Progressive knockout tournaments (PKOs) represent an interesting niche within the large MTT group. To play them well, you first need to have a very solid general understanding of MTTs, then you need to understand the bounty format at large, and finally adjust your play for the fact that bounties aren't static but they change as the event progresses.
The Bounty Beast course by Raise Your Edge represents one of the first courses to particularly address progressive knockouts. Presented by 'Bencb789', the head coach at RYE, and 'w3c.RaY', an excellent player and a theoretical physicist with a passion for stats and numbers, the Bounty Beast course provides all the answers you need if you want to achieve success in this particular format.
Because of all these moving parts, bounty builders aren't the simplest format to master. At the same time, they provide excellent opportunities for those who take the time and effort to master them as there is a lot of money to be won in PKOs.
The Bounty Beast course by Raise Your Edge represents one of the first courses to particularly address progressive knockouts. Presented by 'Bencb789', the head coach at RYE, and 'w3c.RaY', an excellent player and a theoretical physicist with a passion for stats and numbers, the Bounty Beast course provides all the answers you need if you want to achieve success in this particular format.
Fedor Holz Poker Course Review
The course was initially launched in 2018 but given the fact things change to rather quickly in the poker world, it has been since updated with new content. Inside, you'll find many sections that contain fresh videos alongside 'legacy' lessons addressing the same topics.
- Poker coaching is a serious matter, and finding the right program for you isn't always easy. That's why we reviewed all the most popular poker coaching and poker training sites.
- The ‘poker university' course is included in all of the monthly, quarterly and yearly plans which, though not cheap, are excellent value if you are an MTT fanatic. For overall online MTT training content, and impressively sleek design, it's difficult to see past Tournament Edge Poker – the editor's choice for the tournament buff.
You should probably take time to go through all of them if you really want to take full advantage of 9+ hours of the materials found inside. That said, newer videos present fresh approaches to various subjects, which have been proven to work better than the ones discussed in legacy lessons. This doesn't mean that the legacy content is bad, though. It just goes to show that the learning process never ends in poker, even if you're very good at what you do.
Table Of Contents
- Bounty Beast Course Structure
A Note On Raise Your Edge's Poker Training
There are over 103 poker training sites live on the internet right now (yes, I counted them all) and so there is a huge selection to choose from. Out of all of these training sites, I ranked Raise Your Edge as my #1 poker training resource in 2020, so I am a huge fan of their content, including the Bounty Beast course.
If you would like more information on the best training sites on the market today, make sure you check out that page here.
Bounty Beast at a Glance
As mentioned, the RYE Bounty Beast course contains more than nine hours of video lessons addressing various important topics that will be discussed in more detail later in this review. In addition to these lessons, you'll also find useful sheets, HUDs, and instructional videos to help you with the tools such as Holdem Resources Calculator (HRC) and ICMIZER.
Knowing how to use these tools is essential to anyone looking to master PKOs and this knowledge is essential to properly review your own hands and analyze different situations away from the tables.
What's very important to understand about the Bounty Beast course is that this isn't a general MTT course. Even creators themselves will warn you about it in the introduction video. Materials contained inside aren't meant for someone who doesn't already have a solid grasp of poker theory.
If you were to buy this course without a good understanding of fundamental concepts such as hand ranges, equities, and such, you'd have very little use of it and would have hard time keeping up. It is designed specifically to improve your play in PKOs and starts with the idea that you're already a somewhat solid tournament player.
The final note from Bencb789 and w3c.RaY is to stay open-minded. There are many theories and ideas about PKOs and not all of them are correct. To make most out of the knowledge provided inside, you should be able to give up on some of these ideas and correct your views. This shouldn't be too hard to do given the fact even the creators themselves were more than happy to revise some of their lessons and offer new strategies, admitting some of their suggestions weren't optimal (thus some videos were turned into 'legacy').
Content Guideline
The second video in the Introduction section is well worth watching before you move on to the actual meat and potatoes of the Bounty Beast course. The video contains guidelines on how to take full advantage of the course and also provides information about updates that have been introduced since the course first came out.
This video will also give you a quick overview of what you'll find along the way. It provides a quick breakdown of things discussed in the course, such as:
- Achieving the right mindset, i.e. accepting that you have to put in a lot of work to be good in PKOs, which includes making numerous adjustments your opening and 3-betting ranges.
- Dealing with bounties, i.e. learning to quickly figure out how much the bounty is worth in real-time. You'll learn about different approaches that exist and which ones work best.
