings to the table. Let’s get started!

Professional poker coaching in 2024

Poker is not only an intellectual game, but a genuine opportunity to generate money. As a professional player, you'll have the chance to play cards from any location in the world. However, despite the current opportunities, mastering the art of playing poker online on your own still requires constant work. 

As you know, free advice is seldom cheap — at some point in time most successful players have learned from someone.

If you want to learn poker from professionals, the right solution is to work with a professional trainer or a group of trainers. Apart from the training materials, our website offers top notch coaches to work with. All you need is to sign up for online training. In this article, we’ll provide you with a manual for those poker players who doubt whether they need a coach or not.

Who exactly needs a poker coach?

Is it worth resorting to the poker coaching services? Essentially, a tutor is necessary for those people who are not ready to spend months playing the game waiting for professional growth. With a poker mentor, results can be seen within the first week of intensive work.

It is crucial that the player in this situation does not act so naive as to overlook any of the minor details the expert asks of him. A slight departure can have the exact opposite effect of what was anticipated.

They can have a better and more profitable game (session) at a short distance, but even with serious luck, they will never win the competition, which involves at least a couple or three hundred competitors. Luck alone will not get you far.

Great poker coaches make sure to study you before he starts working with you. Such specialists emphasize not only what cards you need to play with, but also what strategy and tactics you need to choose. This includes behavioral ones. They help you to find a comfortable mode of play depending on the poker player's character.

However, not everyone and not always pokercoach can be useful. Sometimes it is better to pass the way to success on your own or do not spend time on poker, if there are only failures, and the disposition to such an occupation is not. Again, this is all very individual, but if you have the ability in terms of financial resources, it's better to save time and pay for much more effective training to a person who is considered an expert in his field.

Benefits of professional mentoring

Players, especially beginners, have tons of questions and are eager to get concrete answers. In live communication with a consistently winning regular, all unclear situations can be discussed in detail. Advanced coaching poker, in turn, offers a different approach to online coaching: both individual and group lesson formats.

The advantage of personal training is that you will have more time to analyze your game specifically. It’s possible to choose a few hands in advance, which best illustrate the problematic points (leaks), and analyze them. You will be helped to choose the appropriate poker software and told how to work with them.

Besides, even the best poker coach is still a former "dummy". Previously, he has already gone through all the circles of hell and knows from personal experience how to build the learning process so as to achieve the most effective and fast skill growth and increase his earnings. A 100% true specialist will objectively assess his game, quickly uncover all the weaknesses, and determine in which spots he's losing more money, and where he can safely exploit the opponents.

Having a mentor can be very beneficial when learning how to play for the following main reasons:

1. Accelerated Training Curve: A tutor can offer you a well-organized learning path, assisting you in avoiding typical traps and rookie mistakes that a lot of players make. Your learning curve can be greatly accelerated by doing this.
2. Personalized Guidance: A coach tailors their advice to your specific strengths and weaknesses. This personalized guidance is crucial for addressing your unique challenges and maximizing your strengths as a player.
3. Real-Time Feedback: Decisions in online poker must be made rapidly because of its fast-paced nature. Real-time input on your games from a trainer can help you make wiser decisions, especially when the chips are down.
4. Bankroll Management: Proper bankroll management is essential to long-term poker success. A coach can guide you on proper bankroll management strategies, helping you avoid going on tilt or making rash decisions that could reduce your funds.
5. Mindset and Psychology: The game of poker involves more than simply card strategy. It also involves controlling your own mindset and comprehending the psychology of your opponents. A coach can help you improve your mental toughness and teach you how to read your opponents' moves.
6. Keep Ahead of the Updates: New tactics and trends in online poker are continually emerging. A mentor can ensure that your abilities stay competitive and relevant by keeping you informed about the most recent changes in the poker meta.
7. Goal Setting and Accountability: Setting and achieving goals is crucial for improvement. A coach can assist you in setting realistic goals and hold you accountable for your progress, keeping you motivated and focused on continuous improvement.
8. Reviewing Hand Histories: Looking back at past hands is a key step in getting better at playing poker. A coach can help you with this process by identifying your areas of strength and weakness and guiding you toward future decision-making.

Training at the highest level

Truly best poker coaches are experienced players who share their knowledge for a fee, usually charged by the hour. They teach different poker strategies, help you spot your weaknesses, and guide you on how to improve. It's like investing in personalized training to boost not just your skills but also your strategic thinking in the game.

A poker tutor is your key to evolving from a cautious player to an expert. They break down the game, revealing its hidden nuances, guiding every move, and dedicating efforts to improve your skills. A skilled coach can even help overcome poker fears, like anxiety about specific game moments or higher stakes. Finding common ground with your mentor and discuss out each step of your improvement journey is crucial for success.

