Poker Coaches: Share Your Computer Screen for Free

These days, coaching poker is a huge part of the online poker world. It is a necessity for coaches to be able to see what their students are doing in real-time in order to give them the most they can in their sessions together. Many poker coaches take advantage of screen sharing software to run their sessions. In this article, we will cover some of the most popular ones and look at how they can benefit coaches and students undergoing poker training.

Skype

Possibly already installed on every person’s computer, it is a bit of an unknown fact that Skype actually has an option to share screens while talking. By simply selecting the “Call” drop down box while talking to someone, you will see an option to “Share Your Screen.” You can either share your entire desktop or a portion of it by selecting what part you want to share. Once this is done, the other user is able to see your desktop. This feature is only available for the duration of the call and will automatically close if the call is terminated. Skype does not offer to give users access to their partner’s computer, but if you just want to share screens, Skype can do this with a few mouse clicks.

Team Viewer

One of the most popular programs out there, Team Viewer not only allows one user to see another user’s computer regardless of their physical location, but it also allows a user to control their partner’s machine. The basic version of Team Viewer is free. Simply download the software and install it onto your PC. Run the program, create an ID and password, and you’re ready to share access. For protection purposes, users can also configure settings so that their partner has limited access while connected to their PC.

Mikogo

Another free piece of software, Mikogo allows users to connect to their partner’s computer for viewing and control purposes. A great benefit of Mikogo is that it can accommodate up to 10 people in one session.

If a coach has five students that he wants to have a training session with at the same time, he would go through the following steps:

1. Coach creates a session with Mikogo, which generates a meeting ID number
2. Coach distributes the meeting ID
3. Students enter the meeting ID into their Mikogo
4. Students can now view their coach’s desktop

Another great feature of Mikogo is that during any session, any participant can elect to be the user to have their desktop shared with the rest of the group.

LogMeIn

LogMeIn is a great piece of freeware that is more suited for people who wish to control another PC. So, if a coach wanted to view a student’s PC and control it, LogMeIn is a perfect fit. Some of the other popular features of LogMeIn are file transfer capabilities, file sharing, desktop sharing, remote control, and remote printing.

The great part about the four aforementioned programs is that they are all free, easy to use, and cover the basic needs for any coaching session.