Working on Your CORE

We’ve already broken down the recently updated Core 2.0 A-Z poker course and to get to the heart of the matter, we spoke to James “Splitsuit” Sweeney, the man behind its creation. The CORE course on Red Chip Poker has an incredible 200 poker training lessons, each of which is tailored to players’ needs.

“The original goal with CORE was to deliver on a request we’d gotten for years: a clear syllabus for learning poker,” says James. The team spent weeks crafting a syllabus and meticulously creating a linear structure for teaching poker knowledge. We essentially threw every concept we could think of at a board, ranked them by difficulty and importance, and got to work building out each lesson.”

The result is that players who benefit the most from CORE are new to intermediate players, because the material is designed to both build and backfill poker strategy.

“Advanced players will get the most from PRO – which does include full access to CORE – but if a player is newer to the game or looking to fix leaks, we highly suggest CORE.”

PRO is definitely the product of choice if you are serious about upgrading your poker game, and to that point you can read our Top 10 Reasons Why Red Chip Poker PRO Membership is worth it.

Helping Poker Players Interact with Learning

The CORE Course is highly interactive and encourages players to put the lessons they learn into immediate practice. Making the course hands-on was an inspiration throughout the design process.

“This was something we were adamant on adding to CORE from the beginning,” James tells us. “One of the most complex aspects of poker is that playing one or two sessions doesn’t offer a great feedback mechanism for specific spots/knowledge. Quizzes acted as a great way to offer players a chance to prove their knowledge of a concept without risking money.”

Red Chip Poker can call on some big hitters to back up their training, with Ed Miller and WSOP bracelet winner Chris ‘Fox’ Wallace both guiding players through lessons in both cash and MTTs. Does James think players will end up choosing one or the other or does the course help players balance both?

“Given that CORE is meant more for new to intermediate players, we tend to suggest they focus on one: either cash games or tournaments. Both formats are quite different, and trying to learn both at the same time isn’t a great idea. That said, quite a few skills and concepts will transfer between the two formats flawlessly, especially the underlying math.”

Overall, it’s best to pick one format and really dive deep on that, instead of bouncing back and forth between the two, James explains, having himself always adored cash games.

“I prefer the additional stack depth that cash games offer as I think the dynamics are far more interesting,” he says. “I also love the flexibility that cash games offer. With a tournament, you might play 20 minutes before busting, or multiple days if you run deep. My schedule between work and family just doesn’t allow for that, so cash games just check all of my boxes.”

Visualizing Improvement

The Red Chip Poker CORE training package isn’t just great value with so much included for the price, but the user interface is really clean. With 95% of poker players being male. We wondered whether Red Chip Poker catered for the adage that men prefer visual stimuli when putting CORE together.

“That’s interesting, as I’ve never thought about the visual component from a male vs. female point of view,” James admits. I just think clear and clean graphics are important for helping someone be able to follow content more easily. We spent a lot of time working on the art style and UI/UX and we are still making tweaks to flatten as many barriers to access for students.”

Hand analysis is easy to do once anyone actually starts, but many players leave this until last. The CORE course specifically helps those who struggle to dive into this area of self-improvement.

“Most players struggle with hand analysis for a variety of reasons. Just a few of them are:

• They don’t have the prerequisite knowledge to analyze a specific spot yet.
• They didn’t write their original hand down very well. (GIGO)
• They don’t have a community to bounce with and get lost in their own head.

With CORE, we put the HH deep dives later in the structure to ensure the student had enough prerequisite knowledge to analyze a hand well. And the HH lessons also have links to related concepts for additional study or review.”

CORE also caters to anyone who wants to improve how they write down the poker lessons they learn, how they save them for later analysis, and this is especially important for any player not having tracking software to do this work for them. They also have a very busy group where students can interact with each other.

“Our Discord is quite active with over 4,000 members and players analyzing hands regularly. So even if you get stuck while reviewing a hand, or just want a wider range of opinions on a spot, the Discord group is the perfect place to do that.”

Looking to the Future of Poker

Adapting to each new poker era, such as GTO play, is vital to any poker training business. Push/fold and range charts are nothing new, but with the recent changes to poker, has this meant a full overview change or just weeks to this side of the CORE content of the course?

“Over the last few years, we’ve spent a lot of effort making updates to CORE, especially as it relates to both ranges and also GTO content.” Describes James. “For instance, we added a totally new level to the beginning of CORE to help players develop solid preflop ranges. And we’ve also created our GTO Ranges App as a by-product of this work.”

READ MORE: Red Chip Poker GTO Ranges App Review

Red Chip Poker are currently conducting their own annual review, which will allow them to revamp, update, and upgrade content focused on GTO findings. CORE was built from the beginning in such a way that they could continuously update the material to ensure it doesn’t become outdated. It’s a plan that is helping so many players improve, which James tells us is still the biggest plus of all.

“I’m most proud of the team for launching CORE as it was a huge undertaking, in both time and money. But I’m also quite proud of the students that we consistently hear from that have directly leveraged things they learned in CORE into actual success at the tables. Hearing that players who have struggled for so long have quickly turned the corner and are now more confident in their good decision making – that always puts a smile on my face!”

You can purchase CORE now, or if you’ve completed the CORE Course via Red Chip Poker, then maybe it’s time to go PRO.

So, whenever I sink my teeth into a new course, I start with the question: what is it that makes this course different from the rest? And that’s exactly how I approached Gareth James‘ Train & Play Like the Pros.

One thing that immediately caught my attention as I watched the introductory video was that Gareth seems to understand the biggest struggles that most recreational players have when signing up for a training program. Having access to a bunch of content is cool and all, but how useful is that content to someone who’s not already on a fairly high level?

So, instead of just producing a few dozen coaching videos and calling it a day, Gareth lays out a structured path adjusted to your personal needs. Train & Play Like the Pros aims to give you the tools to improve the areas of your game in which you’re lacking, taking a very focused approach.

Getting Your Ducks in a Row

One thing that James is very honest about right from the start is that the value you’ll get from this course will depend largely on how much time and effort you put into it. As you’ll quickly realize when you start taking the lessons, the whole idea is to get you engaged and excited about becoming a better player.

But before embarking on that journey, Train & Play Like the Pros outlines some of the biggest challenges that most recreational players face. Namely:

• Feeling overwhelmed – i.e., not knowing where to start or how to go about improving their game, which often leads to giving up on the idea completely.
• Poor or no study habits – knowing how to learn effectively is a big deal, and this course provides some great advice in that area.
• Weak fundamentals – recreational players often find themselves in spots where they are not sure what to do, despite having played a ton of hands.

These three areas serve as the backbone of the course. Gareth aims to address each of them, not on a general level, but rather for every individual player that signs up. While the overall problems may be the same, different players struggle with different parts of these large areas.

In accordance with this, Train & Play Like the Pros is divided into a number of main areas designed to first help you identify your own leaks and shortcomings, then provide you with the help you need to fix those leaks, and finally offer tools and advice to make your study routines much more effective.

Identifying the Leaks

Once you go through the first video lessons and other materials, the initial proactive sections of the course are designed to help you find the leaks in your game. You’ll get access to a simple worksheet where you’ll need to input your stats from Poker Tracker 4 (or a similar tracking program like Hold’em Manager) to compare them with optimal values.

So, yes, to be able to use this course, you’ll need to have some hands in your database and tracking software to go along. In this day and age, it is hardly a big expectation, and if you’re at least a bit serious about getting better at poker, this is a must-have.

A couple of videos available in this section will explain the key preflop and postflop stats that you need to pay attention to, their meaning, and why the numbers are what they are. Even if you are new to poker stats, Gareth has done a great job of explaining things, so you won’t feel lost.

Once you do the work and fill in the worksheets, you’ll have a good idea of what areas of your game need the most attention, and you can move on to the next section.

Fixing the Leaks

This section of Train & Play Like the Pros is similar to a traditional poker course, as it contains several videos addressing specific topics related to those areas identified in the earlier section. Your task here is to watch those videos that apply to your particular leaks.

For example, if you discover that your flop c-bet numbers are off, there is a video addressing that specific area of the game which contains a number of actual hands selected from the database. Gareth goes through these hands and explains various strategic aspects that should help you bring your numbers more in line with the optimal approach.

You will also learn how to use filters in PT4 so that you can go through your own database and filter all sorts of situations in the future. This is very helpful, as you’ll want to go back to your hands every now and again for another round of analysis.

Developing Effective Study Habits

Completing a single course will not be enough to make you a winner in poker in the long run. To achieve that goal you will need to constantly work on your game, looking for new leaks and making sure your game stays up to par.

This is another major area that most recreational players struggle with, which is why the course contains a fairly extensive section on developing effective study habits. The goal here is to help make you an active learner, i.e., someone who actively engages with the learning process and consumes the offered knowledge in the right way.

This section teaches you good study habits and also shows you how to properly use some poker software solutions to review your hands. If you are interested to see how poker studying is done at the highest level, Train & Play Like the Pros will teach you.

Optimal Strategies – Building Strong Fundamentals

The final section of Train & Play Like the Pros is different from the rest of the course. It contains a few dozen long videos focusing on poker strategy. These are webinars from Gareth’s earlier course MTT Game Changer and they cover a wide array of topics, such as:

• Blind vs. blind play
• Flop and turn strategies (in and out of position)
• River strategies
• ICM

Since these are very long videos, James suggests (and I would agree) that you shouldn’t try to consume a bunch of content all at once. Take your time going through these, as they offer a lot of valuable information, but it will only be useful to you if it sticks.

Summary: Does Train & Play Like the Pros Deliver on Its Promise?

Gareth has done an excellent job of doing exactly what he set out to do: creating a poker training course aimed at recreational players looking to get better. It offers the kind of structure and guidance that I feel is lacking in many other courses out there.

If you’re someone with a passion for poker but simply don’t know how to go about improving your skills, Train & Play Like the Pros will give you the tools you need, both right now and for the future. It will show you how to recognize your mistakes, give you the tools to fix them, and help you set up a structure where you’ll be able to identify any future leaks on your own.

To top it all off, you also get access to a very active Discord group and weekly seminars where you’ll be able to ask any questions and discuss poker topics with fellow players and coaches alike. Being a part of a living and breathing poker community is certain to help you reach your goals faster while staying in touch with the game.

Use code CPL50 to get a £50 discount on Train & Play Like the Pros

All in all, Train & Play Like the Pros is a quality course that offers a unique approach. It will require you to put in time and effort, but it will also provide you with very specific and targeted knowledge that more general courses don’t give you. The ultimate choice is yours, but as far as value for money goes, you won’t go wrong with this course if you’re ready to follow the path laid out for you.

One of the key faultlines that all poker players are balanced on is choosing between too much theory and how to spend time putting those ideas into practice. Rabichow believes that keeping that balance, while difficult, is essential for any poker player who aspires to a high level.

“I suspect most players don’t think about these as things that need to be balanced,” he says. “I’ve worked with many students who study theory intensely but end up playing quite differently from how they think. Similarly common are players who are intuitive and very skilled but can’t discuss theoretical topics with any confidence. Because it’s rare to balance both skill sets, I try to emphasize both in my coaching and push the people who are leaning one way closer to the middle.”

The very nature of poker is applying oneself to a number of different situations in increasingly better ways. Is the fact that there are so many variables what make structured coaching such as Kevin’s so valuable? The creator of The Game Plan himself says that understanding the value of what he provides didn’t become clear until he started committing all his time to coaching.

“Most players are lost in the chaos of the game, picking up tips here and there, and randomly focusing their attention on whatever seems important or exciting at the time,” says Rabichow. “The most valuable part in my experience is honestly evaluating where you’re at right now. Once players realize where their strengths and weaknesses lie, they become far more motivated to structure their learning to address those weaknesses.”

Enjoying His Students’ Success

Clearly, Rabichow has a deep love of teaching, and his coaching work allows him to explore that area of professional passion which has proved so popular. He has carved out a niche in an at-times crowded market and it’s obvious by speaking with him that the work is its own reward.

“When I engaged more with poker forums, I found myself in a position where others cared to hear what I had to say,” he tells us. “It’s a nice feeling to know that your opinion is respected, and after enough people had privately requested coaching, I started publicly advertising it. Poker coaching requires an entirely different skill set than poker playing, and I’ve really enjoyed working on improving mine.”

Rabichow’s experience has been positive that he admits the most pleasure he now takes from the game of poker is down to the success of others, namely his many students.

“Perhaps the best feeling I’ve experienced in poker is when a student shares their success, either a big tournament score or a record year in cash games. Coaching keeps me engaged with the poker community, and lately feels more gratifying than being a successful player.”

Rabichow’s passion for coaching is self-evident, but it’s worth pausing to qualify that statement in financial terms. Rabichow has cashed for $2.3 million in live tournaments alone in his career, and his biggest win is one of more than seven figures, the $1.2 million he won in the 2021 $100,000 NLHE High Roller tournament in Las Vegas which formed part of the World Series of Poker. Such an achievement – coming second to Michael Addamo in ‘The Year of Addamo’ – is no mean feat.

A Proven Poker Methodology

Rabichow’s work can be – and is – categorized into different strategy sections, with strategy evaluation, theory evaluation, study evaluation and skills evaluation guiding players through the process in a structure way that is designed to give them the most out of the experience.

“These categories came together quite naturally when I found the direction for this course, and it’s entirely possible that I over or under emphasized certain areas,” reveals Rabichow. The American, who hails from Chicago, Illinois, doesn’t believe that the order of the sections themselves is too important, but breaking it down into those areas is vital. Poker players often respond well to training or coaching coming in bitesize pieces that are easy for the brain to take in and process. How we process information cognitively is an important part of what makes the best poker coaching stand out from the competition – exactly what poker players hope to do themselves.

“There are unique areas of focus that go into becoming a great poker player. Theory vs practice is a major theme in the course, and here I’ve just broken it down further. Your individual skills come together to form a strategy, and your ability to study informs your understanding of theory.”

Processing what you’ve learned and then moving forward in the course with a greater understanding of why is key to how The Game Plan can benefit any player’s game.

“The evaluations are meant to highlight your strengths and weaknesses, but also help you realize how you ended up there and how to move forward.”

Coaching is all about identifying talent and nurturing it, to an extent. What key skills does Rabichow look for in his students and how is he able to identify those skills to nurture them? “The new players I’ve worked with have generally grown up on solvers, and they show varying degrees of theoretical mastery,” he says. “I’m most impressed when these same players have a sense for the limitations of this knowledge, showing a healthy amount of self-criticism and therefore a willingness to grow. There isn’t one ‘right’ way to approach the game, and the best players are always questioning whether they’ve missed some piece of information, or if their opponents are doing something worth investigating.”

Rabichow’s own experiences of receiving coaching as a player are sparse. He spent very little time doing so, having the fortune of being surrounded by great players, who were happy to share their knowledge. That isn’t always the case, however, so for players who feel on the outside looking in, poker coaching can be a vital bridge between knowing you have skills to develop and, crucially, making the most of them.

“I think this is why I’m such a strong proponent of study groups,” he admits. “Not everyone can be friends with a group of professional poker players, so it’s important to me to help provide that opportunity through my course and through my private coaching. Connecting with people who are working towards the same goals as you can easily be the difference between success and failure.”

The Game Plan is available for use and you can find out a lot more about it here. In an age where poker coaching can be the difference between winning and losing, having a game plan is more important than ever before. Kevin Rabichow’s course is a brilliant way to so that without breaking the bank, making profit more attainable than ever.

But, the challenge with poker training courses is twofold. The first — and more obvious — one is figuring out which one to pick. Reading reviews and talking to those who have purchased the course already can help a lot in that department.

The second challenge or fear that many players have is whether they’ll be able to get value out of the training materials. How do you actually go about learning poker in the most efficient way and getting the best value out of the resources you’ve paid for?

The Game Plan by Kevin Rabichow is a course designed primarily to tackle this second challenge and teach you how to consume poker knowledge. If you’re hesitant about getting involved with a poker training site or have tried it in the past but felt like it didn’t help your game as much as you had hoped, this course is for you.

Run It Once and Kevin Rabichow have come together to offer the ultimate course on how to learn poker in the modern era of training courses, HUDs, and solvers, to create a very interesting and unique product. If you’re still confused as to what I’m talking about, don’t worry; this detailed Game Plan course review will tell you all you need to know.

The Game Plan Basics: What Poker Learning Consists Of?

The first couple of videos of Kevin Rabichow’s Game Plan lay out the foundation for everything discussed in later lessons. The introductory part is split into two parts, simply called:

• In Theory
• In Practice

With the ‘In Theory’ segment, Rabichow explains how you should approach the idea of poker learning before digging into any particular course or lesson. He explains the process you should go through to try and figure out how comfortable you are with major strategy sections such as preflop play, postflop play, GTO, and exploitative adjustments.

While the first video asks the player to try and evaluate their theoretical level of knowledge, the ‘In Practice’ segment asks a different important question: how does your theoretical knowledge translate into actual gameplay?

Rabichow goes through several major areas that you can use to evaluate this segment, such as:

• Generating edge: you’re not automatically making money from your opponents making mistakes.
• The skill of execution and table presence: the difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it.
• The river decision-making: a lot different from earlier street decisions as there is much more nuance.

Evaluating Your Abilities

The next two segments of The Game Plan are named ‘Evaluate’ and ‘Improve,’ and these tie in together.

The ‘Evaluate’ section is geared to give you the tools needed to identify strengths and weaknesses in your game and figure out where your biggest edge comes from.

The next few videos present you with detailed forms that you need to fill in to evaluate the current state of your poker skills. There are four core segments Rabichow focuses on in separate videos, namely:

• Strategy evaluation – identify your strengths and weaknesses and figure out what are the fundamental areas of your game that need improving first.
• Theory evaluation – figuring out how good your theoretical understanding of the game is. In this segment, you’re trying to figure out how confident you are about your background knowledge in those main areas that have been identified earlier in the course.
• Study evaluation – this segment is designed to help you figure out how effective your current studying process is.
• Skills evaluation – trying to determine what’s the skill gap between you and your opponents. The goal is to figure out where your execution can improve and what areas you should focus more in your studying routine.

There is a separate Google document for each of these sections, and after watching the video, you can go ahead and try to fill out the form for yourself, answering the questions inside, i.e., rating your skills and abilities.

This is a very important step in the process, as it all leads to building your study template, which is the final lesson in the ‘Evaluate’ section of the Game Plan course. Based on the different evaluation sheets, you’ll come up with your own conclusions about what you need to work on and what should be your highest priorities.

READ MORE: Kevin Rabichow on the Ecstasy of Choice in Poker Training

The Game Plan: Improving Your Play

The previous section of the course should end up with you having a fairly clear picture of where you are as a poker player, what your biggest strengths are, and what areas of your game need to improve. Based on these conclusions, you can start building your study plan.

Rabichow recognizes there are many different study methods, and not all of them are best suited for all types of players. He also identifies the biggest strengths and weaknesses of certain types of training materials, such as:

• Poker content (videos, streams, etc.)
• GTO sims and poker solvers
• Analyzing your own play using a hand database
• Community participation

The main idea behind this module is to help you identify the type of resource that would be the most effective for the type of knowledge you seek to acquire and for the type of person you are.

Like the previous section, this one also requires you to be honest with yourself and admit if you’ve faced the type of issues that Rabichow discusses when addressing particular poker training options. It is important to understand these pitfalls and take them to heart so that you can avoid them the next time you get down to studying.

The Gameplan – Putting the Process to the Test

The final section of the Run It Once Game Plan course features Kevin Rabichow putting his own studying plan to the test in a training module focused primarily on the heads-up play.

This module takes you through all the steps that go into building a successful learning strategy, starting with preflop ranges for heads-up play, going over flop and turn strategies, and wrapping up with river considerations.

The ‘Gameplan’ module is a very solid course on heads-up play in its own right, but it is also a great example of how the process described in the course can be applied by an actual player serious about improving their game.

Run It Once Game Plan: Summary

In the sea of different poker courses, The Game Plan by Kevin Rabichow manages to stand apart from the rest. It is an excellent resource for everyone wanting to learn how to study poker. And, as much as that phrase may sound strange, this is a big issue that many players face these days.

If you feel like studying poker is a struggle for you and that no matter how many hours you spend, you don’t get the desired results, The Game Plan could be the best investment you could make.

Instead of buying different courses, hoping that one of them works for you, you can learn the process that helps you get the best value out of every course out there. The Game Plan teaches you how to recognize your strengths and weaknesses, how to approach removing the leaks from your game, and understand what is the best type of training for you, specifically.

I’ll admit that my first thought was that this was a bit out there, but after watching the course, there is no doubt in my mind that it can be of great help to anyone looking to study poker seriously. The Game Plan is not designed for beginners or casual players, that much is clear, but if you have serious plans for your poker future and those plans include poker training in one way or another, this course can give you a great kick start.

If you are looking to improve your skills as a poker player you should consider the LearnWPT study program, which teaches no limit hold’em strategy to players of all levels.

With a monthly subscription to the service starting at just $5 you get access to a wide variety of tools such as videos, webinars, forum, charts, and the innovative WPT GTO interactive trainer.

Meet the LearnWPT Instructors

When you enroll in LearnWPT online poker training, you’ll be taught by some of the most accomplished and experienced instructors. Combined, they’ve authored multiple books, have won tens of millions of dollars in live and online tournament earnings, have claimed numerous WPT titles, WSOP bracelets and Circuit rings, and much more.

