How to Get a Qualified MTT Poker Coaching

19 Apr 2024

This article is dedicated to a hot topic these days — MTT Poker Coaching. What approach will be the most effective and why is it important to be trained nowadays? Let's get to the bottom of it!

Three categories of MTT trainers

The first thing to understand is what categories of MTT coaches exist. There are three of them:

1. Ultra regulars, the top 1% of the field, play with the highest ROI;
2. Successful players who win at all their MTT limits. They have normal range and work hard on their game;
3. Players who play huge distances with an ROI of 7%+.

All three categories seem very attractive for further study. We have listed them for "general development". There is only one way out in any training — the most successful players from your limits, who are definitely stronger than you, should coach you and further analyze your poker game. 

Effective coaching methods

Most players seek the services of the mentors when they start losing and have no confidence in future poker sessions. In fact, it is much more important to understand your real level after you start winning.

They are intimidated by the huge amount of study literature and articles, so they get confused about what they have already studied and what they only planned to approach. Eventually, the tired student decides that analyzing and hand posting is enough to become a pro.

How to organize a training plan

At the beginning of your training, theory should make up the majority of your time: for every hour of practice, there are approximately 10 hours of theory. Once you have the basic terms down, you should find some poker books and collections of articles, depending on your level. The more the literature deals with practical techniques, the more practice there should be.

Once you have understood the material that gives basic tips on the game, move on to more narrowly focused literature. It’s not necessary to study all the nuances of poker at the same time, but enough to decide on 1-3 directions and look for individual training manuals. After that knowledge will be better memorized, and the learning process will be organized and structured. Post your hands on the forums and listen to the teachers’ opinion, which gaps in poker strategy should be eliminated.

What MTT training consists of

Theoretical material is gathered from literature, video lectures, discussion of hands, etc. It’s also recommended to read the books, even 2-3 times in a circle. The first time to familiarize yourself with the MTT format and presentation of the material, to clarify for yourself unclear points. Or with the help of a poker coach.

The second time you should start working with the material: take notes of the current leaks, so that everything is at hand during practice. Also you shoukd highlight interesting ideas and write comments. 

The third time the literature is read after some time to refresh your memory. For convenience, you can say new knowledge aloud, so the material will be better remembered. It can also be done in a whisper, but the student must be able to hear his speech.

Before the training session, make a list of short questions for the MTT coach in advance. At the lesson he will not have time to answer long and complicated questions, but you can ask them on the forum. Do not enter both the game and the training session at the same time. Otherwise you will not be able to concentrate on either lesson, so you will lose lot of hands and not remember the mentor’s words.

It’s better to do it on play chips to understand the structure of the studied tactics and not to lose real money. But it is impossible to objectively assess the usefulness of the MTT strategy with free games. Here the manner of play is very different (aggressive) from the behavior at the tables for real money.

At the initial stage of learning poker, neither wins nor losses matter — all lost money is considered as a contribution to learning. In practice, you should learn to calculate outs and their probability, read your opponents and develop strategies against each type of player.

This will be quite enough for a dynamic game, and attention will not "jump" between screens. You can also practice in a company. Here's how it works: every participant opens his own table, and actions are discussed by voice communication. This way you'll learn to look at the situation from different angles.

Why should a poker player hire a MTT coach?

Playing poker requires constant learning. And to get good at online MTT, you need to delve into it. Yes, some people like to solve puzzles alone, but it's not always productive. You can spend countless nights studying MTTs specifics, board structures, or, for example, researching different ranges of overpair raises, and still not make progress.

In online or even live communication with a consistently winning regular, all unclear situations will be discussed in detail. Mentors, for their part, offer a different approach to learning the game: both individual and group lesson formats.

The advantage of private poker training sessions is that you will have more time to work out your game specifically (not other people). You can choose a few hands in advance that best illustrate your problem areas. You will be helped to choose the best poker programs and told how to work with them. As for learning in a group, it is no less educational, but this method is not suitable for everyone.

Choosing most appropriate tournament poker coaching

Before hiring a poker coach, be sure to do a little research and make sure he or she is a true profitable player. An unsuccessful regular will definitely not help you (we’ll talk about it a bit later).

