Looking for partner/coach

I am looking for people who want to share their wealth of knowledge with me. I have been looking around for a coach but they are all over priced, and I dont need a full coach, pretty much a sweat buddy that wants to discuss things over AIM. If anyone is looking for this get at me.

We also have the hand analysis forums as well that you can use. There are a lot of folks here that will share advice and input for free.

are u blond 36-24-36 single and gorgeous? and under 40?
if not sorry mate you have to work like the rest of us slobs

I know about the forums, but I am looking for someone who is gonna sweat on AIM or skype etc during sessions and add input as I would do the same. Sorry if I didn't make it any clearer.

Current limits/game type ? PT or HEM user ?

Drop me a pm, I'm looking for the exact same thing

Pm if you want

Not to be Johnny Raincloud here, but this is just one of the problems with online poker. Collusion. How many people are we playing against during sessions ... ????

Try having a 'sweat buddy' at a live table. When I sit at a table, I expect to be playing the other people seated there, not adding a few extra 'unseen' players communicating via AIM/Skype or any other means of taking an unfair advantage.

How's it an unfair advantage? A group is only as good as the best member. If there's a decision and one thinks it's a fold and one thinks it's a call, how does it hurt you more than if you were playing the better player? One says fold one says call. It's possible because of the extra person they fold to a bluff or call down when you have the nuts.

It's been said before, live poker is not online poker. If you have a problem with people sweating other people, play live poker. If you have a problem with people recording stats on you, play live poker. You can't use a comparison like that simply because live poker is not online poker. They're different.

Not only 'unfair advantage', it is cheating. Of course there are those who believe 'anything goes' online. Agreed, they are NOT the same. That's one good reason I will never deposit online and I DO save my cash for live games here at the BnM casinos and home games. I sit at a table to see WHO I am playing. I'm also entitled to my opinion about what constitutes 'fair play'.

Recording stats? Fine. Didn't Stars recently rule that Sharkscope active while playing was prohibited? There's a reason for that. It's an unfair advantage over other players.

But even online, if I sit at a 9 man table, I expect to be playing 9 people, not 9 people plus two on the phone with that game up on their screen. This may also be an explanation to those who post about losing their BR's when they don't realize they are playing 9 $1/2 players at the table and a $3/6 and $5/10 player on the phone.

OK, mom and pop or son and dad sit at one computer and 'talk' about what to do - fine. 'Coach' at your computer looking over your shoulder - that's part of online - but on the phone, AIM? No.

Taken from Stars site: http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/prohibited/
in part: "There is a range of things that a player can do to improve his chances in a poker game. For instance, he can play a lot and gain experience, or he can read a book about poker. Both of these techniques are clearly appropriate. At the other end of the spectrum, he can work in collusion with another player, sharing information about hole cards and teaming up against other players. This is clearly cheating."

10/11 people at a 9 seat table, imo, is cheating. Plain and simple. Want a coach? Review your HH's with her/him and analyze. Check my stats offline. Then come back to a table (alone) with your improved skills and knowledge.

You wrote: "A group is only as good as the best member." The 'group' is supposed to be the 9 seated at that table.

I don't expect my comments will change the fact that there are those who will use AIM and Skype, etc, but it may open a few eyes to what they may really be playing against when they put up their cash online.

LOL! Nobody at the live tables in Las Vegas seemed to mind years ago when Jennifer Harmon was teaching Marco Traniello how to play poker by letting him sweat over her shoulder.

Also, Stoxpoker, Cardrunners, and Leggo Poker seem to do a pretty fine online poker coaching business that includes sweat sessions at $200-$300 an hour or more. It's pretty much part of the online poker culture by now.

Sheesh. And I thought I was paranoid.

It's not about paranoia. As someone wrote in a 'sweat' thread elsewhere, "Can any one define the point where a sweat session becomes "two to the hand?""

It's the potential abuse of a system, 'culture' or not. Looking over someone's shoulder in a 'real' sweat session, and where they do not provide input on decisions BEFORE they are made, is one thing. Using IM or any form of immediate interaction on a hand in progress is not right.

Obviously getting coaching, advice, analyzing HH's, reviewing stats post-sessions and the like are great tools. 'Two in a hand' ... is not, imo.

I'm puzzled about how you draw a distinction between mom and pop in a room talking about it and someone on the phone or MSN.

Not saying that it's right or wrong, but I don't see the difference between someone in the room or remote.

afaik pokerstars does not have problems with u talking about a hand with someone on messenger or on the phone as long as the person u are talking to is not at the same table

What you quote has nothing to do with what you are saying. Collusion between two players involved in the same hand is obviously cheating, but having a coach with you (in my opinion) is perfectly fine.