Currently, LearnWPT content is delivered by 9 instructors, including:

• Nick Binger
• Tony Dunst
• Vanessa Selbst
• Jared Tendler
• Brian Altman
• Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger
• Katie Stone
• Michael “Gags30” Gagliano
• Eric “Rizen” Lynch

Learn WPT Online Poker Training Videos

The LearnWPT video library is huge, with more than 500 videos covering a wide variety of subjects including, but not limited to: tournaments, mental game, GTO, cash games, foundation (basic poker skills), small stakes, mid stakes and  high stakes, and more.

If you don’t know which video to start with, my advice is to first choose the topic where you want to improve and then use the filter to begin with only those videos.

In my case, I play live tournaments so I started with that category. The instructors are world-class players and it shows in their analysis. I really enjoyed Tony Dunst‘s videos in particular, as he has a very clear way of expressing himself. I also benefited greatly from the advice of Jared Tendler, one of poker’s foremost experts on mental game training.

READ OUR REVIEW: Jared Tendler’s Mental Game Tune-up for Tournament Poker

There are videos for all levels, even beginners. If you consider yourself an amateur player or you are just starting to study poker, I recommend that you use the “Foundation” filter in the “Learning Path” section to start with those videos first and then move on to more advanced poker lessons.

The WPT GTO Trainer

The WPT GTO (Game Theory Optimal) Trainer allows you to study and learn true Nash equilibrium solutions solved for GTO poker strategy by simply playing poker hands via a user-friendly interface.

I think that the great advantage of WPT GTO Trainer is that it allows you to practice and improve without the difficulty of GTO programs such as PioSOLVER. To be sure, the latter program is of course excellent, but it’s best left for use by high-volume professionals. The WPT GTO Trainer is quite sufficient for learning and basic poker training purposes, as you’ll be able to glean the major principles of Game Theory Optimal play in a much more user-friendly way.

With traditional GTO programs you must manually load hands and then analyze the best possible decisions in each scenario. But with the WPT GTO Trainer you simply play a hand and after each action you take it tells you if it is close or far away from the GTO play.

Just as if you were in the midst of an online poker session, you can play as many hands as you want; when you close the session the trainer gives you an analysis of your actions in comparison to GTO, with a simulation of how many big blinds you won or lost in the long term.

To get the most out of this valuable tool it is best to play a large number of hands. My advice is to aim to play a certain number of hands per day, be it 10, 25, 50 or 100, depending on how much time you have to dedicate to your poker study.

Learn WPT Testimonials

Beyond my own experience using and gaining poker insights from LeanWPT, we contacted several instructors to hear what they had to say about the online poker training program, why they felt it was unique, and what it could offer you, should you choose to enroll. Here’s what they had to say:

Tony Dunst: “I think the largest benefit to LearnWPT is that you’re getting both a training site subscription with a huge library of videos, as well as access to the GTO Trainer at the same time. I think it’s helpful to mix the two learning methods as you progress in the game. You can practice the solver style of poker on the GTO Trainer one day and digest concepts or hand reviews from our coaches the next. It’s common to be watching a training video and identify a spot you’re unsure of, so the trainer allows you to take some reps in those spots and get more comfortable handling them.”

Dunst added: “Amateur players could mix both videos and GTO Trainer in the first month, but I think time will be best spent watching videos on the basics. It’s tricky to deduce the patterns the trainer is teaching you before you have a framework to understand them. I’d also recommend they study a bunch of the pre-flop charts we have in tools, especially for the common spots in tournaments. A good idea is to couple that with the linked videos from Nick Binger explaining the guidelines of what the strategy on the chart means for our play in game.”

Katie Stone: “I’d recommend new poker players to watch some of the videos we have on LearnWPT and to also become familiar with the WPT GTO Trainer. Getting the reps in and seeing frequent situations that arise in game, gives players valuable information that they can implement and benefit from immediately.”

Stone added: “Something else about LearnWPT that’s really helpful is players can search for a topic of interest, like ‘ICM’ or ‘Deepstack poker’ and all content we’ve got will populate — that could be webinars, videos, articles, live streams, Ask A Pro questions and more.”

Brian Altman: “People learn in different ways. LearnWPT provides a variety of training resources, both digital and in person, to help poker players improve their game. Starting out, I would focus on preflop ranges. Small pre-flop mistakes can compound into large post-flop mistakes. Fixing pre-flop leaks will have a big improvement on your game.”

Andrew Litchenberger: “The main benefits of LearnWPT are to improve your understanding of poker strategy no matter where you’re starting from and to have fun doing so. I think amateur players can benefit from basic systematic guidelines in terms of how to approach poker more broadly, but should mostly be focused on playing poker so they can familiarize themselves with the situations they are likely to encounter and then seek guidance once they understand what challenges exist.”

More Poker Training Tools

As if that were not enough, LearnWPT also contains a number of other tools that players can use:

• Charts, worksheets, guides and ranges to download and study
• Watch live and recorded webinars
• Hand history decision scenarios

Finally, LearnWPT members can also ask questions in the forum or send in a video with questions that will be answered by one or more of the program’s instructors.

Learn WPT Benefits

It’s practically a no-brainer that you get phenomenal bang for your buck with LearnWPT. To recap, here are some of the main unique benefits you’ll have when you enroll:

• Low price of just $5 for the first month
• Huge library with more than 500 videos to watch
• Experienced professional poker instructors who have won 4 WPT titles, 9 WSOP bracelets, 5 WSOP Circuit rings and almost $40 million in live tournaments as well as countless millions more online
• Content for players of different skill and experience levels
• Analysis of real poker hands
• Receive feedback from instructors in the forum
• Practice hundreds of hands with the GTO trainer
• Submit a video with questions to instructors

Bottom line: If you want to improve as a player, LearnWPT is an excellent tool via which to do it.

Editor’s Note: All player photos in this article are duly credited to Joe Giron

Finally, about six months ago, I decided to take the game seriously. I started studying, making good bankroll decisions, and doing everything I could to put myself in a winning position. I found myself with a $3,000 bankroll after my first trip to the WSOP. It felt like I was finally ready to take the next step in my poker career, turning it from a hobby to a side hustle.

Then came the dreaded downswing. Like most downswings, it started with some run bad, which turned to play bad, which turned to punting off my last two buy-ins playing online MTTs instead of sticking to cash games. I was devastated. Months of re-training how I see poker just to go bust six weeks after Vegas. Naturally, my mind was swirling with embarrassment, thoughts of not being good enough, and even toying with giving up poker entirely and perhaps turning to internet offers to build a bankroll in other ways, like taking advantage of the BetMGM sportsbook bonus. After a few days, my pity party ended. I accepted what had happened and was ready to move on.

I know I want to get back in the game. I love this game with a passion, and I want nothing more than to get back to the felt. So… what now? If you’re a poker fanatic like myself, this can be a tough question. Luckily, I’ve created a plan to get back on the felt as soon as possible; here’s how.

Getting Back on the Felt

First and foremost: save, save, save. To play poker you need money. You can either save money from working, get staked, or drop down to micro-stakes online. If you have a job already, it’s a no-brainer to go with the work and save option. If you’re a professional player, getting staked or putting a smaller amount of money online to grind may be better options. Whichever option you choose, adjustments need to be made. I have significantly tightened up my monthly budget so I can save up towards bankroll 2.0. If you’re a pro, find the best staking deal you can, as the last thing you want while rebuilding is to get buried in makeup. Also, there’s no reason you can’t combine strategies. Pick up a part-time job as an Uber driver or find another side hustle. If you have a 9-5 job like me, play some online MTTs or cash to try and run it up while saving. With a strategic saving plan, you can get back on the felt in no time.

Scratch the Poker Itch

Adjusting your finances is important to build that roll, but what can we do to scratch that poker itch in the meantime? Poker started as and still is, a major source of entertainment for me. Thanks to The Vlogger Effect, I have plenty of options to be entertained by poker without playing. Between streamed cash games, re-runs of old poker shows, and poker vlogs, I will be able to live vicariously through others and help ease the pain of not being able to play. At first, I was nervous that watching others play would compel me to abandon my saving plan and hit the card room without a proper bankroll. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Watching and talking about poker with friends helps relieve my desire to play and motivates me to come back with a proper bankroll.

See Also: The Vlogger Effect: A New Kind of Poker Boom

Study, Study Study

The last and most important thing to do is study! Find a group of players who you respect to talk strategy with, or use a solver and get into the theoretical aspects of poker. Countless pros have said their game got significantly better when they found their study group. If you don’t know any players well enough to form a study group, find one through social media. There are numerous poker theory and hand history groups where you can discuss poker strategy. Additionally, there have never been more resources to study, such as poker training sites, books, and solvers. I am personally studying as much as I can. It gives me more to do in my newfound free time, and it will put me in a better position to not bust my next bankroll.

Whether you are a new player or a seasoned veteran, busting your bankroll hurts. A bruised ego can have you questioning your future in the game. Don’t panic. Formulate your financial plan so you can create a timeline to get back in the game, and keep that passion for poker alive by watching and studying the game. With a good plan in place, the felt is closer than you think.

There are a few of these multi-lesson challenges available, but in this review we’re looking at the 30-Day Tournament Preparation Challenge. For 30 consecutive days a new video lesson was released, accompanied by a short quiz upon completion to test your newfound skills. Now, as mentioned, all 30 days of content are available on demand, and can be consumed in whichever order you choose. First, here’s a look at the list of all 30 lessons:

1. Learning Your Opponents Through Preflop play – Jonathan Jaffe (35 min)
2. 3-betting at Different Stack Depths – Jonathan Little (12 min)
3. Exploitative Plays to Crush Live Tournaments part 1 – Faraz Jaka (62 min)
4. Short Stack Preflop Play – Matt Affleck (80 min)
5. Exploitative Plays to Crush Live Tournaments part 2 – Jaka (50 min)
6. Short Stack Post-flop Play – Affleck (64 min)
7. $10k Bellagio Day 1 & 2 Review – Jaffe (83 min)
8. Live Play & Explain Part 1 – Little (38 min)
9. Button vs Big Blind Play – Jaffe (91 min)
10. Advanced Big Blind Defence Strategies in Tournaments – Affleck (73 min)
11. Review of Blaz $10 Online Tournament Win Part 1 – Little (21 min)
12. Review of Blaz $10 Online Tournament Win Part 2 – Little (23 min)
13. Review of Blaz $10 Online Tournament Win Part 3 – Little (18 min)
14. How to Complete PokerCoaching Homework – Little (24 min)
15. Complete October 2019 Tournament Homework – Little (37 min)
16. Reviewing Jonathan’s Deep Run in the Online $1k Freezeout Part 1 – Michael Acevedo/Little (61 min)
17. Reviewing Jonathan’s Deep Run in the Online $1k Freezeout Part 2 – Acevedo/Little (102 min)
18. Live Play & Explain Part 2 – Little (49 min)
19. Mastering the HUD: VPIP & PFR – Alex Fitzgerald (33 min)
20. Mastering the HUD: C-Bet Statistics – Fitzgerald (35 min)
21. Mastering the HUD: Fold to C-Bet Statistic – Fitzgerald (12 min)
22. Mastering the HUD: Check-Raise Statistic – Fitzgerald (13 min)
23. Mastering the HUD: Test Your Skills – Fitzgerald (72 min)
24. Live Play & Explain Part 3 – Little (50 min)
25. Bubble Thoughts – Little (22 min)
26. Introduction to ICM – Affleck (92 min)
27. Mastering High Roller Final Tables Intro & Part 1 – Little (30 min)
28. Mastering High Roller Final Tables Part 2 – Little (27 min)
29. Mastering High Roller Final Tables Part 3 – Little (27 min)
30. Tips to Crush Small Stakes Tournaments & Final Exam (30 questions) – Little (63 min)

In total, this adds up to almost 24 hours worth of elite No Limit Hold ‘em training content.

