Can you bypass paying your dues if you have a great coach?
 

Over the past 2 years there have been many newcomes players who have shown success in poker because they had a great coach.

Todd Brunson learned from Doyle
Jennifer Tilly learned from the Unabomber
Marco Traniello learned from his wife, Jennifer Harman
and Ben Affleck learned from Annie Duke.

If you have a great coach, do you think you can learn a few secrets the pros use and automatically become a great player?

It can help
 

A coach can make a difference. Get you over a hump, pick up on a bad habit, things like that. But without a certain talent or base level a coach is useless.

actually
 

Actually, Todd Brunson learned on his own. Doyle has publicly stated that he did not teach his son how to play poker at that level.

Also, Jennifer Tilly had an active interest in poker before dating Phil Laak. They actually met at a celebrity invitational that she was playing at.

Also, there really are no "paying of dues" to speak of. As long as you outplay your opponnent then you are the winner. Good players can tell the difference between other good players and a hack that gets lucky every now and then.

-Yarney

I think a coach can definitely acclerate the learning process. I do think, however, that you simply have to have been in certain situations enough times to realize the right play. It other words, a coach is no substitute for experience, which is what I took you to mean by paying your dues. No matter how good your coach is they can't teach you that bad feeling you get in your gut when you have aces and get check raised on the turn. But once you've had that happen enough to you, you realze that 9 out of 10 times you're beat and better off letting go right then. So I don't think they can teach the instincts that you develop with experience, ie "paying your dues."