“Jan, I like what you are saying, but, I am winning right now. I’m leery of disturbing anything. I’ll contact you when I need some help-when things are not going so well.”
Since I solicit from winning players, this is a common objection to my coaching offers. Here are some things to consider: (Begin by rereading the previous essay – The Challenges of Minefield)
- When you are losing, paying for coaching is much more difficult.
- Why wait until you are in a slump? Wouldn’t it be wiser to allow a coach to help you stay in the groove, the zone, and winning?
- A good coach never tries to change your game unless it is horribly flawed. His goal is to refine your game, smooth out the edges in your game, and encourage your growth.
- Growth, learning, and intelligent adjustments are the processes that prevent your game from faltering.
- It is crucial to understand why you are winning. Otherwise, you may make unwise changes.
- A coach’s job is to encourage you to take note of what is working well. This information can be crucial to continuing your winning behavior. Focusing on what you are doing well, and not so well, is the joint chore of you and your coach.
- Many players that are doing well make the decision to make radical experimental changes. A good coach will discourage this. There is a big difference between taking a shot at a $1600 buy in after you have been winning at the $400 buy in level- and the mistake of moving exclusively to the $600-$2500 level.
- Many winners become complacent. They begin to believe that they have “arrived”. A good coach is diligent in his demand that you continue to study, prepare, and grow.
Winners often are not consciously aware of why they are winning, and therefore, have great difficulty returning to what Jared Tendler calls the zone. He concludes: “Instinct uses our most ingrained and basic knowledge to inform our decisions. It’s common to view players with strong instincts as having an innate gift that doesn’t result from training. The truth is you do not have to be a “natural”. Instincts can be enhanced by training your knowledge to the level of unconscious competence. This knowledge is so well trained and basic that you may struggle to explain decisions that a made using it- a phenomena called “input induced amnesia”. When knowledge is so deeply ingrained, you can sometimes forget the steps and details it took to learn it so well. This concept explains why experts make terrible coaches.”
Fellow coach Chris “the Fox” Wallace says that the most common question he receives is: What is the fastest way to improve? The most common question I receive is: “What do they know that I don’t”? The answer to both questions is the same. There is no easy path to becoming a great player. It takes time, hard work, perseverance, resilience, and dedication. Chris: “You can shorten the amount of time it takes-but most players won’t make the necessary sacrifice because it demands more study time and is hard work. Most poker player would rather play than study the fastest way to improve would be to work directly with a poker coach…but most players won’t do that. Too much misplaced pride.”