Perfect coaching session comes from pros with years of experience and a toolbox of strategies. They can navigate any in-game scenario and flip it to their advantage. Gaining knowledge from them enables you to rise to the top and make a range of incomes at various limits. It's a daily return on investment, and who knows, you might end up turning into your own poker mentor. So how about trying it out?

General recommendations for players

As you know, poker is a popular card game and every day thousands of deals and tournaments are held on it. But to win in them is not enough to know the rules and combinations. You need to be able to perform mathematical calculations, master different techniques and strategies, understand software, etc. That's why professional poker training is popular — especially online.

At the same time, not every player who decided to undergo training, as a result, achieved good results. This is due to several factors, which we will list in the sections below.

Getting started

In most online schools, you can watch lessons at different intervals, skip tests to consolidate the theory. But this approach will worsen the effectiveness of training and increase its duration. Therefore, it is worth determining in advance for yourself a schedule of lessons and strictly following it.

While watching lessons, you should remove incoming problems. It's unacceptable to be distracted by phone conversations, flipping through social networks and so on. This will not allow you to understand and internalize the material. You should study when no one will distract you and turn off mobile gadgets and messengers on your computer before watching lessons via PC or laptop.

Practice makes perfect

It's important to emphasize practice. You can't limit yourself to group lessons at school. You need to play independently in the poker room. You can start it by participating in freerolls — these are free multi-table tournaments with money guarantees. They are held in many popular poker rooms.

Participants in MTT without buy-ins are mostly beginners. Therefore, they are not highly competitive. And with the help of poker coaches — it’s an easy win. For those who are just learning poker with a professional, or on their own, freerolls are a good way to gain real experience and build a starting bankroll.

In case of a cash game, you should start with micro stakes tables — from $0.01/$0.02. Weaker opponents usually play at these tables. That's why the chances of winning the hands are high. At the same time you will be able to improve your skills and apply the tutor's recommendations against your real opponents.

These are the best poker coaching recommendations you should use to start playing quality online / live poker on all of the bet rounds, which include preflop, flop, turn, river, and, of course, showdown.

An alternative method — poker coaching schools

Besides individual poker coaching, there are many schools online where you can learn to play professionally. Some of them are narrowly focused — maintenance courses only on separate poker themes. Other sites present training programs: from MTT to cash-disciplines.

But keep in mind that there's always a chance of receiving a mediocre instruction or having unqualified coaching staff.

As an option — try to enroll in several online schools at once and take 3-4 lessons in each of them. Usually, such lessons are given in test mode completely free of charge. This kind of approach will allow you to evaluate the convenience of the training platform, the method of presentation of materials and the competence of the speakers who teach at the online school.

In any case, you should not expect that a beginner will start playing professionally right after a training course with a coach or a team of mentors. Success comes with experience and constant improvement of their skills. You will need to invest a significant amount of time in the poker game if you want to advance your abilities and make significant progress. If you have any additional questions concerning coaching, you can contact our support team online or by leaving a comment below.

Free training

Another option we wouldn't initially recommend is to learn on your own. Poker is an extremely difficult game that requires years of consistent effort to become an expert at. To master the fundamentals of the game, it's preferable to start with free online tutorials and guidance from specialized poker websites rather than risking money.

Good news is that this type of poker coaching is for free and you don’t have to invest in anything. Such platforms usually include some tips and tricks for players of different levels of skill. In addition, some guides will teach you about the basic poker hand rankings, others may also show you how to calculate odds, outs and pot odds.

For more experienced players in cash game or MTT, some manuals offer tips on how to resist against opponents with different strategies. You can also learn how to accurately read your opponents and adapt your approach to beat them.

In short, find material that covers the topics you are interested in and learn as much as you can from it. After this stage, practice with the material you have learned, including strategy, in playing money games or freerolls. If you feel that you've reached a dead end and you're not getting anywhere, go back to hiring a professional tutor.

Final thoughts on modern poker coaching

We would like to summarize today's article with the words of high stakes poker player Phil Galfond, owner of RunItOnce — one of the top poker training sites: «Selecting the ideal mentor can be a challenging task.  However, it's critical since you're giving them the most significant task possible: evaluating your game. You will lose both money and important time if you end up in the hands of a mediocre player who can't clarify an idea or someone who is just concerned with making a profit rather than seeing you through to the end.

Making a poor mentor selection can have serious financial repercussions, but it can also cost you dearly in terms of losing the information and abilities you have gained thus far, taking the incorrect route, and changing to a different approach. For this reason, you must find a person you can completely rely on».

There are parallels between learning poker and picking up a musical instrument or a foreign language. You will soon see the initial benefits of your studying when you begin practicing on your own. But shortly, you will face a barrier of miscommunication that most people are not equipped to overcome on their own. After that you ought to give consulting an expert some serious thought if you haven't already done so in this type of situation. Especially if you want to build a career as a truly professional player, poker coaching service is a must. We wish you high spirits and success in all your undertakings!