Hey guys,

In this coaching series I´d like to turn a decent 6max midstakes player into a HU player that can beat all the regs at his level. It will be an open poker coaching program.

My mentoring history:

Without hiding my pride, I’d like to brag about some former long term students that I had. One guy was still in high school, beating NL100 6max, but got hammered every time he tried to move up to NL200. He contacted me and at that time I was looking to take on a protégé. In a period of only 6 months, while having his graduation year, he played up to 5-10 HU. At the moment I am mentoring another close friend of mine and his success story looks even greater!

My motivation:

I get a kick out of success stories, especially if I can help and be part of it. Back when I played fulltime (ok, it’s only 3 months ago), I wasn´t into coaching at all in general. My attitude was selfish and I had no interest at all in improving other players that weren´t close friends – since it would basically cost me money in the longrun. It’s like educating your competitors. Not something I was looking to do ;). Today it’s not like I turned on my altruistic mode, but my views did change a bit and I don´t care at all about maximizing profits anymore. Things come and go. Coaching is something that I genuinely enjoy – in many areas. So while working on this blog, I might as well do what I´m good at and what I love.

How will it work:

Every now and then Ka Kei Ho (the student) and myself will make a video and monitor his progress. I will analyze his play, point out some things that I liked/didn´t like.

He will be given homework assignments, that will be public for everybody. This means, in case you are interested in learning HU as well, you are welcome to join in. I don´t know how long this series will be, but you can expect at least 10 Videos and a bunch of tips/hints to go along. Basically it will be very straight forward.
There are great resources out there and it would be a shame if we didn´t take advantage of them. Some of them cost money, but usually the investment is rather small.

Why I am optimistic:

First of all, I know Ka Kei Ho (btw he´s not Chinese) somewhat well in person. Got to know him while travelling in south America. He´s very young, but has an extremely thick skin and is very confident. That’s pretty awesome because as a coach, you don´t have to worry about him being sad after a rough session with lots of criticism.
Another reason why I am optimistic is that the games are not as tough as everybody says they are. There are a ton of things that most midstakes HU players completely misunderstand/misapply. Not trying to show how “bad everybody is”, just saying that there is lots of room for improvement and many edges to be taken advantage of.

Coaching Project HU: Assignment #1