Deliberate practice and continuous learning and refinement are the keys to improving at any skill.
Poker is no exception. Winning poker takes practice and study in order to improve and rise in the stakes.
Enlisting a good poker coach will accelerate this progression.
It’s certainly possible to improve without a coach, but it will likely take longer without one.
Here are five benefits you’ll see from a poker coach that will speed your improvement in SNG play.
1. You’ll get feedback in the trenches
Reading books, watching videos, participating in forums, and working with poker software are all worthwhile ways to improve your poker.
The one thing these all have in common, though, is that they’re done away from the table. The learning is out of context of your play, which was where you made all of the decisions that either won you or cost you.
A poker coach will watch you play, either live or through a recording, sometimes several tables at once, and narrate as the voice of experience. The hands unfold and you hear what the coach would have done differently, and why. (Or, they’ll tell you why what you did was right! No one plays badly 100% of the time — at least not for very long!)
The coach going into the hands with you will help you connect the dots that much faster.
2. You’ll gain fluency in poker math
You probably already know that playing poker well is much more than just playing the hands that feel right.
You may even know about outs, basic odds of improving your hand, pot odds, and more.
But once you gain an appreciation for advanced topics — like independent chip model, game theory optimal strategy, range theory, hand equity, and more — you’ll be more competitive at higher stakes. This lets you earn more per hour without playing a gazillion tables at once.
A poker coach will teach you how, and when, to apply different advanced mathematical concepts. This helps you to bet for value more confidently, or get out of a loser without getting stacked. They’ll know the rules of thumb to get a good-enough answer quickly enough to play real poker with real action timers.
Most importantly for SNG players, a coach will explain how the math changes early in the tournament, around the bubble, and heads-up. Poker has an opening, a mid-game, and an end-game, much like chess, and the strategy changes.
3. You’ll receive instruction and guidance tailored to your play
A book or a course will be beginner, intermediate, or advanced, but it will be broadly addressing that group. If the instruction isn’t playing to your strengths and weaknesses, then it may not pay off the way you might hope.
Hire a poker coach to analyze your game play, though, and each hand becomes a personalized lesson for you. Even after a single session, a coach will be able to get some broad patterns of how you approach the game. This will become its own masterclass just for you.
The coach might pick up that you three-bet on hands that are probably too weak given the cards, your position, and the action thus far. Seeing this, the coach could offer advice that shores up this way opponents could exploit your loose style.
Or, it could be that your play is too conservative, and you’re leaving tons of money on the table in obviously favorable pots. There might be more opportunities for continuation bets, or turn bets after a push on the flop.
Regardless, a coach will observe you and tailor advice to you, personally.
4. You’ll be held accountable
Ahh, homework! Back to grade school we go.
Depending on your poker goals that you express to your coach, they will give you resources, courses, or apps to study and practice on.
And the next time you show up, they’ll ask you how it’s going, how many hands you played, what your play stats are, and so forth.
This kind of accountability and transparency between client and coach yields dividends over time. It’s a two-way street: the coach invests in the player, and the player shows the effort by taking the coach’s suggestions.
The personal touch brings accountability into the mix like no book can.
5. You’ll be encouraged and motivated
The best coaches push their clients, and inspire them. It holds with sports, and it holds with poker.
A poker coach will be there to encourage you after a bad month, or a bad quarter. They’ll bring experience to the table, and give the long view that transcends the sometimes-violent ups and downs of poker.
They want to see you succeed, and they’ll do everything they can, short of playing the hands for you, to do that.
Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash