Matthias Eibinger – Cardplayer Lifestyle https://cardplayerlifestyle.com Sun, 01 Jan 2023 01:04:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3 The Pokercode Academy – WSOP 2020 – is Now Open! šŸŽ“ https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/the-pokercode-academy-is-now-open/ Sun, 05 Jul 2020 12:49:16 +0000 https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/?p=37871 For the first time in history, a full World Series of Poker bracelet schedule is being played out online, without physical chips or cards. The summer of 2020 will see the first half of the WSOP played out on WSOP.com, for those physically located within Nevada or New Jersey, while the second half of the bracelet schedule will be played on GGPoker, for those in permitted jurisdictions around the rest of the world. Pokercode wants you to prepare in the best possible way and we are proud to present the Pokercode Academy – WSOP 2020.Ā 

The Pokercode Academy – WSOP 2020 is a special eight-week coaching program with some of the best coaches in the world. Pokercodeā€™s own Fedor Holz, Matthias Eibinger, ā€œIgorKarkarofā€, and their friends Claas Segebrecht, Steffen Sontheimer, and mindset coach Elliot Roe teach you how to prepare for the World Series of Poker and crush it! Players can enroll for only ā‚¬199 and they will get access to eight live coaching sessions, an interactive and supportive community with like-minded poker players, and Pokercode’s state-of-the-art content platform to go back and re-watch the live coaching sessions.Ā 

Pokercode Academy Coaches

Holz and his cadre of coaching cohorts will take students through all aspects of tournament poker. They will discuss early deep stacked play, important ICM situations around the bubble, and of course on the final table. They will do everything they can to prepare their students in the best way possible in the quest to WSOP gold!

With dozens of cashes, many millions of dollars in tournament winnings, and loads of deep WSOP performances and memorable runs among them, the Pokercode team is immensely qualified to teach you their tricks such that you can hopefully emulate their successes and possibly even win a bracelet of your own.

Players who sign up for the the Pokercode Academy – WSOP 2020Ā will have full access to the Pokercode community as well as the Netflix-like content platform for the months of July, August, and September where they are free to re-watch the live coaching session content as many times as they like. Plus, they can discuss everything taught by the instructors with other students in the community as well as the coaches themselves.Ā 

WSOP bracelet winner Fedor Holz remarked that ā€œI think itā€™s a great way to work very closely with people, but also put out relevant content that will help them perform better throughout the WSOP series. I personally like that I can share my results and my journey. My ups and downs. Iā€™m excited for the academy and Iā€™m looking forward to welcoming a lot of new people.ā€Ā 

With some of the best players in the world in various poker formats on the coaching team, the Pokercode staff is equipped to help you will all facets of your tournament game.

Matthias Eibinger added, “I am happy to open up the Team Pokercode Community over the course of the WSOP so that also other players can enjoy the like-minded community feeling and get accompanied by other players in this intense time of grinding the WSOP online series.ā€

What’s certain is that beyond being highly motivated to have a successful 2020 WSOP online, Holz, Eibinger, and the rest of the Pokercode coaching team are equally as driven to ensuring their students have a solid shot at success of their own by enrolling in the Pokercode Academy – WSOP 2020.Ā 

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Pokercode: A Comprehensive Poker Training Course Review (Updated 2023) https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/pokercode-a-comprehensive-poker-training-course-review/ https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/pokercode-a-comprehensive-poker-training-course-review/#respond Sun, 15 Dec 2019 06:04:09 +0000 https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/?p=32965 With a name like Pokercode, your first visit to the website and entering your username and password feels like opening a vault. A vault that has tremendous value in it provided by none other than German Ā“prince of the high rollersĀ“ Fedor Holz and high stakes crusher Matthias Eibinger. Holz and Eibinger did their very best to produce top-notch content, which formed the core of theĀ Pokercode. Expanding beyond the core offering, Simon RĆønnow has also been brought in to add his knowledge on specific topics like squeezing and facing 3-bets. The initial course is shot in an amazing studio with Holz walking you through every little piece of information they give you. It feels as if Holz is your personal coach, letting you in on all the little secrets that made him millions and millions of dollars over the last couple of years. But Pokercode is far more than just a course. It is an all encompassing community of like-minded poker players looking to improve and become the best player they can.