My recommendation for consuming this challenge would be to tackle it in one of two ways: either as originally intended with one lesson per day over 30 days, which is the most easily digestible process, or by combining the multi-part lessons and consuming those together in slightly longer chunks.

For example, Faraz Jaka’s 2-part series on Exploitative Plays to Crush Live Tournaments could be watched together. Moreover, Days 11-13 could easily be watched in one sitting, as they are a 3-part hand history review. Also, if you wanted to merge lessons on pre- and post-flop short stacked play, Matt Affleck’s Day 4 and 6 lessons could be watched together.

There are other examples of this as well, and for the purposes of a more easy-to-follow review of the content, I’ll be combining those lessons and reviewing them one section at a time, with their days of the challenge denoted at the top of each section.

Now, with that all said, let’s dive into it!

Day 1: Learning Your Opponents Through Pre-flop Play

I was very happy to see this lesson, which I’ve discussed in previous reviews, included in the challenge, and even kicking it off on Day 1 no less.

Jonathan Jaffe takes students through a series of pre-flop situations and provides analysis of what tendencies a player will have based on their actions. A super light raise from early position obviously suggests a loose/maniacal player, but there can be a lot more behind that raise. Getting reads on your opponents is critical, and Jaffe guides the student through the multitude of other things to consider. This is a lesson that’s useful for players of all skill levels.

Day 2: 3-betting at Different Stack Depths

Jonathan Little brings us an intensive crash course on how you should be 3-betting, outlining the many different strategies required based on your stack size. Range charts are provided for a variety of stack depths, from 15 BB to 75 BB and up, along with a chart breaking down what 3-bet sizing you should be using, based on your stack depth.

The importance of 3-betting with good blockers when short stacked vs. 3-betting with a more linear range when deep is discussed, along with what stack size your 3-bets should be an all-in.

Plus, Little lays out the situations in which you should defend more and not 3-bet from the big blind when short.

Days 3 & 5: Exploitative Plays to Crush Live Tournaments Parts 1 & 2

Given that this review was being written during the COVID-19 pandemic with live tournament poker at a minimum around the world, I’ll admit that I saved these videos for last. And wow, was I pleasantly surprised by how much of these videos are also applicable to the online game, notably smaller stakes where players are very exploitable!

Part 1 focuses on pre-flop exploits, such as how to target weak opponents, exploitative blind stealing, 3-bet attacks, and the ever popular psychological warfare! Getting too boggled down in the specifics would take too much time, but I will mention one critical concept of playing strong exploitative poker: you are going to be playing more hands. Maybe not as many as Faraz Jaka is known to, but to play this style effectively, you will be widening your ranges. (Jaka will explain where and when are the best spots for this throughout – it actually ties together nicely with theories from Jaffe’s lesson on learning your opponents’ pre-flop play. The supposed maniac raising suited Kx in early position? Well here he is.) As such, YOU MUST BE FOCUSED and paying incredible attention to the table and know how to potentially exploit each player.

Of note in part 1, easily the coolest slide I’ve seen in any poker training material out there is Jaka’s section on psychological warfare. That’s right, sorry to disappoint, but you don’t want to be the Macho Man when you’re playing. Oooooooooh…no?

Part 2 goes into post-flop play, with a lot of discussion on downbetting and smaller post-flop bet sizes, except when you can exploitatively use larger sizing against the non-believers to maximize value. The importance of recognizing and overfolding against players who are completely unbalanced in their ranges is also discussed.

Jaka wraps the series by analyzing several live hands he’s played, including a cool hand against Jessica Dawley at the final table of the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, and why at a table with just them and three amateurs, he felt she was the player he could most successfully exploit.

Days 4 & 6: Short Stack Pre-flop and Post-flop Play

If I was compelled to pick something as the best or most important section of the series, Matt Affleck’s videos on short-stacked play would get my vote. This is mainly because, as Affleck himself notes, of any element of tournament poker short stack is what you’ll be playing the most, and it’s an area where you can create more EV than the majority of your opponents.

The pre-flop video discusses the hugely important concept of ‘lazy shoves’ and how to better play a 15-20 BB stack by using split ranges. Sure, just piling in your 15 BB stack with KQo in the hijack is profitable, but if you take a more strategic polarized/linear approach, there is much more EV to be made.

Affleck breaks down which hands to instead min-raise and call off to a 3-bet shove, which hands to min-raise/fold, and which are still just a straight shove.

Re-jamming is also discussed thoroughly, with the key concepts of getting hands you dominate to call and getting hands that dominate you to fold!

Why are we 3-bet shoving A9s, A5s and A4s along with AKs and AQs, but not AJs and ATs?

These are solid GTO baselines for 3-bet jamming, but Affleck also notes that there are plenty of opponent-based exploits that must be considered as well.

The short stack post-flop video uses a lot of PioSolver and hand breakdowns to analyze what your best options are with a shallow stack-to-pot ratio (SPR). I think many amateur players would be surprised how much play you have on a sub-25 BB stack. Protection and equity denial is king, and every 4-5 BB pot you can drag when short stacked is a huge win. Affleck guides you through when your top pair is a monster, when your 2nd pair is safe and when it isn’t, which draws are worth applying pressure with, and which blockers can be bluffed to steal a key pot for you.

I can honestly say I am infinitely more comfortable playing a short stack since studying these videos. There are spots I wouldn’t have taken before that have now kept my stack alive and grown it repeatedly at key points in a tournament. Recently I navigated my way into the money of the WPT Poker Industry Invitational despite being on a 15-20 BB stack with 30 players left and 15 making the money. Affleck’s teachings kept me alive, got my stack healthy, and gave me the best opportunities possible to run my stack up. I even got my 2nd pair in dominant for a potential 36 BB double up with 11 left, until the 2-outer came for my opponent on the river. But hey, I got it in good, thanks to what I learned from this training.

Day 7: 10k Bellagio Day 1 & 2 Review

The first week of lessons wraps up with what kind of felt like an extended version of one of PokerCoaching.com’s hand quizzes. Jonathan Jaffe is back with a review of hands he played on the first two days of his 6th place run in the 2019 Bellagio Five Diamond Main Event.

Hands are all from earlier levels with deeper stacked play and, as such, Jaffe explains how he likes to play these levels more like a cash game (more PokerCoaching.com Cash Game resources here), making his opponents uncomfortable by playing bigger pots than they may have liked or expected to. He goes deep into his thought process of each hand, analyzing his decisions street by street. Throughout the video, Jaffe takes questions from students on each hand, also discussing how he would have played alternate runouts on certain hands.

He discusses various concepts, including the importance at higher stakes of having some ace/wheel bluffs in early position against other early position opponents.

There are plenty of fun and interesting hands to dissect, including a wild one four ways with AJo on the BTN vs. a UTG raise, a UTG+1 call, and then a call from the SB. How good do you feel on an A87 rainbow flop, and how do you proceed?

Days 8, 18, 24: Live Play and Explain Parts 1, 2, & 3

Recently, Jonathan Little has been streaming his Sunday online tournament sessions, and naturally he saw this as an opportunity to teach his students how to better grind the online streets.

The 3-part series is a cool look at, and explanation of, Little’s Sunday grind, firing tournament after tournament with tables covering every corner of his computer monitor.

If you’re not a multi-tabler, this series will definitely boost your comfort level of adding volume to your sessions. In general, I wasn’t, but since watching this series I’m more comfortable adding three or four tables to my sessions, and am still seeing my winrate move in the right direction.

Little provides plenty of advice and tips throughout including…

• Play as many tables as you’re comfortable with.
• Use a HUD if you can.
• Organize and prioritize your tables to keep track more easily.
• Don’t waste time sweating results, just make the best decision and move on.
• Don’t let bad runouts on smaller buy-in tables tilt you and impact your decisions on higher priority tables.
• Multi-tabling is not about improving skills. It’s about utilizing strategies and maximizing volume.
• If you’re rebuying or buying in short, there will be more variance. Be ready for it.
• Don’t just register everything. Game select and find the best games to maximize your ROI.

Lower priority tables cascaded top left. Higher priority tables separate.

It really is impressive to watch Little playing 10+ tables and having no issues keeping track and playing as optimally as possible. While he admits that occasionally he does make mistakes, and that will come with mass multi-tabling, his focus and decision making is almost always on point. It was very cool to see him recognize a spot where he needed to fold a flush in one of his smaller buy-in tourneys where a lesser player would have just gone ‘oh, flush, call’, before clicking on to the next decision.

Day 9: Button vs. Big Blind Play

Jonathan Jaffe says he considers button vs. big blind play the most complex area of No Limit Hold ‘em because you’re dealing with such wide ranges in both spots, leading to difficult situations. I’ll happily agree with him. Range analysis in this scenario is very difficult, but Jaffe does a good job as he runs through a simulated session with two of his students using PokerStars play money home game software.

To be honest, this was a bit confusing to follow at times because it was set up visually as a heads up match, with the button player instructed to act as if there was an imaginary small blind between himself and the simulated big blind. There are a bunch of different scenarios presented, but I would recommend primarily listening to Jaffe’s commentary as opposed to watching the action to avoid the visual confusion.

Day 10: Advanced Big Blind Strategies in Tournaments

Day 10 brings another meaty and thorough class with Matt Affleck, which was also one of my favourites in the 30-Day Tournament Preparation Challenge.

Remember the good old days when the big blind would fold too much because they didn’t want to play a junk hand out of position? Remember when it was then determined that it was mathematically correct to defend the BB with a wide range because the pot odds dictated it? Well, now the problem with most players is that they’re defending too wide, and you likely are too, especially multiway!

Affleck discusses how most poker players make a lot of mistakes in the big blind because they assume their pot odds are correct to be seeing a flop in almost any situation that hasn’t been 3-bet. Position of the raise, and the size of the raise are not fully considered, leading to players getting themselves into horrific spots. And just because your pot odds are so fantastic with five players in the pot by no means justifies flicking in a few more chips with a junk hand that can easily be dominated if you hit the board.

The coordination between raw equity, EV, and equity realization % is broken down, with Equilab used to illustrate the key points.

