Tommy Angelo

MY COACHING HISTORY AND OFFERING

I started playing poker for money in 1972, I went full-time pro in 1990 (age 32), I starting writing for poker magazines in 1999, and I started coaching in 2004.

In 2006, I coached Phil Galfond, and we did some ongoing coaching for a few years after that. We have stayed in touch as friends ever since. In 2015, Phil asked me if I wanted to make videos for RunItOnce and I gleefully said yes. I have made 10 RunItOnce videos, mostly about performance problems and fixes. The last three are about how and why to meditate, and about melding meditation and poker.

Phil was already crushing the poker world before we met. And he was running with the high-stakes crowd. He told some friends about the work he and I had done together, and before long I had a brilliant crop of world-beaters as clients. (David Benefield, Ben Sulsky, Peter Jennings, and a couple others.)

Then they said nice things, and from then on, almost all of my clients have been professionals or serious amateurs.

In 2007 I took all the best stuff I’d learned from coaching and playing and put it in Elements of Poker. Then came three years of coaching and playing. In 2010, I put a big red sign at my website that said I was going to stop coaching for a couple years to write a book. A mere seven years later, the book was done! It’s called Painless Poker. And now I’m back into coaching and loving it.

Here’s how I explain my coaching offering at my website:

LESS PAIN = MORE MONEY

The rollercoaster ride we call poker is thrilling and gratifying, while also unnerving and jolty. But it doesn’t have to be like that. You can have the highs, without the lows, and I can help you get there.
Maybe your pain comes from trepidation in your betting, or a short tilt fuse, or a self-deflating bankroll. Or maybe not. Maybe you’re mentally steady. You don’t have tilt seizures or blowups. But you do have agitations. And they do take you off your game: boredom, impatience, dissatisfaction.
The range of pain is wide. And it all costs us money.


HOW IT WORKS

Unlike big buy-in coaching programs, here we start with a test drive. All sessions are 30-minutes long and cost $100. (The first call is 45 minutes to allow for some get-acquainted time before we get to it.)
When you schedule your call, you also set the agenda. There's a place for you to tell me as much as you want about yourself and what's on your mind. This allows us to aim directly at known problem areas when we talk. A lot can happen in 30 minutes, because of our preparation. (I don't bill for prep time.)
I've had many successful long-range client relationships, and that could happen with us. Or maybe you have a few questions that you want answers to and we never talk again. Or something in between. All options are made easy by the half-hour, no-commitment billing.
Here are some of the meatier topics we could get into:

PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION

PAINLESS QUITTING

GOING PRO

PLUGGING BETTING LEAKS (more on this below)

PLUGGING TILT LEAKS (steaming tilt, annoyed tilt, injustice tilt, revenge tilt, too-aggressive tilt, too-passive tilt, playing too high tilt, playing too long tilt, playing too tired tilt, entitlement tilt, underfunded tilt, overfunded tilt, shame tilt, distracted tilt, abundance tilt, scared tilt, envy tilt, etc.)

ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING HAVING TO DO WITH LIVE POKER (table presence, table talk, ethics, reading players, being unreadable, when to quit, how to be imperturbable and as a result, feared.)

PLUGGING HEALTH LEAKS (I can help you make adjustments toward better eating, better sleeping, and consistent exercise.)

PAIN REDUCTION

To that last point…

I know first hand the power of painless poker because of my own transformation from a professional player who was either doped or depressed, to a professional player with unlimited patience and refined skills. And during 14 years of coaching every type of player, from passionate recreationals to top-flight pros, I have seen big change happen when steady effort meets single purpose.
And then of course, there’s the game itself, and learning how to play better than the other guy…


ANALYZING HANDS YOU PLAYED

My expertise is in no-limit holdem and limit holdem, in one venue: live cash games. If you play exclusively online or tournaments, or if you don’t play holdem, then I won’t be offering betting advice. But I can help with everything else, like tilt reduction and life balance, no matter what you play.
If we work on betting strategy, I’ll ask you to send me three hands you played, and I will make notes before we talk. Fair warning: When you bring hands to review, the conversation could turn into an inquisition as I root around searching for leaks in your game, strategic and mental.
I will keep a file of notes from our calls so that no matter how much time goes by I will be able to review our history before each conversation. Finally, each call will end with a review of whatever action items we came up with, so that you can take them immediately into your game (or life).
We will meet in cyberspace using the Zoom platform. (Writing that sentence made me feel like a Jetson.) We can use video, or audio only. Your choice. And it’s easy to record the call if you like.


I WILL SEND YOU THE ELEMENTS OF POKER EBOOK

My first book, Elements of Poker, still gets big love from the pokerverse. If you want to align with where I’m coming from before we talk, the first 80 pages of Elements will do it. Which is why I send the Elements of Poker ebook to all first-time customers.

To schedule a call, just go to tommyangelo.com and pick a time slot.