By
grapsfan
A few times a week, I see a post in Poker Discussion about someone looking for help with their game. To save all of those people time, here is a form letter where you can fill in the blanks. You can thank me later.
“Hi, PocketFivers! I’m a (pick one: losing / break-even / promising) player looking to (build a bankroll / hit my first big score / try poker full-time). I’ve read all of the books and think about poker non-stop, but I can’t (stop going busto / make final tables / win a Major / avoid all of these donkeys). PM me if you’d (mentor me / review my hand histories / join a discussion group). Ranked players preferred.”
There are a lot of problems with the form-letter approach; several of which we’ll address now, others we’ll save for a later article on “The Right Way”. If you wish to try to find someone to help your game using the form-letter, here are some hints to maximize your success rate.
First, be as active on P5s as possible. If you’re a long-time lurker, first-time poster, no one will know who you are. Do whatever you can to contribute and make yourself visible. Go rail another P5er when they make a “come rail my FT” post – and be fairly obvious about it. Participate in all of the forums. Reply to existing threads. Start your own. The more people know and like you, the more they’ll respond.
With that thought in mind, be smart about your participation. I love Off-Topic. I wish I had more time to read and post there. But if you spend all of your time in OT, posting weird pictures and stream-of-drunken-consciousness, you will develop a reputation. It’s neither good nor bad to have that rep…just understand you’ll have it. Some people will have a hard time taking your mentoring request seriously if it’s your first serious post. Be a part of the P5s poker community, not just the community in general.
Be generous (and if necessary, creative) about offering reciprocity. Only posting your request, it’ll sound like you want something-for-nothing, and the next ten posts will be a series of links to the various training sites. An offer to give part of your winnings should be fairly standard, but it’s not the only way to make yourself interesting to a potential mentor. In fact, if you’re a micro-stakes player, what you can do is far more appealing than what you could give. If you’re good with money, offer to help your mentor handle their taxes or financial planning in exchange for their poker expertise. If you’re a computer expert, offer to help set up a firewall or determine a secure password rotation. If you wish to keep your money, barter your skills instead.
Identify your strengths and weaknesses upfront. Be as specific as possible. Don’t be afraid to be harshly self-critical about your problem areas, and emphasize the things you think you do well. There is no bigger turn-off to a potential mentor than you complaining about donkeys and bad beats and rigged sites. Don’t quote how many times in a row you’ve lost coin flips or gotten AA cracked. Nobody who takes poker seriously would ever attribute their losses to conspiracy theories and a steadfast belief that a person can be terminally unlucky. If you get knocked out of tournaments because you’re consistently short-stacked and can’t survive a beat, identify that as a weakness…don’t blame the beat, blame the situation in which you keep putting yourself.
Be straightforward about the games and stakes you play. If you are unclear about your status, you’re just wasting your time, and the time of those responding to you. As an example, let’s say you post stating you’re looking for a mentor to help grow your bankroll in SNGs, and a fellow P5er responds that he has a 20+% ROI and would like to assist you in your quest. You start talking a little bit and spend a couple of hours E-mailing or IM’ing hand histories and strategies.
The problem in our imaginary scenario is your bankroll is $10k, and you’re looking for a breakthrough in $200+ regular-blind SNGs so you can build to $50k and start a career as a player. Everyone else plays tight, so you want to exploit early edges through aggression and build up a chip lead to cushion you from the ICM-based push/fold festival at the end of the game. Your mentor is a master of grinding out low-limit turbos, taking advantage of players being overly loose early in a SNG, and not understanding bubble play at the end. The two of you are on completely different planes of existence. The questions you ask won’t make any sense, nor will the answers you receive.
Mismatched mentor/protégé scenarios can happen for all forms of poker. You want to get better at cash games? Tell me what game and stakes…I can help you beat $25 NL, but I’m the sucker at a $20/$40 limit table. You cash a lot in MTTs, but never make the final table? Tell me if you’re too tight or too loose…I can tell you how to play one way, but not the other. Want to talk to a pro because you have trouble with bankroll management? Many pros live on a finer edge than you would dream of; they just have the nerve to keep from falling off, a balancing act that can’t be taught. You’re not looking for the BEST mentor; you’re looking for the RIGHT mentor.
Next time, we’ll talk about the ways that worked for me; both as someone looking for advice from other players, and having others look to me for answers to their poker problems. Hopefully, for those looking to improve, my way can be the Right Way.