Seminal Deuces Cracked Series

Matt VIP• 8,059 Views • on 3/2/17

In this article we're going to take a look at some of the seminal video series from one of the oldest poker training websites out there - Deuces Cracked.

In the ever-expanding field of poker education, a year seems like an eternity which makes it very easy to disregard the past. In some poker formats, dominant strategies become obsolete in a matter of months and in order to stay ahead of the opposition we're forced to constantly learn and improve our strategy.

At the same time, poker education is not just about "what" to think but also "how" to think and while the former is best learned from up to date videos and articles, the latter - not necessarily so. While the betting patterns presented in old books and videos might be suboptimal in the current environment, the way authors and instructors thought about poker might be far superior in the materials from a few years back to anything that's available on the market today.

That's why in this article we're going to take a look at some of the seminal video series from one of the oldest poker training websites out there - Deuces Cracked.

The Thin Red Line

This series took the poker world by storm. Back in the day beating micros and advancing to the low stakes was far easier because while the recipe of thin value betting your way through the limits was as true then as it is today, a much softer field made the process a lot faster.

As a result, NL100-200 were full of regulars with a solid tight-aggressive, value betting oriented game, until Deuces Cracked coach Grindcore showed the poker world how easy it was to exploit this ridiculously unbalanced filed. The Thin Red Line was about going beyond the mindset of relying on the strategy that 'works', and trying to answer the question 'why' said strategy works.

Grindcore is the granddaddy of modern, tough, aggressive, and highly competitive low and mid stakes games that we all know today.

The Coaching Tree

Speaking of "thin value-betting your way through the limits" The Coaching Tree and it's author Andrew "Balugawhale" Seidman offered precisely that solution to the problems many micro stakes players still face today.

While it can be argued that "Balughawhale's" view on poker presented in the series was extremely reductionist ("isolate the weak players and thin value bet as often as you can") it was also exactly what the entire generation of beginner regs needed at the time. There's a reason why "Baluga Theorem" is still applicable today.

Urging players not to level themselves when playing against a recreational opponent is just as important now as it was almost a decade ago.

Andrew Seidman was amazing at teaching solid fundamentals and while some betting patterns and ideas presented in The Coaching Tree failed to age gracefully, the overarching theme of making money via exploiting the loose-passive opponents is still extremely valuable in the context of modern micro stakes games.

If you're a beginner player struggling to understand the correct approach to exploiting the recreational opponents, watching The Coaching Tree might be better for you than any contemporary video series.

The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment

When it comes to video series that aged gracefully The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment by Tommy Angelo and Wayne Lively is akin to a fine wine. The series has as much if not more value in 2017 than it had almost a decade ago. In a highly competitive world of online poker, it's important to care not only about the quality of your betting patterns but also about your mindset.

The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment borrows a bit from the concept of Noble Eightfold Path that we know from Buddhism and offers listeners a comprehensive guide on how to make our minds better at dealing with the volatile and pain inducing nature of short term poker results. The broad approach to dealing with issues by way of mindfulness is very powerful and can also be applied to our life outside of poker.

Lastly, the series is very entertaining to listen to largely due to the humorous dynamic between Tommy Angelo and Wayne Lively.

Dog is Heads Up

While the strategy component of the Dog is Heads Up series is now largely irrelevant due to the fact that seating scripts made heads up cash games very unattractive for recreational players, this series is about so much more than just what hands to play and how to play them. The Dog is Heads Up deals with many advanced concepts and metagame aspects of poker like the role of language in our education which is not exactly a subject many other poker related materials explore.

Dogishead points out how easy it is to fall back on imprecise statement's like "I'm bluffing here because it's a good spot" or various mantras ("If you call the turn you have to call the river") and exposes how harmful they are when it comes to actually understanding poker. Where The Coaching Tree might seem reductionist Dog is Heads Up takes a more holistic approach to teaching how to think about poker.

It's a fascinating series that can help many of us become better at playing and learning poker even in 2017.

If you're in the mood for a little blast from the past, you're curious about poker history and you want to gain some more insight about poker from studying it, the video series mentioned above are among the best ever created. Instead of picking up another "monster of the week" TV show you might want to consider spending a few nights with The Thin Red Line or The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment.

The entertainment value might prove to be similar, and you'll definitely learn a thing or two about poker.

Seminal Deuces Cracked Series

The Thin Red Line

The Coaching Tree

The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment

Dog is Heads Up

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