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Personally, I felt a bit scared starting it all up as I had never done any poker study before trying Pokercode. This was going to be my first proper go at becoming a better poker player. The lectures started out very welcoming, with Fedor referencing a book outside of poker that helped him get in the proper mindset. That one word — MINDSET — is something he talks about a lot in the first couple of videos and that sets the tone for what you will eventually learn during the course. Right from the get-go I immediately began to feel some sort of change happening in my head that motivated me to tackle the beast that is the Pokercode and become a better player.

Holz is very clear that this course is based on GTO play, but he will also teach you how to adjust your strategy so you can exploit your opponents and their weaknesses. He does have separate videos at the end of most sections of the course that illustrate how Fedor himself adjusts and deviates from GTO strategy to exploit his opponents even more.

The PokercodeĀ consists of five parts, and the first part begins with a general introduction called “Getting Started: Pre-flop.” After the introduction we begin diving headfirst in the first bits of poker strategy, and — WOW — we zoom from 0 to 100 really quickly! I have to admit that I was pretty overwhelmed by the rapid-fire of information that was given over in the first couple of sections.

Before going any further, let’s break down the PokercodeĀ by the numbers:

  • 5 parts
  • 24 sections
  • 100+ lessons
  • 60+ hours of video content
  • 30+ hours of community coaching added since day 1
  • 1 weekly live coaching session
  • 3 brilliant minds (Fedor, Matthias, and Simon RĆønnow)
  • 1 brilliant host instructor (Fedor)
  • 1 hurting brain at the end (mine!)

pokercode

Getting Started: Pre-flop

The first part of the course consists of 24 videos varying from a couple of minutes to about 15 minutes in length. The videos are split up into five sections:

  • Introduction
  • Pre-flop Fundamentals
  • How to Defend the Blinds
  • Playing in Position
  • Facing 3-Bets

All sections contain multiple videos and after each video there’s a quiz. The questions are either multiple choice or true/false and you will get 1, 3, or 5 points depending on how many tries it takes you to give the correct answer.

If you don’t get the answer after three tries, you have the option to skip the question, but you are actively encouraged to re-watch the video. It’s really critical to understand the first part of the course before moving on to the next part. I must admit that I had to re-watch some of the videos because there was just too much information for me to absorb. This might not be the case for most students, but since I had never studied poker properly before it was a bit overwhelming.

pokercode quiz

Pokercode Quiz; sample questions

The first couple of quizzes I did were manageable, but the deeper I dove into the course the tougher the questions ended up being. At first, I didn’t even realize I was able to skip the questions so I just re-watched the videos, which I feel is a good thing. Fedor explains at the beginning of the course that your pre-flop mistakes can do more damage when you continue post-flop. Like most players, ideally I want to get better at poker quickly. That’s why I felt it was great for Pokercode to encourage that you get the pre-flop fundamentals straight before hopping over to the post-flop section. Just like in poker, you can’t force the action!

I internalized an important thing from this course, namely that there is no shortcut to getting better: you must learn one video and one concept at a time. The quizzes helped to give me a great idea as to whether I had correctly understood the concepts being taught. It’s one thing to understand the rationale given for decision-making in one specific situation. It’s another thing entirely to be able to understand the underlying decision-making rationale and be able to apply it to all situations that come up at the poker table.

Disclaimer: Complicated strategy ahead!

I feel it’s important to note that the PokercodeĀ is not designed for complete beginners. You need to have a good understanding of the game’s basic strategy or you’re going to have a tough time understanding what Fedor is talking about. Also, you need to be more than “just a little bit motivated” to learn and improve your game because these videos are not made for casual, passive viewing. Focus is required and the subject matter being taught is very tough, but there is tremendous value in making the effort to study properly. That said, it wouldā€™ve been good to see some sort of disclaimer at the start that this course can get complicated.

pokercode complicated

After about one hour of study, I started to feel a bit of information overload, so I quit for the day and started again with a fresh head the following day. There’s a lesson in there for you if you’re thinking of subscribing to Pokercode: don’t think that you can just zip through all the poker training content in one day. Your head will explode! You’ve got to give yourself enough time to process and internalize each of the lessons before moving on to the next steps and videos.

