Chasing Poker Greatness

Middle pocket pairs are somewhat of an imperfect science in the never-frustrating game of No Limit Texas Holdem. Pocket Nines are specifically right on that borderline of a great starting hand preflop, but... how them nines look after all 5 community cards come out? Jon's back this week with just such situations for our collective poker study -- three of them, to be exact. While he's still in reco...

The first step toward solving a problem is admitting that you have one. We don't know when it got out of control, or why we didn't stage an intervention sooner, but Jon and his flush draw fetish have finally reached a breaking point. We've since taken away the keys to his Ignition (account) and forced him to seek help for this addiction. Please help us help Jon in Tactical Tuesday 131... As a remi...

"Ace King is just a drawing hand" they said... but WTF does that even mean? And try telling that to a Fish. Jon is back this week, desperately pleading with Coach Brad to help him off the ledge as he finds himself playing for stacks with everyone's favorite Ace High hand. Should he have folded preflop? Should he call down when things go sideways? Are we supposed to answer a question with a questio...

In celebration of the launch of CPG's Live Cash Preflop Bootcamp, Tactical Tuesday is all about live cash poker this week... Decidedly high stakes live cash poker... for (in Dr. Evil's voice) one MILLION dollars. Hustler Casino Live played host to quite the hand recently, featuring live cash poker legends Tom Dwan and Doug Polk. Having played a little bit of live cash poker themselves, Coach Brad...

We've finally found an offramp from value betting month here at Chasing Poker Greatness, but is it possible that Jon's only transitioning to bluffcatching mode because it's an even thinner way to battle for stacks in the online cash poker streets? With 3 hands to review, does Coach Brad go 3/3 in disagreeing with Jon's decisions to bluff catch for many online dollars? Let's catch around and find o...

Yes, it's another episode on theme for value betting month at CPG. But this time it's with a twist -- Jon's been in the lab digging deeper into the data... mixing chemicals in beakers and doing things with Bunson burners and he's emerged from these possibly unethical experiments with the discovery of a new weapon for his arsenal that he's been irresponsibly deploying out in the field: the fabled B...

In what is becoming quite the theme / cry-for-help lately, Jon has returned with... Jack Deuce suited (?) to find out if he is still addicted to value betting too thinly. Obviously the answer is yes, but to what degree? What sizing should he find on the river on equity-shifting runouts? Coach Brad intervenes to make sense of it all as Tactical Tuesday brings 3 hands containing more thin value bett...

Welcome friends, enemies, and frienemies, to this week’s episode of Tactical Tuesday, in which we evaluate thin value betti—… actually, no. We’re just punting out here. Come and watch the carnage. But as part of any responsible poker player’s session postmortem, at least we’re finding out just where it all went wrong. And so we turn to GTO Wizard to evaluate just how thin is too thin, and we get a...

Jumping back and forth from dimension to dimension isn’t easy on a man’s mental state. After months in the cushy, money-printing live cash streets of Las Vegas, Jon Chai has foolishly navigated back to the lawless, degenerate, soulless pit of online poker and it’s been... very hard to keep sane in this new harsh reality. And so we’ve called in our last hope, Witch Doctor Coach Brad Wilson, to do d...

Four liners to a straight... it's the stuff of nightmares when you're the type of insane asylum escapee who calls large river bets from a "reg" with a flopped bottom pair in a 4-Bet pot. Yes, we're talking about poker pro Jon Chai and his epic quest to bluffcatch every villain on God's green earth with the slimmest of holdings. We've got 3 hands this week after a brief hiatus last week... are we g...

The CPG podcast has returned for an interview with ACR Team Pro and Twitch streamer Michael Loncar, and what a story he has to tell. From the humble beginnings of playing on his dad’s online account before the Moneymaker boom, to dropping out of college to play poker full-time and live the cliché of winning at the tables and blowing it all the same night… it’s a tour de force of bankroll mismanage...

The Stand Up Game... Where did it come from? Why is it a thing? The answers to those questions don’t matter, but the strategy behind playing it sure does. We didn’t aim to release the first Stand Up Game strategy guide, but it’s possible we just did? Jon somehow got himself into a very interesting spot where he was heads up with the last remaining “stander”, and things get complicated right quick...