One solution to poor big blind play is to increase your 3-betting. As much as players over defend the big blind by calling, they’re under 3-betting grossly in spots that are very profitable. Most players just default to calling, again ‘since they’re getting such a great price’, but there are plenty of hands that can be 3-bet, and Affleck shows you where and why. Some theories referenced in his short stack videos are applicable here as well, as we’re now 3-betting weak aces to get medium aces to fold. Some marginal suited hands can be 3-bet as well because most people just are not calling enough 3-bets in general, and many hands that would have you dominated are now folding!

Finally, while fewer hands should be defended from the big blind with deeper stacks, the opposite is true with a short stack! It may seem counter-intuitive to defend a higher percentage of your stack when short, but that’s just it. If you’re short, you can happily get your stack in with pairs and good draws, whereas it would be heinous to commit a larger stack with the same hand strength.

Day 11-13: Review of Blaz $10 Online Tournament Win

As mentioned earlier, this 3-part miniseries can be ripped through in a little over an hour, as Little reviews a student’s win in a $10 6-handed tournament. Despite the relatively short runtimes of each of the three videos, there are still many key strategies to take away. None is bigger than the simple reminder that just because a tournament is short-handed, it does not justify opening ranges unnecessarily wide. A 6-handed table is just like a 9-handed table, just that the first 3 players have folded.

Case in point, one of the student’s opponents is playing a ridiculous 79% VPIP with a 13% PFR. Several pots are contested against this player, with maximally exploitative lines discussed in both small and large pots. Plus, not only are they an absolute muffin to play against, a blatant bet-sizing tell is picked up, too!

Once that player is disposed of, other situations are analyzed, including vs. a player the exact opposite of our 79/13 friend. What adjustments need to be made against a far more aggressive player with a high 3-bet percentage?

At the final table, an ICM suicide is narrowly averted thanks to the opponent folding vs. the student’s overplay of third pair with an open-ended straight flush draw on the turn.

Oh, you got called and the 4 of diamonds rolled off? Cool 3rd pair bro.

Days 14 & 15: How to Complete Poker Coaching Homework & October 2019 Tournament Homework

A staple of any PokerCoaching.com curriculum is the monthly homework assignments, and the 30-Day Tournament Preparation Challenge is no exception.

Using the PokerCoaching.com Range Analyzer, students input their own ranges into a chart based on a hand scenario provided by Little. The student first creates a pre-flop action chart, saves it, then adjusts it street by street, based on the community cards and opponent actions of the hand.  Hand combinations are categorized into ranges for premium made hands, marginal made hands, draws, and junk.

The Day 14 video is a tutorial on how to create your charts and save them in the PokerCoaching.com forum for review during the monthly homework webinars hosted by Little. On Day 15 you’ll actually create a series of range charts, and then compare them to the analysis provided in the accompanying video.

Little will suggest how you should balance your betting and checking ranges, by adding or removing hands from the various categories. I would recommend familiarizing yourself with them though before jumping into these homework assignments. At first, I was a bit overwhelmed by them, but have since learned to love them as a great way to study ranges and work on GTO range balancing.

Days 16 & 17: Reviewing Jonathan’s Deep Run in the Online $1k Freezeout Parts 1 & 2

In this pair of videos, PokerCoaching.com’s GTO wizard Michael Acevedo dissects Little’s play in a deep run against a table full of online killers.

A warning before you dive into these videos. This is VERY high-level GTO hand analysis between Acevedo and Little. Acevedo analyzes mostly to Little’s level of understanding, not necessarily to a student of the site. PioSolver is used frequently, and not explained to the layman poker player at all. You will need to be somewhat familiar with the program.

With that said, indeed, this is some VERY high-level GTO hand analysis!

REVIEW: Michael Acevedo’s Modern Poker Theory Video Packs

It’s fascinating to observe their poker minds at work, breaking down a queen-high river call, discussing the merits of min raising vs. slightly bumping up raise sizes, analyzing when a 15-20 BB shove is recommended (contrary to other short stack lessons), range betting vs. pot control, and tons more.

Remember, this is an elite player analyzing an elite player, playing against other elite players. This is NOT the review of the $10 tourney. There is some discussion of exploitative plays that could be applicable to smaller stakes tournaments, but for the most part we’re flying way above the rim here.

Day 19-23: Mastering the HUD (VPIP & PFR, C-bet, Fold to C-bet, Check-Raise, Test Your Skills)

It’s nearly three weeks into the 30-Day Tournament Preparation Challenge before Alex Fitzgerald makes his first appearance, but the Assassinato’s entire course on Mastering the HUD gets a full five days worth of attention and it’s invaluable.

NOTE: Importantly, if you don’t play in an online poker room that allows HUDs, the 30-day challenge essentially just became a 25-day challenge. You can skip it entirely.

Fitzgerald admits he hated using a HUD at first and actually didn’t for five years. However, if you play on a site allowing HUDs and are not using one, you’re at a tremendous disadvantage against players who are.

Lots of numbers and colors can be scary, but once you learn them you’ll be the one they fear!

You’ll learn the ins and outs of the key numbers, learning how to play optimally against, and maximally exploit your opponents, based on their statistical tendencies. Fitzgerald acknowledges that unless you’re playing regularly with the same players your sample sizes will be small, but that will still tell you at least as much as in a live tournament setting.

Plenty of hand examples are provided in each section (especially Day 23) for students to consider, not just based on their potential opponent’s stats, but on other players and factors.

After watching this course, I’ve revamped my own HUD and am using it much more effectively. It’s undeniable that the difference in how the game feels based on using or not using a HUD is pretty large. With that said, if you can gain that advantage in decision making based on live analytics, it really is something you should be doing, and this section will prepare you thoroughly.

Day 25: Bubble Thoughts

Little’s 22-minute Bubble Thoughts class is all about pressure, pressure and more pressure; determining if your opponents care about sliding into the money, and if so, making life as uncomfortable for them as possible.

Find out where they don’t want to go, then make them go there!

Jonathan Little

There are obviously specifics to consider, such as stack sizes, position, and player type, and Little will go through what to look for that will give you the green light to attack. Reading weakness is always key to playing aggressive poker, but no time more so than on the bubble.

Several examples are analyzed, including an interesting situation showing how drastically a button shoving range changes on the bubble, depending on the quality of opponents in the blinds. A 64% range dropping down to 8%, sounds extreme, but it is justified against players who will call off too wide.

This section also leads into the next part of the challenge with some ICM discussion, and a reminder to pass on those tiny edges if you have a skill advantage, because ICM doesn’t take skill into consideration.

Day 26: Introduction to ICM

In this section you’ll dive deep into ICM with Matt Affleck. The title may say ‘Introduction’, but this class has heaps of great info throughout the beefy 92-minute runtime.

For those completely unfamiliar, Affleck starts off with a brief discussion on the difference between chip EV and $ EV, with a simple example of a winner-take-all sit n’ go payout vs. a top 3 payout.

The very cool concept of ‘Risk Premiums’ takes up a good chunk of the lesson. Affleck assigns an added percentage to a player’s pot odds when determining whether to make a call (think of it like a calling tax). We know a big stack is risking very little by calling a shove against a short stack, but to see specific formulas incorporated into various all-in situations based on stack sizes is a very cool guide to consider.

Post-flop ICM consideration with regard to bet sizing is compared to Risk Premiums, as the larger the bet you face, the higher the risk premium. You may seemingly only need 25% pot odds to make a call, but considering ICM and your risk premium, you need as much as 45-50% to justify putting your stack at risk.

Plenty of in-game examples are dissected through ICMizer to determine the profitability of potential all-ins. Consideration of risk premiums are thoroughly incorporated and considered.

Of note, Affleck discusses how risk premiums are even higher in satellite play. In a recent WSOP Online satellite, I was in a lengthy stretch of play with a ton of smallish/medium stacks (myself included) at the table as the bubble approached. Accounting for risk premiums saved my stack in a couple of key spots, whereas had I only considered the pot odds, I would have made an incorrect and tournament-ending decision. Instead, I made tighter folds, where others committed ICM suicide. As a result, I made it to the target tourney while others did not.

Days 27-29: Mastering High Roller Final Tables

We’re into the home stretch as we hit Day 27, and after almost four weeks of hard work this part of the series almost feels like the end of a school year when you’d get treated to watching a movie in class.

Yes, there is obviously a lot of high level poker that can be studied and learned from here, but you can also just kick back and enjoy watching some of the very best in the world play a $2,000 online final table.

Little had not actually watched this final table before doing the commentary on it, so it’s fun to watch him analyze the play in real time.

Since it is an online high roller final table with plenty of wizards, there is a lot to be taken away from it, notably the almost universally EXCELLENT play. Things you’ll see that Little discuses and analyzes include:

• Lots of GTO play
• Additional thoughts on min-raising vs. raising slightly more
• Players knowing when to check their marginal hands
• Tiny C-bets that make it difficult for opponents to defend properly against, instead of ‘betting to make your opponent fold’
• No blind C-betting – lots of consideration of opponents’ ranges
• Proper ICM-related decisions and play
• Minimal over-aggression and unnecessary 3-betting
• Good river decisions; recognizing showdown value and not needing to bluff
• Developing a final table limping range
• High level exploitative plays
• Head- up strategies and ranges

Day 30: Tips to Crush Small Stakes Tournaments and Final Exam

Congratulations! You made it to Day 30!

But before you can say you’ve completed the 30-Day Tournament Preparation Challenge, there’s one more lesson with three tips to crush small stakes tournaments.

Oh… and the final exam!

You’ll have to check out the video for all the details, but the three tips are:

1. Exploit wide ranges! Low-stakes players don’t play well with wide ranges. Little will teach you how to combat these players most effectively, especially in late position.
2. Maximally exploit weak players! As you get deeper in tourneys, the stakes get higher and many players will get uncomfortable.
3. Play optimally on pay jumps! Your timebank is your friend. No, tanking isn’t sexy, but if it’s the difference in making a pay jump and boosting your ROI, then it’s tank time, baby!

After Little goes through these points, he wraps up with a 40-minute Q & A session with students on a wide variety of topics.

The final exam consists of 30 multiple choice questions, similar to the short quizzes at the end of each day’s lesson. Many of them aren’t too tough, but there are a few that might catch you. But really, if you’ve paid attention and have absorbed the information provided, you should have no problem registering a strong score (ahem…)

Aced it!

PokerCoaching.com 30-Day Tournament Preparation Challenge: Worth the Price!

As I have mentioned a couple of times in this review, I’ve had immediate success implementing the teachings of the 30-Day Tournament Preparation Challenge, to my own game.

One test of the effectiveness of a training course is how quickly it pays for itself. Well, while working through the challenge for this review, it paid for itself multiple times over! With so many different aspects of tournament play discussed in this series, its an invaluable resource that can be enjoyed by signing up for just 1 month of PokerCoaching.com Premium access.

If you take on the 30-Day Tournament Preparation Challenge and put in the work, improved tournament results are a virtual certainty.

Finding ways to keep yourself entertained, humored, and mentally stimulated is a must, especially if you’re under lockdown or quarantine. For those of us who love all things poker, the following is a rundown of some of the best poker content at our disposal as we try to get through the COVID-19 crisis.