Still others attach various graphs in their advertisements, but these may well be falsified (or even stolen). And the stories like "I've eaten the dog in these Sunday Millions on PokerStars" — he’s no more than a big lie.

This is why choosing a mentor is one of the key, if not the most important aspect of coaching. Therefore, you need to look for a trainer that you will trust 100%. Also, if you want to beat NL10, for example, don't call on a mentor who hasn't played below NL500 in years (which is certainly impressive) — favor a professional whose skill set isn't too far above your "poker initiation" level.

Are you passionate about MTTs? Then you need an expert who understands multi-table events (not Sit & Go of course). Respectively, if a player prefers to spend hours at the cash tables, you should seek the help of someone who knows how to play cash games. When playing heads-up, there is no point in hiring a coach who specializes in 6-max format.

So, if a player searches for an online MTT coach, he should see conclusive proof of his online achievements. It can be winnings, examples of profitable players who undergo professional poker training earlier, etc.

Tournaments in small poker rooms are the best way to get started

Bigger flagship tournaments are not the best solution for starting a career, as a large number of participants makes the game significantly longer, and decent prizes in tournament poker are concentrated only on the final table.

The probability of getting to the final table depends directly on the number of players. Playing in large events makes building up a bankroll and learning quite exhausting. It makes the player be more dependent on the luck factor.

At the beginning of your career, the best solution is to look at smaller poker rooms: there are fewer players and their understanding of the game in general is noticeably weaker. It's best to start with tournaments for 100-700 people and move on to bigger ones when you start to make a steady profit in the smaller MTTs.

Advantages of this approach:

• You will learn how to play against amateurs. This is the main skill for getting a higher winrate.
• Playing in smaller online events is less variance and will allow you to build up a full bankroll to play in huge tournaments (i.e. with 1,000 or more competitors) more quickly. Also, if your goal is to get into the poker pool (ITM), you'll be more likely to gain the distance you need.
• You will also gain experience playing in the pre-final and final stages of a tournament. This is a core skill of a professional MTT player.
• Your first wins will give you the motivation to continue playing poker seriously.
• You don't need a serious investment to build a poker bankroll.

Advantages of individual training or why MTT Poker School is not the best option

Separately we'll put such training projects as poker schools. In their classic form, when students pay for group training — they are already obsolete. The reasons are as follows:

1. There are no guarantees;
2. Group lessons are ineffective;
3. Individual lessons with a coach will be noticeably more expensive than with a group coach of the same level. Reason for that is that the school has a larger commission;
4. The level of school coaches is usually low. Really good mentors are not required in support of the third-party company who can provide more students.

With personalized training, the entire training session is dedicated to you. This means that you can ask any questions you want, which you will get answers to immediately, without waiting for a line of the same 10 people. Let's take the example of a tournament review by a professional coach:

• Assigns lots of homework with helpful materials;
• Analyzes the game and looks for strategic flips and deviations in the player's ranges;
• Finds leaks in the sizings;
• Finds gaps in the mathematical components of the game;
• Explains how to use statistics correctly and optimally;
• Finds gaps in the lines of play on postflop;
• Explains how to correctly set the opponent's range;
• Shows problems in building logical chains of analyzing the game situation;
• Finds leaks of the game in different stack sizes and tournament stages;
• Analyzes possible reasons for dropping out of the tournaments;
• Finds important leaks in preflop stacking and postflop play for big pots;
• Checks the level of discipline of the student: finds hands on emotions and in tilt (the student is often stunned by what he sees);
• Analyzes your final tables, the quality of play in which greatly affects your profit;
• Tells how to play the final stage as a chip leader, as well as with a short or medium stack;
• ICM tweaks in pre-final and final stages of the game;
• Psychological aspects at the final table.

And this is only a small part of the information that can be obtained through personalized training.

Final thoughts on MTT Poker Coaching

MTT is the most interesting and exciting type of poker. For this reason it is especially loved by recreational players / amateurs. Learning to play poker is like teaching to play a musical instrument or studying a foreign language. When you start practicing on your own, you will quickly notice the first positive results of your work.

However, soon you will face a wall of misunderstanding that most people can't break through on their own. This is where the online MTT coach will be at your service.

We keep our fingers crossed for your further development in poker and wish that cooperation with mentors from Getcoach platform will have a positive effect on your profit in a short period of time.