Donk bets…. A scourge to online poker, and to humanity as a whole. What motivates a Fish and/or Reg to dabble in these dark arts? We’ll, we don’t really know. Frankly we don’t want to know. It’s a market we can do without. But what we do know is the data behind donk bets. You’ve probably heard Coach Brad nag us for years now about NUFFLE, NUTTLE, and NURRLE… these are the courses developed from Ma...

No need to check your audio device for potential defects -- we can confirm that Jon is indeed bluffing... small (?) on the river this week. These spots do exist, we're told, but where are they? And how often does the small size bluff actually get through? Poker pro Jon Chai and Coach Brad Wilson are back this week, and with yet again more than 2 hands to review. It's Tactical Tuesday 120... go sma...

LEAKED CLASSIFIED WOLF STRATS INCOMING on this episode of Tactical Tuesday, in which Jon has been sweatin' to the Solvers with the CPG Wolves CFP elite to develop a Bet / 3-Bet strategy postflop for when these clown world villains try raising our flop bets. Doing his best to further desensitize the entire poker world to the significance of the all-in bet, Jon has brought FIVE hands (I know; this i...

This week Duncan has the pleasure to have an in depth conversation with our very own Peter Bermingham about his experiences as a correctional officer. What are some facts and misconceptions about prison life and what does it teach us about poker? Tune in until the end for Peter's incredible insight on how to deal with toxic environments and mental issues that could be exacerbated as a result. If y...

Jon continues to slave away in the 500 Zoom mines as part of his CPG Wolves R&D, and he's emerged from those murky depths with triple the amount of our normal haul of hands for review. Sometimes he has a pair, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he has thick value, sometimes he has garbage air bluffs. Is this... balance?? [butterflymeme.jpg] Let's see if Coach Brad can make any sense of it. Welcom...

Be sure to get a free poker course in the description! So Jon's been hard at work in the lab doing 500NL Zoom Play & Explain videos for the CPG Wolves Coaching For Profit poker stable, and he's selected two spicy hands for us to review before we get into the main course, which is a live cash hand he played at pretty high stakes. But he has Aces, so everything should work out fine. Welcome to T...

This week Peter and Duncan have the pleasure to talk to clinical and sports psychologist Dr. Micheal J. Whitman who adds incredible insight on a variety of poker and sports related topics such as: competition, disruptive behavior, dealing with downswings/adversity, growth and many others. Dr Michael has been practicing psychotherapy for over 20 years ( https://www.drmichaelwhitman.com/ ). When he...

When you’re in the midst of a bit of a downswing, well, nobody ever got out of it by folding, did they? That’s where Jon’s head is at the week as he tries to pry victory from the jaws of negative variance by considering a big call with a great bluff catcher in one instance, and then deciding to turn yet another pair into a bluff in another. Welcome to Tactical Tuesday 116 on YouTube dot com, frien...

This week Duncan is joined by Martin Harris (@hardboiledpoker), a fellow academic who writes about popular culture, literature, horror film, and poker. How does poker represent American culture in the best and the worst way possible? What do people often get wrong about poker culture? What makes for a good poker scene in film, and how are dreadful poker sessions related to horror films? Join us to...

Free poker course details in the description! Jon's back again this week, showing massive dedication calling in from the road with some great teachable spots in thin value betting. But how thin is too thin? As always, Coach Brad brings the sobriety and we reset the clock until next week. Welcome to Tactical Tuesday 115, where we're playing online poker and making friends along the way. The first p...

This week Andrew Brokos (@thinkingpoker) is back on the podcast to engage in a conversation with Peter and Duncan on a wide range of topics including his impressive 2nd place finish on ACR's main event that attracted 1600 people. The trio also explores meaningful charity, good intentions in problem solving and exposure to different and potentially uncomfortable ideas. Andrew is the author of over...

Check the description below for a free poker course! This week's episode is a masterclass in skepticism, as we join Jon amidst his online poker exploits for a pair of hands in which he's faced with bets across multiple streets but fails to connect with the board. "Bluff catching without a pair" is not for the faint of heart, as we'll soon see. So what's a young crusher to do when the dealer won't...

Peter and Duncan are joined by the very articulate Ben Kushigian to discuss all things technology when it comes to poker. What are some limitations and dangers of our current available software and what areas can we hope to get meaningful improvements in the future? Ben (@ben_kushigian) is a computer science PhD candidate at the University of Washington who is currently interested in using and imp...