Hey poker family. Let’s flatten the curve, stay home, and we’ll see you at the tables soon!@andrewneeme @KristyArnett @JohnnieVibes @Angry_Polak @TreMomey @2littlemice @BradOwen1 @berkey11 @fireman_scott99 @suitedsuperman @winopoker @novocainepoker @locboxpoker @Poker_Traveler pic.twitter.com/SMBITJfXN6

— The Drawing Dead (@killogram) April 11, 2020

Poker Vlogs/YouTube

We all need high-quality entertainment right now, and for poker fans there has never been a better time to catch up on content from poker’s best vloggers and video channels.

I’m a few episodes behind on the adventures of Andrew Neeme at the moment, but that’s a great thing, as I’ll get to binge watch to get caught up.

Joey Ingram, poker’s most popular investigative reporter, hasn’t slowed down at all over the past few months, with plenty of fresh new content on his YouTube channel.

Trevor Savage, Jaman Burton, Johnnie Vibes, and Brad Owen are still putting up new videos as well, and if you haven’t seen Owen’s latest contribution to the poker world, you MUST check out this high-stakes rap from Marvin the Cat right now (video below).

Poker Books

My favorite poker book of all time is Michael Craig’s epic work, The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King – Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time. This book tells the story of multi-millionaire Andy Beal’s trips to Las Vegas to play high stakes poker against “The Corporation”, a team featuring Ted Forrest, Todd Brunson, Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harman and several others.

I’ve binged that book more than once, staying up far later than I should as it’s just impossible to put down. Stepping away from television and social media for a reading session is a great way to escape and stay sane.

Other poker books for your consideration include Molly’s Game, Molly Bloom’s self-authored account of her experiences running high-stakes underground poker games, and Pulling the Trigger: The Autobiography of Eli Elezra (English translation by Cardplayer Lifestyle founder Robbie Strazynski).

WATCH: Interview with Molly Bloom

If you’re looking to sharpen your poker skills, check out Michael Acevedo’s Modern Poker Theory: Building an Unbeatable Strategy Based on GTO Principles. Or get motivated by Lance Bradley’s The Pursuit of Poker Success, which took home the GPI Award for Media Content of the Year in 2019.

PokerGO

PokerGO’s extensive library of content is a one-stop shop for vintage poker programs like High Stakes Poker. Arguably the best poker television show of all time, check out full episodes from the glorious original HSP run.

Plenty of new original programming can be found on PokerGO as well. The Big Blind, hosted by Jeff Platt, is a trivia game show, played like a poker game, featuring some of poker’s most entertaining characters.

The biggest moments from the history of the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour are just a click away as well.

Start binge watching now! “POKER30” gets you access to the world’s biggest library of poker content #HighStakesPoker
Classic @WSOP #PokerAfterDark
and much, much, more!

Sign up now for $30 OFF: https://t.co/ZimMTZTwoe pic.twitter.com/TWalMQbNBD

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) April 18, 2020

Poker Training Courses

Online poker is booming again, and now is a great time to study and improve your game.

Some of the best poker training sites with courses on the market include the Upswing Poker Lab, which offers an astonishing amount of content from world-class coaches like Fried Meulders, Jason McConnon, Ryan Fee and of course Upswing Poker founder Doug Polk.

High-stakes tournament legend Fedor Holz is the mind behind Pokercode, featuring more than 60 hours of training materials and insights into one of the greatest poker minds of the modern era.

Other training sites to check out include Pokercoaching.com, Advanced Poker Training, Red Chip Poker’s CORE, and Run It Once Poker Training.

Poker Media

I’m proud to be a part of the contributing team here at Cardplayer Lifestyle, which is consistently home to some of the highest-quality and diverse poker journalism in the industry, and which has continued pumping out new content at a record rate during the coronavirus era.

Other great poker media outlets include PokerNews, PocketFives, and PokerFuse, all of which have comprehensively covered the poker industry for years.

Haley Hintze, perhaps poker’s top investigative journalist, is always an important voice, and her work is currently found on Kickass Poker.

There were a lot of rumors about events leading up to Bay 101’s closure last month. While some of it was true, what was likely an extended delay in Covid-19 test processing may have caused some confusion. https://t.co/DdoZT7PIdx

— Haley Hintze (@Haley_Hintze) April 9, 2020

Poker Podcasts

One of my favorite podcasts, the LFG Podcast featuring Jamie Kerstetter and Chad Holloway, is no longer making new episodes. Disappointing, but luckily plenty of other great podcasts are available for your listening pleasure.

For starters, you ought to check out the Cardplayer Lifestyle family of podcasts, which includes the Top Pair Home Game Poker Podcast, the Rec Poker Podcast, and the Bernard Lee Poker Show. The three shows combine to crank out 10 new episodes on a monthly basis.

The Chip Race Podcast, hosted by Dara O’Kearney and David Lappin, is in its twelfth season, giving us plenty of poker content to catch up on. If you’re looking for the latest news and most buzzworthy pundits in poker, your best bets would be The Poker Central Podcast (with Remko Rinkema and Brent Hanks), The Fives (with Lance Bradley and Donnie Peters), DAT Poker Podcast (with Adam Schwartz, Terrance Chan, and Daniel Negreanu), and the PokerNews Podcast (with Jeff Platt, Chad Holloway, and Sarah Herring).

The Galfond Challenge

The Galfond Challenge gets a category of its own, with the first match having featured quite possibly the greatest comeback in poker history. The timing of this epic heads-up match, and the riveting ending, couldn’t have been better for a content-hungry poker audience and there are a slew of takeaways for all of us in the poker world.

Run It Once founder Phil Galfond found himself down over €900,000 at one point in this 25,000-hand Pot Limit Omaha match against ‘VeniVedi1993’, and even with the stakes at €100/€200 a comeback win seemed inconceivable.

In mid-Feburary, down massively to VeniVedi, Galfond took a break from the challenge. At that time it wasn’t clear if the challenge was even going to be completed, but a few weeks later Galfond got back at it and the match resumed.

That €900,000 deficit started to dwindle, session by session, and Galfond went into the final day of the challenge down just over €8,000 with around 700 hands to go. He valiantly fought off defeat repeatedly in that final session and emerged victorious.

Joey Ingram’s recap video below, featuring Farah Galfond’s reaction to her husband pulling off the win in the final hand, is epic.

Let’s hope the next chapters of the Galfond Challenge are just as good. Opponent #2 is Bill Perkins, and after that, poker fans have future matches like Galfond vs. Luke Schwartz, Galfond vs. Dan “jungleman” Cates, and Galfond vs. Brandon Adams to look forward to.

As part of our efforts to compile our 2019 Holiday Gift Guide for Poker Players, we made sure to search far and wide across the poker spectrum for products and services that would delight you and bring smiles to your faces. Whether you’re looking to enhance your poker skills, upgrade your poker equipment, accessories, and apparel, or treat yourself to amazing live poker playing experiences, there’s something for you in our guide.

Before you start perusing the offerings below, I’d just like to extend a short personal message.

PokerGO SUBSCRIPTION

PokerGO is the premier worldwide destination for watching live poker tournaments, high-stakes cash games, and original poker shows. This makes PokerGO the essential holiday gift for your poker loving friends and family.

Stream the world’s biggest tournaments on PokerGO like the World Series of Poker, Super High Roller Bowl, Poker Masters, U.S. Poker Open, and much more. You can also stream brand new episodes of Poker After Dark featuring legendary lineups and high-stakes action from the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. If you miss any of the Live action, it’s all available On Demand anytime, anywhere.

PokerGO is also home to exclusive, original programming like the acclaimed Legends of the Game mini-series and all-new game show, The Big Blind. If you’re in the mood to binge some poker, PokerGO has a vast library full of thousands of hours of additional poker programming.

Pound for pound, PokerGO is simply the best poker app on the planet.

Get in the game this holiday season and sign up today with code CPL2019 to save $10 off an annual subscription.

FADED SPADE PLAYING CARDS

Faded Spade is the new face of cards and preferred playing cards of the World Poker Tour as seen on Fox Sports TV!

Beyond WPT programming, you’ve also seen Faded Spade poker playing cards in play on NBC Sports, PokerGO, Twitch, YouTube and more during poker programs like Poker After Dark, Super High Roller Bowl, Poker Masters, US Poker Open, Run It Up Reno, and each new Heartland Poker Tour episode.

Faded Spade poker playing cards are known for their fresh face card designs and high quality 100% plastic that has an intentional balance of strength and flexibility.

Holiday Gift Guide Special: Use promo code CPL to order a new two-deck set and get 15% off your entire order at fadedspade.com. You may even find some brand new apparel options!

And be sure to check out the Faded Spade Podcast featuring business interviews with your favorite poker personalities at fadedspade.com/podcast.

BBO POKER TABLES

For over a decade, BBO Poker Tables has been recognized as the premier supplier to many of the biggest names and events in poker. From the world’s top casinos to the World Poker Tour, from black-tie celebrity events like “Big Game Big Give” to blockbuster movies like Will Smith’s “Focus,” BBO Poker Tables set the standard. And thanks to affordable pricing, personal customization, and FREE shipping  , these elite tables are affordable for home players like you.

BBO Poker Tables’ Elite Alpha starts at $2,399. You can save $320 on it during BBO’s Black Friday Sale!

Thousands of enthusiastic reviews praise not just the quality of the tables but the impact on the quality of life—creating more opportunities to gather with friends and family. Whether you need a 4-player that converts to a beautiful dining table, a mini for your man cave, or an 8-footer for the family room, BBO Poker Tables has the right table for you. Owning a BBO Poker Table is like having the World Poker Tour stop at your house every time you play.

RUNGOODGEAR APPAREL

Gear up your loved ones! Scroll past the parody shirts this holiday season and send your poker player something they want to wear on and off the card tables.

The RunGood brand is poker’s leading apparel company that has provided players items focused on comfort and style since 2012. A popular sight around the industry, you can find an assortment of hats, hoodies, and shirts online. “As a poker player, we don’t make anything we wouldn’t wear ourselves on or off the table.” says Tana Karn, Founder of RunGoodGear. There is a reason items become out of stock, don’t delay and pick up an item today.

RunGood President Tana Karn, sporting some of his company’s apparel

Visit www.RunGoodGear.com and see what’s happening next with the 2018 GPI Award-Winning Mid-Major Tour, the RunGood Poker Series, while picking up your next hoodie.

BLUE SHARK OPTICS: PRO POKER EYEWEAR

If you’re looking to give a gift this season that helps the receiver win more tournaments and make more money, Blue Shark Optics are the easy choice. Blue Sharks are glasses specifically designed for use at a poker table. They shield your eyes while allowing you to see your opponents clearly which is a huge advantage. The impressive list of pros who regularly wear Blue Sharks includes Greg Raymer, Hoyt Corkins, Jeff Gross, and our own Chris “Fox” Wallace.