Once you reach the “How to DefendĀ  the Blinds” portion of the course, you’ll for the first time be exposed to… Charts! Glorious charts! Fedor will explain to you how the charts work and in which situations they’re relevant. While charts might be a familiar sight to many poker players, they still scared me a little bit as I had never taken such a deep dive into poker strategy before. The charts not only tell you what actions to take and when, but also how frequently you should take a certain action. I understood these general concepts pretty quickly, but figuring out specifically how the charts were supposed to work kind of rattled me in a way that I didn’t expect when I started the course.

pokercode charts

For me, this was my first time actively learning about frequencies, and I finally came to understand what “balancing” meant. (Spoiler: It’s not standing on one foot and trying not to fall over.) I had to watch and re-watch the videos multiple times to understand what Fedor was telling me, and — once again — the quizzes helped me gauge whether I properly understood the concepts being taught.

Adaptation is the Name of the Game

At the end of some lecture sessions, Holz will share with you his personal adaptations to the GTO strategy. He will explain how he adjusts his playing style to exploit his opponents, which gives you the tools to do so yourself. This is where I feel there’s a lot of the value in Pokercode. You can learn GTO poker from many different coaching websites, but Fedor Holz sharing his personal tips, tricks, and exploits is something else and felt incredible to watch. Watching those videos on the train where he explains how he personally adapts gave me the feeling that I needed to cover up the screen on my laptop. It felt as if I was watching porn on the train and no one else should be allowed to see what was on my screen.

pokercode dashboard

Pokercode dashboard

I noticed some changes in the way I approach playing poker after I was done with the first part of Pokercode. Fedor gives you the right tools to start thinking in terms of ranges rather than just specific hands. I was aware that the top pros do this, but I had no clue how to exactly approach it and start doing so myself. Since I’ve begun using the PokercodeĀ I do think I have a better understanding of this concept. I’ve also started to feel more and more sure of what to do in certain spots, which has been a personal breakthrough. I used to sort of guess with my decision-making and never used to analyze any spots after the fact. Now I’ve started asking myself the right questions that help me arrive at what I believe is the best decision, with increasing speed.

Post-flop

The second part of the course consists of six sections with a total of 22 videos. This is where I started to struggle a little bit, but I am already looking forward to re-watching most of these videos to get a better understanding. There’s just so much valuable information to master!

This is also the point where the videos begin getting longer; few of them are shorter than 10 minutes at this point. Within the Pokercode, the videos are labeled as easy, medium, and hard. All of these post-flop sections are labeled hard, and I understand why. There are lots of charts and Fedor presents multiple situations where we can choose to deviate from GTO strategy.

Fedor tackles short-stacked examples, deep stacked examples, looser opponents, tighter opponents, and more. Ranges are examined thoroughly, as well as where and how we can decide to deviate from optimal play. I managed to get through the first video, but the next ones made my head spin. Video is the optimal medium, and the Pokercode lessons are extremely well-produced, but it really takes maximum concentration to try and keep up with Fedor as he goes through the charts and different situations. (I guess if this were easy, everyone would be beasting tournaments and winning millions, right?)

Processing Raw Information

As far as my personal study process, like I mentioned already, I had to pause videos multiple times and re-watch. Even so, I found myself failing the quizzes. While it’s a frustrating process, this did motivate me to keep learning and improving; and this has been happening slowly but surely. That’s what “getting in the lab” to study is all about!

Once again, it’s important to clarify that Pokercode is not a course for beginners or amateurs who just enjoy playing recreationally!

As I progressed through the course’s additional Post-flop sections including: The Turn, The River, 3-Bet Pots, Blind Versus Blind, and Multi-way I noticed that while on the one hand the videos were getting tougher and tougher, their value kept rising At a certain point, I doubled back to review some of the pre-flop sections, so I could get a better understanding of ranges again. This certainly helped in terms of my processing the post-flop lessons. I even started getting more answers right on the quizzes.

One thing I’d recommend: don’t implement a certain strategy in your game yet if you don’t fully understand the concept of why you should implement it in your game.

Next-level Poker Instruction from a Next-level Player

When I try to teach my girlfriend how to play poker, she sometimes says that I explain it in a way that is already too complicated for her. Trying the PokercodeĀ finally made me truly understand what that means. I had a tough time keeping up! That’s not to say that Fedor doesn’t explain things well, but rather that the material itself is just very dense and complex. Even so, I think I have tons to gain by taking the course.