I wasnt talking about collusion, quit with the paranoia

I don't see this as any different than if i was playing online and Annie Duke was sitting on my lap.
She would be perfectly free to give me advice.

as long as your asking advice on your hand and the person is not in the game i dont think it matters as he will not be saying well fold cause i have you beat but than again this is probably why i always seem to lose cause everyone has a buddy but me helping them play

Yep, sharkscope/sharing dbs gives access to information the user did not collect on his or her own. That is illegal.
If the 3/6 and 5/10 player will be on the phone taking their time to do 1/2, what's to make you so sure they're not just playing 1/2? How do you know when you sit at a table you're not playing a 5/10 player? I've played 5/10 regs at 1/2 before.
Rex already asked this, but what's the difference?
As mentioned before, this is about collusion, which is two people at the same table getting cards talking. This IS clearly cheating, they take it very seriously, and people have had funds confiscated for doing it.
That's your opinion. Say I was playing you and got Phil Ivey to coach me. I'm sure you'd think that was unfair. What if instead Phil Ivey sat with you and played against you? Which would be worse?

SUPPOSED implies opinion, and this is your opinion. If there are 10 people trying to decide on an action for one player, would this help at all? I think it'd be tougher. If there are 2 people there, they're not going to all of a sudden be twice as good. Depending on style (basically how many mistakes the coach lets the student make), it would most likely be more like playing against the coach.

It's pretty common knowledge. Videos are released on a ton of training sites with sweats, and the sites have full knowledge of them. If they wanted to ban them they could. But they don't.

So I agree with you, know that you could be playing more than one person at each computer. Personally I don't have a problem with it so I'll play. Apparently you do and won't play online. That's the beauty of it.

I'd let Zach coach me via Skype anytime.

One problem is I play at lower stakes and these guys call a ton of junk hands which would make it a little tougher to place them on hand ranges for a coach used to much better play.


One thing you can do if you don't want to or are afraid to use a coach is to watch videos made by Zach and ChuckT. You'll see all the action and hear comentary as to why they play hands as they do. Check the subforum "videos" to find them.

I def have to check out their videos,

premier, what games/stakes do you play?

It was more of a generalization to avoid the comments that would say "I'm not going to tell my wife to stay out of the room while I play", or "my son turns 18 next month and I'm teaching him to play, what's wrong with that?".

Sweat sessions at live tables started many years ago, long before online poker was popular. As a courtesy, it was also with the agreement of all players at the table. At the rail is where all other non-players should be. Even in live pro/circuit events (or those being filmed for the media), a player is not permitted to go to the rail to consult his coach during a hand. They can go to the rail after the hand is over to get advice on what they might/should have done, but not during the hand.

Most of what I have seen online is cash players looking for 'interactive' advice and 'partners' via remote media. In Zach's example with Ivey as a coach, if he were assisting decisions, yes, it would be unfair, imo. I sat down to play Zach, not Zach (and secretly Ivey). If I sat with Ivey, I would know what I was in for and who I sat down against.

Taking that one step further as it relates to poker, if I sat down to play HU, just me and Zach, that's what I would expect. I would not expect it to be me against Zach and Ivey secretly helping him make the decisions. If you told me straight out that it would be me against the two of you, I wouldn't sit, unless it was simply for the thrill of the action and challenge, but it would be with my knowledge and agreement.

Nothing at all wrong with the videos you mention. It's actually a lot more personal and productive in many cases than simply reading a book. You get to see it happen - AFTER it has happened. An excellent tool.

Yes, that is the beauty of it. I do play online, but only with funds I have won online. No deposits at risk. My pocket cash goes on the tables where I can see the players live and the competition. Fortunately, I'm in an area where I can do that.

Wasn't meant to be 'paranoia'. In the OP and the title of the thread, you asked for a 'partner' or coach. A coach to improve your skills post-hands is perfectly fine. A 'partner' to be interactive in hands is not, imo. Poker is not a team sport. 'Teams' that have been created and promoted on the media are not permitted in any way to bring their 'team' to the tables with them.

I am all for sweat sessions, anyone interested can PM me.
Nevada, although I see your point, there is a flipside: If I do not take advantage of the opportunity to do sweats online, I am putting myself at a disadvantage to other players who regularly do so. Similar (not the same) to people saying tracking is cheating. Without my tracking software today, I would be disadvanteged at many tables and tourneys. If not most.
This is about survival. Ethics and morals may be subjective. When it comes to the gray area, do what gives you the edge.

right now I am trying to focus on 25NL 6max, along with occasional MTT

There seems to be a fairly easy way to answer this. Email PokerStars or Full Tilt, or any site you play at, and ask them the protocol. It might even be in the terms of service or end user license agreement, or whatever they call it. I find it highly unlikely that if you emailed them and posed the question "Do you allow multiple people to contribute to one player's decisions occuring during a hand?" that any one of them, assuming it's a legit online poker room, would say they allow it. They allow PokerTracker and similar programs because they create personal databases based on hands that have previously occured (albeit very recently). And although there is no one set definition of collusion (that I am aware of), I could easily see the input of multiple people's opinions on the decisions of a hand currently being played to be classified as collusion.

My apologies to premier for sort of hijacking his thread. Let's leave his thread for finding his 'buddies'.

Sometime in the next week I will try to compile some of this and start a thread specifically on the subject of coaches, buddies and partners. I think it is a subject worthy of it's own space as this is the kind of material that anti-gaming folks would love to use as ammunition in their fight against online gaming.

A good coach would never tell you how to play the hand, rather he/she would give you ways to think about the hand that would lead you to make the profitable decisions.

DING DING DING