Blue Shark offers an impressive list of frames, and they don’t just make the best glasses for poker, they also offer prescriptions and even Blue Aspis glasses for playing online. The technology in the Blue Aspis glasses is so impressive that anyone who regularly spends time on a computer, even if they aren’t a poker player, should have a pair to cut back on eye strain and improve sleep quality.

When you play poker every edge is important. Blue Shark Optics provides the optical edge! Unlike dark sunglasses, our lenses are clear and non-tinted to allow maximum light penetration. Our proprietary mirror hides the eyes. We prevent eye strain, headaches, and mistakes. With thousands of satisfied customers, we are the undisputed Number One source of poker eye wear in the world.

Our 30-day return/exchange policy gives you enough time to try us at the poker table.

Also available: Prescriptions, Bifocals, Readers, Fit-overs, and lens replacements.

Get the Edge at www.bluesharkoptics.com!

Holiday Special: Get $25.00 off using the coupon code Cardplayerlifestyle. Limited time offer!

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SHIP IT POKER CRUISES

Looking for the perfect gift for your favorite poker player?  A Ship It Poker Cruise would be the gift to last a lifetime for any player, from novice to pro and everyone in between. A poker cruise gives you the perfect combination of a relaxing vacation and the luxury of a private poker room at sea. Ship It Poker Cruises not only offers tournament play but a multitude of mixed cash games as well.

On our cruises we’re often joined by some of the greatest poker players, including Todd Brunson, Eli Elezra, David Baker, and more! Mingle with the legends as you try to beat them out of cash game pots. Bust ’em from our tournaments and have the opportunity to win fun swag bags and other valuable prizes!

Ship It Poker Cruises offer the opportunity to learn new skill sets as well as new games in a fun and friendly environment through beginner lessons and hand labs with our pros. Ship It Poker Cruises has the most experienced staff and the best dealers on land or sea. Our goal is to ensure that every guest has the most memorable travel and poker experience possible. Join us, get the cards in the air, and prepare to SHIP IT.

Black Friday special: 10% off our March cruise on the Oasis of the Seas if booked by November 30th. Check us out on Facebook or at Shipitpokercruises.com  or call us to book your cruise today: (918) 906-9000.

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THE POKER DEPOT’S CUSTOM PLAYING CARDS & POKER CHIPS

Let’s face it… Custom poker chips are perfect for everyone. Whether it’s for that “Professional” tournament in your living room, a special event, the company you work for or your favorite poker player – personalized poker chips are a fun way to show you care!

Known for their Business Card Poker Chips, Ceramic Gaming Chips and Customized Playing Cards, ThePokerDepot.com allows you to browse hundreds of pre-designed poker chips, design your own from scratch, or request a professional design – and their free online customization allows you to personalize poker chip templates in under 60 seconds with your own images and custom text.

When you order Custom Clay Poker Chips on ThePokerDepot.com or Custom Playing Cards you will save 25% when you checkout with PROMO CODE: CPL2019.

The Poker Depot team has online chat support to help you create the perfect gift, whether it’s Custom Clay Poker Chips, Custom Ceramic Gaming Chips or Custom Poker Chip Sets.

For more information or to redeem this offer, visit ThePokerDepot.com.

*Restrictions Apply. Must meet minimum order size requirements for promotion.  Cannot be combined with any other offer.  While supplies last.

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SHUFFLE TECH’S ST1000 SHUFFLER

This holiday season is the perfect time to treat yourself and your home game buddies to a great, unique gift: upgrade your poker table with an automatic shuffler! Shuffle Tech’s ST1000 is the premiere shuffling product on the market today. Featuring a patented shuffling process that mimics stripping, hand cutting, and riffling, it takes just 40 seconds for the deck to be ready for your next hand of poker.

Compact, portable, and weighing just 6 lbs., the ST1000 can easily be mounted directly into your table for optimal poker play.

We ship worldwide! For more information, visit us at www.shuffletech.com.

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ARIA POKER ROOM

Holiday season is the perfect time to take a poker vacation, and what better destination is there than the poker capital of the world, Las Vegas! Once your flight has touched down, make a beeline straight to the award-winning Aria Poker Room.

Aria Poker Room

Two dozen luxurious tables await your arrival, where you can play every poker variant from Texas Hold’em to a dealer’s choice mix. We’ve got a great cash game for you to take a seat in no matter the size of your bankroll. If you prefer tournaments, we run plenty of them every day of the week, too.

Be sure to ask for our special poker room rates ahead of your arrival, so you can reserve your stay at the top hotel and resort on the Las Vegas Strip and be right in the heart of all the action!

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POKER TRAINING SITES & SOFTWARE

How wonderful would it be if by this time next year you had improved massively at playing poker?

While there’s no magic fairy dust to make that happen, you could give yourself the gift of becoming a WINNER by studying and improving. Here at Cardplayer Lifestyle we’ve reviewed over a dozen of the Best Poker Training Sites to help you become a better player. We’ve also got the lowdown on the Best Poker Software products that can assist you with your study.

Giving yourself the opportunity to up your poker game by purchasing courses and software is by definition a great investment in your poker future. What could be a better holiday gift than that?

Wishing all of our readers here at Cardplayer Lifestyle a happy holiday season!

So instead, let’s just go with substance over style.

Over eight live sessions since taking Jonathan Little’s Cash Game Master Class, I haven’t recorded a single loss. I’ve also had my biggest ever winning session at $1-2 NLHE during this stretch.

In several online sessions since, I’ve not only produced a much better winrate than in recent months, but my desire to play online No Limit Hold ‘em has been rejuvenated.

So, did THAT grab you enough?

Jonathan Little’s Cash Game Master Class: Comprehensive Cash Game Training

Fair warning, if you plan on tackling this 30-video series, get ready to work. This is not a series for beginners. There’s gonna be some math. That all said, the depth this series provides is incredible.

Every aspect of cash game play you can imagine is covered, not just in strategies for every street of play (with tons of examples throughout), but how and when to implement both exploitative and GTO play.

Before Little gets into street-by-street play, the first couple of videos introduce the series, touching on things such as game selection, stack sizes, rake, player types, exploiting weak opponents, equity, and a couple of hand examples. Nothing too crazy yet; just a few things to think about while you fasten your seat belt.

After that though, you better be strapped in, because it’s one heck of a ride!

The third video is an introduction to probably the most important thing that will be stressed throughout the entire series: ranges!

No…. not THAT kind of range…

Long gone are the days of ‘putting your opponent on a hand’. This is 2023, friends. Ultimately, it doesn’t necessarily matter what those two cards in front of you and your opponents are. It’s all about what they could be.

Throughout these videos, you will be constantly prompted to think about ranges, both yours and your opponents’. While there are some specific examples on how certain hands can be played, thinking in terms of ranges is the predominant factor in how you should study and play your hands. This is a tool Little has utilized regularly in his Homework Challenges on Pokercoaching.com.

The video on ranges introduces the concepts of range construction, balancing, counting combinations, blockers, and math-based call/fold spots.

I should mention at this point that while there is a good deal of GTO-based theory and strategy in the series, Little does stress the importance of exploitative play as well, especially at lower stakes where there will be a larger population of weaker players. Against them, exploitative play is just going to be far more profitable. In other words, trying to balance a 4-betting range against a nit under the gun just ain’t gonna work. You’re just going to smash into those aces every time.

After that, the meat of the series is basically broken into sections of multiple 10- to 20-minute-long videos discussing aspects of pre-flop, flop, turn, and river play. This is followed by a few videos covering such topics as shallow and deep stacked play, straddled pots, bankroll management, seat and game selection, tells and more.

Ed. Note: PokerCoaching.com also offer some excellent resources for tournament players, such as the 30-Day Tournament Preparation Challenge. See our review of that here.

Jonathan Little’s Cash Game Master Class: Pre-flop Play

This section consists of 9 videos entitled: Pre-flop Bet Sizing, Pre-flop When Folded To, When Your Raise Gets 3-bet, Facing Limpers, Facing a Raise, Facing a Raise and a Call, When You Call and Get 3-bet, Facing a Pre-flop Raise and 3-bet, and Facing a Pre-flop 4-bet.

Pre-flop play is the most heavily discussed element in the series, and for good reason. As Little has imparted in many of his teachings, the first decisions you make in a hand will set you up for success during the rest of the hand. Remember kids, poker actually isn’t about winning and losing, poker’s about making the right decisions. (Thanks Doyle Brunson Poker After Dark intro voiceover!)

The bet sizing section discusses the importance of sizing your pre-flop raises correctly. Little generally suggests a consistent approach, with a pot-sized raise being optimal (plus a little extra when playing out of position), but he also suggests that a more exploitative strategy against weaker players can be beneficial.

Along with your raise sizing, the next consideration is what range to raise with. Little provides a link to a multitude of charts for suggested open raising ranges for each position (based on 100 BB stacks and your opponents being capable players – deviation based on player type is of course encouraged).

Of note, Little dives significantly into small blind raising strategy, as it presents the most unique circumstances going forward in the hand, since you’re guaranteed to be playing out of position. That said, this bit is somewhat irrelevant in a raked game, however, as the common practice of ‘chopping’ and pulling back your blinds is encouraged.

One key topic introduced in the ‘Pre-flop When Folded To’ video is the mathematical formula for Minimum Defence Frequency (MDF). Ever wonder why the Big Blind defends so liberally and hits those “Big Blind Specials” on you? Some guy drew out on you after you 3-bet him pre-flop? Well, those things happen because in a lot of situations, they’re correct to be doing so. Little references MDF throughout the series in a variety of situations.

Speaking of those 3-bet situations, MDF, pot odds, implied odds, opponent type, position, and more important concepts are all discussed in this section. Additional charts are provided as well, breaking down what percentage of hands you should be folding / calling / 4-betting. Again, there’s the caveat of considering your opponents’ style and stack sizes.

Pre-Flop Charts – Live Cash Games: Check out these fundamentally sound ranges for Raise First In, Raise First In vs 3-bet, and Facing Raise First In. This is the first step to becoming a winning player! #Poker #Coaching #Preflop https://t.co/LGnAd4qWPz pic.twitter.com/A0yzgvNr4E

— Jonathan Little (@JonathanLittle) September 30, 2019

For small stakes players, the section on ‘Facing Limpers’ will prove invaluable. It weighs in at a meaty 23 minutes – the second largest in the series, and it’s my favourite video of the entire Jonathan Little Cash Game Master Class.

Before taking this class, I was a firm believer in never limping, and always coming in for a raise. Far too often, however, despite my best intentions, I’d still be facing a flop four or five ways, thinking everyone else in the hand was making the mistakes, not me. Yes, players shouldn’t even be in the hand with Q2s from early position, but if they’re going to limp, then call a raise with a hand like that, you need to play accordingly. You’re making as big a mistake as them if you’re not adjusting! As such, I’ve incorporated more limping into my game when playing $1-2 / $1-3, and some $2-5 games, and seen a world of difference because of it.