Fedor Holz presenting Pokercode

Fedor Holz presenting Pokercode

READ MORE: An Interview with Fedor Holz

I admit that it likely takes me longer to understand all the concepts than it does a medium or high stakes crusher. Even so, in poker it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to reach the finish line, so long as you eventually get there. Pokercode will get you there! You just need to pay close attention to every lesson as you keep building your personal knowledge base.

Perhaps “finish line” isn’t the right term though, as Iā€™m unsure if you can actually finish this course. I feel like the PokercodeĀ is a course that keeps on giving and continues to maintain its value, even if you have already watched the videos and lectures multiple times.Ā You can really get in FedorĀ“s head throughout this course and it truly feels as if he is your personal coach.

The Pokercode – Start Crushing Now

This is the third part of the course where things got fun for me once again. Winning at poker isn’t just about GTO strategy; it’s about mindset, your behavior at the table, tells, and other important information like how to deal with ICM. This last part of Pokercode consists of four lessons and a combined 19 videos.

First, you’ll learn about ICM, which is a critical subject for tournament players to understand. After explaining the idea, Fedor guides you through how ICM can be applied to your game, and then how to adjust your game after taking into account ICM considerations. Even if you think you have a good understanding of ICM, I’m pretty certain that after watching the six videos in this part of the course you’ll have learned a lot. In other words, whether you’re a starting pro or already an advanced player, there’s value to be had here.

The next lesson, entitled “live game” was my absolute favorite. The videos here take you through all the different aspects of live poker that you don’t have playing online. One of these is obviously trying to profile players and to see if you can spot any tells. After demonstrating how to spot tells, Fedor also teaches you how to mask your own tells and elaborates on the importance of table image. It was quite fun to watch, and really made me eager to hit the tables! I felt sad when this part of the course ended and there were no additional videos of this category to watch.

Mindset, Again

In the very first Pokercode video, Fedor explains that poker is not only about how you play but also about how you approach the game in general. To point, in the four “Off the Felt” videos of this part of the course, Fedor provides you with some tools to improve on mindset, game selection, and bankroll management. While I imagine that most people that this course is targeted at would already have that bit sorted out, it’s still an important part ofĀ the Pokercode.

Apart from having video lectures and live coaching sessions, the Pokercode also features a handy preflop range tool called the Rangeviewer and an amazing community. The Rangeviewer allows you to look up preflop ranges for a variety of stack sizes and situations one might encounter playing tournaments. The tool is developed in-house and Matthias Eibinger and Simon RĆønnow spent countless hours perfecting the ranges.

Subscribing to Pokercode also comes with access to the exclusive Pokercode community. With all Pokercode subscribers encouraged to participate in hand history discussions, database reviews, and countless like-minded poker players, including Fedor Holz, Matthias Eibinger, Simon RĆønnow, and community coach Curtis.

Finally, Pokercode ends with three videos focused on practical play. After a brief introduction, we go through a couple live poker hands together with Fedor. The video pauses at the appropriate points so that you, the student, can try and work things out for yourself. Only after giving you a moment to think things through does play resume to see how Fedor would tackle the situations. With time, Fedor will keep adding additional hands to this section, and I feel that that offers even more incredible value that makes subscribing to Pokercode a truly worthwhile investment.

PRICING

While it’s undeniable that Pokercode will boost your poker game and enable you to add tremendously to your overall skillset at the felt, as with most things in life there’s a price to pay. Astute students of poker, however, realize that when it comes to poker training, it’s not a cost, but rather an investment, which is likely to generate anywhere from decent to excellent ROI.

Pokercode recently revamped it’s pricing model to allow for three options:

  • Monthly: ā‚¬99
  • Quarterly: ā‚¬214
  • Yearly: ā‚¬699

While you get the best value by exercising the Yearly option, the other pricing points give you the ability to try out all facets of Pokercode without having to make the full financial commitment if you’re not ready to take the plunge and prefer to just dip your toes in the water. Moreover, you even get a 14-day money-back guarantee!

