Do poker coaches keep their real strategies hidden?

Question

Lee Jones · Accepted Answer

I am shocked by Chance&#x27;s statement. I am quoting here:"The other elites that are on other coaching sites are holding back what they do that helps them win."There&#x27;s really no charitable way to interpret this sentence – it&#x27;s short and to the point. Further, it goes directly to the core business integrity of any poker coach. Well, I suppose Chance can ask us to carefully parse "elite," but that&#x27;s small mitigation to a damning accusation.Furthermore, he asserts that such behavior is not an unfortunate necessity, because, "[Alex]Foxen and I don&#x27;t hold anything back. We tell you exactly what we think in every spot."I have done a small amount of coaching in my career, and I would never, not for a moment, consider holding back a nugget or two for myself. For better or worse though, I&#x27;m not elite by anybody&#x27;s standards, so I don&#x27;t get tarred with Chance&#x27;s brush.However, I am good friends with Tommy Angelo and Andrew Brokos, both of whom I consider to be elite coaches. I would bet my net worth that neither would "hold back" anything for themselves when working with students.And while I&#x27;m not particularly close to any of the best known poker coaches, what I know of them and how they work is wildly inconsistent with the idea that they&#x27;re "holding back what they do that helps them win." Not least because I&#x27;d consider doing that a failing of fundamental business honesty – the coaches I&#x27;m thinking of pride themselves on doing business honestly and transparently.Now, if Chance wants to attack their teaching methods, or even qualifications to coach, perhaps that&#x27;s a bit more palatable. Not everybody agrees on who&#x27;s good and who&#x27;s not. But it&#x27;s a much bigger step, and in my opinion, a bridge too far, to impugn their honesty and transparency as coaches.Finally, I would ask where Chance gets the definitive knowledge that "other elite coaches" are holding out on their students. Do they have an "elite coaches convention," and over beers, somebody bragged about not giving away the deadly three-straight-check-raise-bluff line?This really isn&#x27;t my battle to fight, since, as I noted, I&#x27;m barely a coach, and I fit no description of an elite one. But to my non-legal eye, Chance Kornoth has made a statement about his fellow coaches which is imprudent at best and slander at worst.

Do poker coaches keep their real strategies hidden?

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