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.

This article focuses on the Red Chip Poker PRO Membership to try and give you an idea what you can expect inside and explain why investing $50 a month or $495 for the full year membership is worth your while.

Of course, everyone’s demands and expectations are different when it comes to poker training content but Red Chip Poker manages to cover a really wide area with their PRO package. Whether you’re playing online or live cash games or you focus on grinding tournaments, there is so much quality content inside and the PRO membership gets you some nice additional perks. So, let’s dive right into it!

1. Excellent Variety of Content

No matter what level you might be playing at or what your specific game format is, as long as you’re playing No Limit Hold’em, you’ll find plenty of value with Red Chip Poker PRO. The content ranges from simple courses aimed at beginners to complex series geared towards experienced players looking for that additional edge.

You can sort all available courses and videos by game types, coaches, and relevant topics such as:

• MTT and cash game reviews
• Online and live poker
• Mental game
• Recorded face-to-face sessions, etc.

With the Red Chip Poker PRO membership, you get access to everything on the site so you don’t have to worry about not being able to watch something you’re interested in. Hours upon hours of quality content will become available to you and thanks to the site organization, you’ll be able to easily find whatever it is that you’re looking for.

2. Red Chip Poker PRO Package Includes CORE 2.0

As mentioned, RCP has content for players of differing skill levels. If you’re someone just starting with poker, you might feel that you don’t need all these videos, and you’re probably right for the time being.

However, the PRO membership includes full access to CORE 2.0, an extensive course curriculum aimed at beginners, explaining all the important concepts and designed to take you from a poker newbie to a capable and solid player. This alone is already worth $260, more than half the price you’d be paying for the yearly PRO subscription.

Once you’re done with the basic course and feel you’re ready to expand your knowledge, plenty more videos will be waiting for you, especially if you buy the yearly membership. And if you’re truly hungry for poker knowledge, you’ll probably want to expand beyond the basics covered in the CORE program anyhow.

3. Different Red Chip Poker Coaches Bring Different Perspectives

The Red Chip Poker team includes a number of capable players and coaches with results to back them up, such as James “SplitSuit” Sweeney, and WSOP bracelet winner (and fellow Cardplayer Lifestyle contributor) Chris Wallace. But, with poker being such an extensive game, even the best of players don’t always agree on certain strategies.

So, Red Chip Poker PRO will give you an excellent overview of the game, bringing differing points of view and different suggestions for similar spots. All of these strategies have been tried and tested so you’re free to adopt the ones that you feel are best-fitted for your own playing style and goals.

4. Training Videos Addressing Highly Specific Spots

For more experienced players it can sometimes be hard to find ways to improve their game. General training materials simply don’t cut it anymore as taking your game to the next level is about fixing your play in very specific spots.

This is where Red Chip Poker PRO really comes through. You’ll get access to many highly-focused lessons and mini-series discussing things such as 3-bet shoves, dealing with flop check-raises, playing on paired boards, etc.

Videos such as these are an excellent resource for players looking to find small edges and fix some small leaks in their play. With the help of tracking software, you can easily find spots you’re struggling with these days and Red Chip Poker PRO videos will give you the answers as to how to go about improving your play.

5. Hands-on Approach with Student Review Sessions

Since 2019 Red Chip Poker has been running group coaching sessions, analyzing hands, and taking questions from the members. This hands-on approach is different from most training sites out there and offers real insights into the state of the games today.

You can find recordings of all these deep-dive sessions and, as a PRO member, you can also join the upcoming ones. This is some extra value for money as RCP coaches help players with very specific issues and provide them with answers in real-time. As a player, many of these questions will hit home and help you fix some leaks that you might not even been aware of.

6. Full Access to Red Chip Poker Crash Courses

Red Chip Poker’s Crash Courses are an interesting concept that’s unique to this site. These are mini-series that address specific areas of the game and can be bought individually. As a PRO member, though, you’ll get access to all of them.

Some of the topics covered in these crash courses are aggression in poker, NL200 live basics, MTT fundamentals, and even GTO poker. These highly structured courses can help you fill the gaps in your game and quickly improve your play.

7. New Content Added All the Time

One thing that’s really great about folks over at Red Chip Poker is that they’re not content to rest on their laurels. Although the site seems to be doing very well, they’re constantly producing new content and adding new courses and videos and to the mix.

The GTO Crash Course, for instance, was added relatively recently and their entire CORE program was revamped and re-released as CORE 2.0 to offer even more value for the players.

Once you purchase the RCP PRO membership, you’ll have access to all the new content added to the site for as long as your membership is active. While I don’t know what their plans are moving forward, if recent past is any indicator you can expect a nice amount of new materials in the coming weeks and months.

One thing that’s already been announced is the fresh Bet Sizing course which should be going live in November 2020. The ever-growing library includes many videos that are adapting new concepts and ideas and you can find plenty of GTO-oriented content in there as well.

8. Quality Analytical Videos

Many of the Red Chip Poker PRO videos focus on database analysis and looking into actual hands played by the students to not only find mistakes but also figure out general player tendencies. These are invaluable for serious online players as things in poker are moving swiftly and it’s not easy to keep up on your own.

9. One of the Best Training Sites for Live Poker Players

Most training programs out there focus on online play and don’t offer that much value for live players. This isn’t the case for Red Chip Poker as it’s probably one of the best resources for those who spend most of their time grinding it away at live tables.

You’ll find plenty of materials that can either be applied to both environments or that’s highly specific to live games (cash and tournaments alike). Videos cover everything from the mental game to live tells to to exploitative play and adjustments you can make to improve your win rates in live games.

10. Red Chip Poker Offers Great Value for Money

It simply must be said that Red Chip Poker PRO membership is excellent value for money no matter what. The price of $50 per month is a quarter of a buy-in for someone playing $1/$2 and it works out to even less if you opt to buy the yearly membership for $495.

The sheer amount of content on the site is easily worth the price. Even if you only watch a few specific videos and don’t have too much time on your hands, this is an investment that will easily pay for itself whether you’re making your first steps into the great, unknown world of poker or you’re an experienced player looking to add some finesse to your play!