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Conclusion

While I’m sure there’s plenty for cash game specialists to take away, the course is focused on tournament players, as illustrated by Fedor talking about situations that are 20, 40, 60, or 100 big blinds deep. The videos are impeccably well-produced and easily navigable. The quizzes at the end give you a good grasp of how well you understand a certain concept and you can always re-watch a video as many times as you’d like to improve further. This poker training course isn’t for everyone, but if you are interested in learning how to play tournament poker at the very best level, you should definitely give Pokercode a try.

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Interview with Matthias Eibinger https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/interview-with-matthias-eibinger/ https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/interview-with-matthias-eibinger/#respond Wed, 06 Nov 2019 18:03:59 +0000 https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/?p=32466 Thereā€™s been a lot of buzz as of late regarding the launch of Pokercode, Fedor Holzā€™s first foray into the world of poker coaching. As Holz is the main face of the product, it makes sense that ā€œDas Wunderkindā€ has gotten much of the press coverage, but heā€™ll also be the first to say that he had a lot of help. While an entire team of people put in loads of effort to create and now promote Pokercode, besides Holz thereā€™s another notable presence: Matthias Eibinger. A high roller with close to $8.5 million in career tournament earnings, Eibingerā€™s no slouch at the tables, but Iā€™m a bit ashamed to admit that I had not heard of him until my recent Pokercode-focused interview with Holz.

In doing my research on him, I was able to uncover a great deal of information as pertains to his on-felt success, but unfortunately very little about the man himself. Just who is this 20-something Austrian who has earned more in live poker tournaments — $8.5 million! — than any of his fellow countrymen?

These are the types of tales weā€™re all about here at Cardplayer Lifestyle, so itā€™s with much gratitude to Matthias for agreeing to this interview that I share his story with you.

Matthias Eibinger

How did you first get exposed to the game of poker and what was it that attracted you about it?

I started playing with friends when I was around 17 years old, just for fun, with no money involved. Right from the start I had lots of fun playing, but I was pretty nervous, even with nothing at stake. So everybody knew immediately if I had a good or bad hand, which made me want to practice the game a little more. I started reading poker books and studying the game on a more serious level and soon figured out that this was actually something that I could really enjoy. I also felt that this kind of poker study could fit my talents of logical thinking and a basic understanding of mathematics as well. Basically, the game just fit me, so that’s how my journey started.

Iā€™ve read that you began playing poker online in April 2011. To most people in the poker world, that time reminds them about only one thing: Black Friday. You donā€™t necessarily have a scale of comparison to before that time, but it would seem in retrospect to be quite the interesting time to begin playing online, no?

I started playing online poker just after Black Friday and I wasnā€™t a winning player by any means. I was just trying out a lot of different formats, playing for really low stakes, and wasnā€™t successful at any of the formats. After a while i found hyper six-max sit-and-gos and immediately fell in love with them. I was able to play these games very focused day and night and got very good at that specific format.

A lot of people were telling me that the player pool was extremely soft before Black Friday, so of course I hoped that stuff like the rec-reg ratio would be better. At that time I didnā€™t know any better, so I just accepted the situation. I made a lot of bad decisions at the beginning bankroll-wise, as everybody does I suppose, so I just learned to really solely focus on myself. Wishing that conditions were as good as before Black Friday or being discouraged by the strong competition isnā€™t going to get you where you want to be. The more you focus on your own game, the more successful you will be, in my opinion.

Pokercode purchase banner

What do you feel were some of your greatest achievements playing online for the first five years of your career, and why?

I think that my biggest achievement was being extremely consistent throughout my poker journey. I started playing $3.50 hyper sit and goes basically by myself. I live in Graz, so I didnā€™t have any poker community like the one in Vienna, but I nonetheless made it up to the highest stakes all alone, sitting at tables online without paying any mind to the line-up.

Aside from that, I also won $100K in a SCOOP tournament, which boosted my bankroll and made things a little easier. Even so, winning a tournament doesnā€™t mean youā€™re a good poker player at all. The constant grind in the hyper sit and gos resulted in me achieving Supernova Elite status five times, which was also a huge achievement back then.

In what ways do you feel the online poker landscape has changed over the course of your career?