The bulk of the section discusses the idea of ‘tricky’ limpers, (you know those guys who limp Aces and Kings UTG, hoping to backraise? Oh sneaky sneaky!) and of straightforward limpers who limp many of their hands that are predominantly garbage. It also breaks down how to play against one, or a series of limpers, how to play based on position, and what to defend with correctly if a raise comes in after you’ve limped.

I would suggest watching the entire series in order to get the best results, but if there is one section for small stakes players to check out first to immediately help their game, I recommend this one.

For games that aren’t super passive limp-fests, the next sections on facing raises (and raises and calls behind) in pots pre-flop will take care of what you need to know. Should you flat call or 3-bet? should you squeeze? What if someone else squeezes? These questions and plenty more will be answered, as most are, with: “well, it depends!” However, all the factors to take into consideration are discussed, most importantly – what are your opponent’s ranges?!

The remaining videos that deal with pre-flop play discuss how to play when the action is 3-bet or 4-bet in front of you. These sections are a bit smaller, as the lessons are quite brief, especially when it involves smaller stakes games. Spoiler: PLAY TIGHT! THEY’VE USUALLY GOT IT! Little does discuss taking player types and game dynamics into consideration, especially in higher stakes games. Yet, when it comes to the $1-2 and $2-5 games, erring on the side of ‘they’ve got it’ is usually the most prudent play, unless you really know your opponent is capable of creative shenanigans.

Jonathan Little’s Cash Game Master Class: Flop Play

This section consists of six videos entitled: The Flop, Flop Examples, When To Bet Summary, When Facing A Flop Bet, Multi-way On The Flop, and Facing A Flop Raise

By now, hopefully students are adhering to Little’s mantra of developing a good pre-flop strategy, so when you get to the flop you can play reasonably well. If you play too much junk, you’re going to have more problems and tougher decisions to make.

The first of six videos on flop play is the longest, at almost 22 minutes, with opponent types, position, and the usual considerations discussed, but the introduction of range advantage and nut advantage considerations are a major talking point. In a nutshell, this section breaks down when and how much you should be betting based on who has the range and/or nut advantage. Far too many players blindly c-bet and play the flop without giving thought to these ideas. This video will teach you how to consider these factors, as well as to exploit players who don’t.

A video of examples incorporating the concepts discussed in the first video follows this up, using position-based ranges, not specific hands. There’s also a cool hand example that suggests a 1 BB c-bet on a J55 flop. (Plus how to consider MDF if someone tries it on you!)

Next up is the ‘When To Bet Summary’. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but it’s quality information based on basically every situation on the flop.

Those players who blindly fire out c-bets with minimal to no thought are discussed in the ‘When Facing A Flop Bet’ video. Your consideration of your opponent’s range is the key factor in constructing an optimal flop play. Are they polarized or linear? What are their tendencies? Who has the nut advantage? Who has the range advantage? There is a lot to consider when facing a flop bet, and if you take the time to do so and your opponents do not, chalk up another street of superior decision making to you!

Much like facing a pre-flop 4-bet in a small stakes game, simple straightforward play is suggested when it comes to playing multi-way on the flop. C-betting polarized ranges three ways can be done, but with four players or more contesting the hand, Little suggests reigning it in and not getting out of line.

There are plenty of talking points in this section, including consideration of your opponents’ ranges (as always), situations in which raising to clean up equity can be pulled off, and avoiding reverse implied odds!

There are also several examples provided with varying positions and flop textures to see these teachings at work.

The final video on flop play is what to do ‘when facing a raise’. Again, the assessment of your opponent’s range is the first factor to consider. The range / nut advantages, player type, blockers and the game’s stakes are all factors that can impact a player’s decision. That flop raise in a $1-2 game can mean something a whole lot different than in a higher stakes game.

Recognizing players who overvalue top pair and stack off against your superior hand is a huge money maker at the smaller stakes. However, not recognizing when your value bets are just dead to a player’s raising range can torch your bankroll.

As usual, accompanying examples support this section.

With a combined 15 videos on pre-flop and flop play, the amount of instruction is intense and truly effective. It’s impossible to give a complete breakdown of all the elements in these videos in a review. They really must be experienced to get the full gist of everything Little presents. Trust me though; these videos are the heart of the series and will set you up extremely well for play on the turn and river.

Jonathan Little’s Cash Game Master Class: Turn Play

This section consists of two videos entitled: The Turn and Turn Examples

“The turn is not some mythical street where people get lost. It’s just one more betting round where the same concepts apply.”

Many players get lost on the turn and I’ll fully admit that I’ve been one. I remember very specifically following a losing session at The Mirage this summer coming away feeling very shaken about my turn (and river) decisions. I wrote a note to myself to study these streets more, so when the opportunity to take Jonathan Little’s Cash Game Master Class came about, I was thrilled with how much confidence it instilled in my late street play.

The turn is just the next street in the hand, where if you’ve made good decisions leading up to this point in the hand, there’s really no reason you can’t keep making them and continue to play the hand confidently.

All the concepts discussed thus far also apply to the turn. Again, range analysis is a key factor, based on the actions on the flop, both heads-up and multi-way. What to do with and against polarized and linear ranges is also discussed.

Ultimately, Little suggests that the turn isn’t really that different than the flop. You just want to have fewer bluffs in your range, and you want to get closer to showdown with your marginal made hands.

The examples video follows up with an extension of the hands from earlier pre-flop and flop example videos, including the next steps in the 1 BB c-bet hand.

Jonathan Little’s Cash Game Master Class: River Play

There’s just one video in this section, entitled The River. The first thing Little mentions in this video is that this is where most of the players “drown”. Yup.

If you’re playing well and polarized, you need to be giving up on some more of your bluffs. This was a HUGE hole in my game that I’ve worked on plugging. Far too often players (myself included) blindly think that if they’re bluffing when they get to the river, that third barrel has to be fired. Consideration of ranges be damned, I’m getting that bluff through! Nope. Bye-bye money.

That said, exploiting weak opponents on the river can be done with proper bet sizing if you have a good feel for their tendencies. Against competent opponents, however, Little stresses the importance of balance and considering MDF.

I was wowed by how much depth there can be to river play. We’re going to be counting combos, thinking about blockers, and doing some math here, especially when it comes to reaching the river with a polarized range. More topics include overbetting (you might be surprised how profitable this can be in small stakes live games, as I’ve recently discovered), betting for thin value, bluffs, and multi-way situations.

Jonathan Little’s Cash Game Master Class: Full Hand Examples

Again, just one video in this section, but this is the time to put everything we’ve learned together. This video contains over 30 minutes of full hand examples. Tons of hands, start to finish. GTO and exploitatively, it’s all here.

Jonathan Little’s Cash Game Master Class: Last Lessons

This final section includes seven videos entitled: Shallow Stacked Play, Deep Stacked Play, Short-Handed Play, Straddled Pots, Bankroll Management, Other Topics, and Final Thoughts.

Now that we’ve given our game an overhaul, it’s time to discuss some other issues that can come into play.

First up are tips on short stack and deep stack play. To be fair, these sections may not be seen as overly groundbreaking by more experienced players, but hearing how Little expands on the ideas is certainly worthwhile.

The shallow stacked section (sub 40 BB) discusses the increased value of high cards, the decreased value of hands with implied odds, and the underrated value of fold equity. This is well elaborated on with a formula showing just how profitable it can be to shove versus a late position raise.

The deep stacked section (100 BB +) discusses the increased value of hands with implied odds that can make the nuts, and how suited connectors that make marginal flushes and straights can win, but are often overrated.

The differences between lower- and higher-stakes games are also discussed. It’s far less likely in a low-stakes game that an opponent is piling in money with a nut blocker type hand. Again though, know your opponent!

Another series of examples is provided, including one that shows the problems with suited connectors if the pot starts getting huge.

The video on short-handed play is the shortest in the series because, really, there are only a couple of considerations to make. As the table gets shorter, you’re just eliminating the early position player ranges (UTG, UTG+1 etc). Also, many players adjust incorrectly (either playing too loose, or too tight – if they still give the first player to act an early position range!)

Next is a section on straddling. I loved this video for no other reason than that I share Little’s beliefs on straddling: we both hate it! There really is no strategic benefit to straddling, other than wanting to play bigger and gamble more. If others want to do it, fine, let them; but now we’re going to be ready to play well against them.

Button straddling is more reasonable, but it’s bad for the game, and especially for the blinds because now they are essentially playing UTG and UTG +1. You don’t want them folding out their garbage hands because of that. You want them contesting the pot!

I’ll include a fun story with regards to this, as it can be instructive. Recently I played in a game where the whole table had to agree to allow a player to button straddle. I sat in the SB, to the direct left of a player who wanted to do this. I was the only person to object, which they did not take kindly to. The player was already quite obnoxious, and despite my efforts to calmly explain the logic behind my protesting, they decided to go to war with me verbally and on the felt. As this had tilted the player so surprisingly much, I was able to take advantage of their reckless aggression against me and stack them three times in an hour!

via GIPHY

To recap: Don’t straddle. Learn to counter the straddle.

Proper bankroll management is a topic many recreational players either don’t adhere to, or if they do, have many questions about. Different people will have different opinions on how many buy-ins you should have to play at a certain level, which Little does, but he also incorporates winrate into calculating what you should be playing. Shot taking and when to move up are discussed (when your bankroll is 1.5x what you should have to comfortably be playing your current level, you can safely move up or take a shot). Little also stresses having discipline with your bankroll. Do not press your risk of ruin if variance has gotten the better of you at your current level. Suck it up, work on your game and move down! I unfortunately had to do this recently, but thanks to this course I’m moving back up.

The penultimate section is a collection of other topics that Little touches on briefly such as game selection, seat selection, what makes for a “good” game, rake, room promotions, buy-in sizing, mindset, and tells. Of note in the tells section is his recommendation of Zachary Elwood’s collection of books/videos on the topic.

LEARN MORE: Reading Poker Tells Video Series

Finally, Little wraps up the series with a thank you and a few last tips and reminders. If you’ve made it here and watched all 30 videos, congratulations, and get excited for what’s coming to you at the tables!

Jonathan Little’s Cash Game Master Class: Worth the Price!

I’ve always been a fan of Jonathan Little’s teachings, but I honestly can’t say that any poker course or training tool I’ve ever studied has had such an immediate positive impact on my game like this Cash Game Master Class has.

I know my graph with which I started out this course review only presents a very small sample size, and a lot had to go well (and not go wrong) for that largest-ever win I scored. Yet, a lot of what I’ve learned from this course has helped me maximize profit and minimize loss in situations I previously wouldn’t have. At the end of a session, knowing I’m leaving a winner has been nice, but above all I’ve been truly satisfied and confident in how I played and the decisions I’ve made.

With that said, I’m glad to once again be moving up in stakes, knowing my game is better than it’s ever been. Yours can be too. It’s just a couple of clicks away at Pokercoaching.com.