In the first few years I really liked the platforms a lot. I was only playing PokerStars and they offered a lot of great things and were liked by all of the players on the site because they were rewarding players who grinded a lot. Nowadays, I have the feeling that all of the sites are just squeezing out every dollar they can. Here and there theyā€™re cutting the rakeback a few percent and increasing the rake a few percent.

In my opinion, the online poker environment isnā€™t as friendly as it used to be to the players, as the sites make it really hard to be profitable. For the best players itā€™s still profitable of course, however, things just aren’t as easy as back in the day.

What did your family think of your career choice to become a professional poker player?

At the beginning, my family didnā€™t know what was going on. They knew that I was playing poker, but mainly as a hobby. So they didnā€™t realize how much time i invested into it at first. For me it was clear that I was going to share it with them as soon as I had some results to demonstrate my consistent winnings and income, so they could actually understand what I was doing.

I really wanted to make sure they understood that I had plan and wasn’t just randomly gambling. After I showed them on paper that what I was doing was serious, they actually were more supportive than I anticipated them to be at the outset. I really felt encouraged by the support my family provided after I shared my passion with them one year into playing poker professionally.

Your HendonMob page lists results going back to June 2016. Describe what it was like for you to transition into playing live poker.

The first time I played a lot of live-poker was in 2015 in Vegas, exclusively playing sit and gos; pretty much just the satellites for the WSOP Main Event and other events. Back then, the difference between playing live vs. online wasnā€™t too big, I just went from playing sit and gos online to playing sit and go- type events live. I did that in 2015 and 2016 and thatā€™s also where my first HendonMob entry came from. I entered the Colossus and tried an MTT for the first time, as well as a couple other tournaments. Itā€™s also worth mentioning, that I really enjoyed the feeling of playing live, talking to other players; just the whole atmosphere.

I would say that the main reason I decided to switch to live poker was that the format I specialized in online was basically dying due to the pretty severe rakeback changes on PokerStars, which were happening around 2016. I decided to transition to MTTs mainly because some of the skills required in sit and goes, like playing short-stacked or endgame theories and ICM situations, are valuable in MTTs as well.

It seems that you exclusively played in three- and four-figure buy-in events from mid-2016 until January 2018. Then, all of a sudden, youā€™ve pretty much exclusively stuck to $10Ks and High Roller events, except for WSOP bracelet events. What made you feel you were ready to make the jump, seemingly so quickly?

I think that this was the right decision for me. After switching to MTTs it was clear to me, that the only acceptable outcome was for me to play the highest stakes in MTTs, like I did in sit and gos. If I was aiming to do that and if I was going to invest a lot of time into it, I have to get to the top.

So what I did was quit poker for roughly six months in 2017 and just study from dawn until dusk. I did still fly to Vegas in the summer though,Ā  order to get used to mid-stakes MTTs and live poker in general. Of course it was also important for me to practice my live game and abilities. While playing in Vegas I didnā€™t feel comfortable enough to tackle the high-stakes games, so thatā€™s why I kept playing $1K and $2K events until I got back home, where I continued studying until the end of the year.

I think that itā€™s also important to mention, that I literally didnā€™t do anything other than studying MTTs. No social gatherings, no parties, not a single day off.

In 2018 I decided that I finally felt ready and comfortable enough to play the high-stakes MTTs. I felt like I was able to compete against the best players in the game, for whom I still have a lot of respect, but itā€™s not like Iā€™m afraid of playing against them anymore.

In 2018 I also got a lot of support from my investors so that I could start playing the 5-figure buy-in events; the $10Ks and the $50Ks. Iā€™m still constantly trying to improve my game and get better and better.

At what point did you first connect with Fedor? Did you two hit it off right away?

The first time I met Fedor was at the beginning of this year at the PokerStars PSPC in the Bahamas. We were playing at the same table and he had a really sick call down purely based on a live read he had on me. Afterwards we went to breakfast together and I had the impression that we got along really well right away. We connected because we had a lot of similar approaches on the game and he also gave me some great advice on improving my live game, which I highly appreciated. Funnily enough, thatā€™s also where we came up with the idea of creating Pokercode, which finally recently became a reality.

Matthias Eibinger Fedor Holz

In what ways do you think you and Fedor have made each other better as players, and how (if at all) is what youā€™ve taught one another reflected in Pokercode?

I certainly do think that we were able to improve each otherā€™s games, since I was very theory-based. I still work with all the solvers and stuff, but Fedor is a fantastic live player with great live-reads and player recognition tendencies. Whenever we talked, we were able to benefit from the otherā€™s opinions and approaches to the game. I really do think that this is reflected in Pokercode.

READ MORE: Pokercode Poker Training Review

We have a lot of different lectures in pre- and post-flop, a section specifically for live-poker and player-adjustments. Both of our specialties are implemented in the course: my theory and point of view as well as Fedorā€™s strong live abilities. Naturally, we continue to work on improving the platform every day, to make it as good as it possibly can be.

When I spoke to Fedor a little while back, he talked to me quite a bit about what Pokercode is all about. What made you decide to get involved in the project with him, and what was the most exciting part of working on it?

We started working on Pokercode in the beginning of 2019 and spent a lot of time throughout the year. The most exciting part of working on Pokercode together was the cooperation among a lot of different people. As I said earlier, in poker I always found my way on my own, but here we have a very cool team. A lot of people were involved in creating the product we are offering now, so it wasnā€™t just Fedor and me; many other people were part of the entire exciting process as well.

Way back in the day, Doyle Brunson was the first to ā€œreveal his secretsā€ when he came out with Super System and he was widely criticized by his peers. We now live in an age where thereā€™s tons of poker knowledge out there, and with so many people studying the game every edge has the potential to make a huge difference. What is it that specifically makes you feel comfortable sharing your secrets with the poker world via Pokercode?

I think that when the first comprehensive book with poker strategy advice was released, it was quite a different situation. Now thereā€™s so much content out there available for everyone to learn from. Itā€™s not like releasing one product is going to be a huge game changer in terms of making the competition better. My goal was always to provide a platform for people who want to improve that they can really love. When you get such great feedback, it makes you want to work even harder because itā€™s an enormous motivational boost. I really feel like I have improved as a person through this whole process as well.

In your opinion, what separates Pokercode from all of the other poker training products out there? What makes it unique?

What makes Pokercode unique is the product as a whole. What I mean by that is that we offer 60 lectures with the goal of guiding the user through the game. In the video series we start with pre-and post-flop, then blind versus blind, 3-bet pots and then get to ICM and live games. So we really cover a lot in the video series alone.

On top of that, we provide a community for our users, where they have their questions answered by a hired coach, but Fedor and I are also actively trying to give advice and continuous support regarding specific problems our users have. Of course we have more ideas for the community, on which we are working on a daily basis.

What’s more, the production value of our videos was immensely heightened by the professional team we hired to make it as user-friendly as possible. Combining all of these elements into one product is what makes Pokercode a unique experience for every single one of our users.

Matthias Eibinger Fedor Holz

How would you classify the difference in the playing competition, generally speaking, in four-figure buy-in events versus High Roller tournaments? What are the types of things that players at the highest levels are just plain better at?

The difference between players of 4-figure buy-ins and players of the highest stakes is evident in pretty much every aspect of the game. Adjusting to different players is a huge deal, as well as adjusting to recreational players. On average, a high roller player will find the better adjustments. In terms of “regular” knowledge vs. GTO knowledge of how to play versus very good regs, high roller players will usually have the higher quality, broader knowledge in this area. On the whole, the highest stakes players just perform better on many different levels.

Youā€™re only in your mid-20s. Youā€™ve got your whole life ahead of you. Have you given any thought to long-term goals that youā€™d like to achieve at poker beyond continuing to perform well and win big?

If IĀ“m being honest, currently i am putting my mind to being present in the moment and working on a lot of different parts of my game. ThatĀ“s why I don’t have a clear vision of how my life will look like after poker. With that said, I always wanted to do something that would create positivity and that will help other people. A lot of the high rollers are already donating a percentage of their winnings to charity, and this is certainly something I am interested in doing as well if the next few months and years work out well.

Right now, IĀ“m really happy with the job I have, mainly because I value the independence it gives me a lot. I am my own boss, you know. So, I am the one who decides how IĀ“m going to spend my day and thatĀ“s a great thing to be able to enjoy. IĀ“m sure that there are a lot of awesome opportunities and adventures coming my way. IĀ“m really excited about that.

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