- Other important considerations. How big of an impact do bounties have on a final table of an MTT? How to properly think about bounties and how things start to change when you get onto the final table?
Finally, you'll get a set of tips and tricks on how to go through the lessons in the most efficient way. There is a lot of content to consume and a lot of it is pretty hardcore math stuff and formulae. You should take your time, make notes, and let things really sink in before moving on.
Bounty Beast Course Structure
The course is split into several main sections, which are further broken down into smaller groups. As mentioned, this isn't a general MTT course so you will find very little of the general stuff in there. The bulk of the content is focused on progressive knockouts and adjustments needed to thrive in this particular format.
The Math
The first set of lessons focuses on mathematical aspects of MTTs and PKOs. In these lessons, you'll find the information about how to correctly value bounties in these tournaments and how things change as an event progresses. Due to the nature of PKOs, the bounty pool decreases as more players bust out, which calls for strategy adjustments.
Using programs such as HRC, ICMIZER, and KOculator, the course provides various examples of situations where adjustments need to be made. In this section, you'll also find a great number of formulae that describe the math behind these adjustments.
This isn't the most exciting content out there but it is very important. To understand why PKOs are different from regular MTTs, it is essential to understand how two separate prize pools work together. The only way to do this is by using somewhat complex calculations.
As an added benefit, you'll also learn about pros and cons of these different software solutions. All three programs have their use in terms of figuring out PKO adjustments but they also have certain limitations. Understanding what these are will help you determine what program to use in different spots for your own studying.
This section also covers two very important topics that are essential to any MTT player, not just to someone playing PKOs: ICM and money bubbles.
Although the course is designed in a way that it doesn't spend too much time on things that you should already know, the topic of ICM is explained very well. Even if you're new to this concept, you'll be able to understand it fully just from watching these videos.
The first couple of lessons address the influence of ICM and the bubble factor in general. In every tournament, ICM plays an important role in the decision making processes as it influences hand ranges quite significantly. Only after going through the fundamentals, the course moves on to the specifics of ICM in PKOs.
Using several examples and going back to the things discussed in earlier videos, the course focuses on ICM adjustments that come into play in PKOs. It teaches you how to correctly add bounties to the ICMIZER to get correct results and come up with appropriate ranges.
Differences in Bounty Tournaments
After dealing with the math, the second part of the course focuses on differences between regular and bounty tournaments. By going through some interesting scenarios, you'll learn about how things change, especially as the tournament progresses and you reach the final table.
One topic that's discussed at length is the situation where only bounties are left to play for. This isn't too uncommon as players might deal for the regular prize pool and then continue to play only for bounties. This takes away the ICM pressure so it may not be in your best interest if you're up against weaker players who could otherwise play too tight.
Another important topic discussed in this section touches upon some of the common leaks and mistakes in PKOs. Players who aren't experienced with progressive bounties often tend to have certain misconceptions about these tournaments, leading them to make errors such as playing too tight early on and loosening up on the final table.
There is a seemingly reasonable explanation for these mistakes as bounties get bigger on the final table. However, the total bounty pool is actually smaller and your chips have their own value derived from the regular prize pool. So, you'll learn a lot about why these misconceptions can have a very bad effect on your bottom line and how to get out of that mind frame.
Practical Hands
Like the title of this section suggests, this is where the Raise Your Edge Bounty Beast course moves away from pure theory and addresses some practical hands and scenarios. If you've kept up with the theory this far, these hands represent an excellent opportunity to get things to really sink in.
Mmasherdog Poker Course Review
Some of the topics particularly addressed in these lessons are preflop all-ins, adapting your 3-bet ranges, and open jamming.
All three of these areas require certain adjustments in PKOs. Using the same ranges you would in regular MTTs will usually be a mistake. Free slot machines with bonus rounds no downloads. You need to account for the fact players will be widening their calling ranges as they're going after bounties, there will be more pots going multiway, and certain hands that may be good 3-betting or jamming candidates in a regular MTT may not play well in PKOs at all.
Multiway
The final set of lessons of the Bounty Builder course addresses play in multiway pots, more precisely multiway scenarios involving all-ins. It probably comes as no surprise that these scenarios require certain adjustments as players have much more incentive to get involved in all-in pots in PKOs. Unlike regular MTTs, knocking out a player comes with an additional cash prize, which is something you need to account for in your decisions.
Tool Usage & Bonus
As mentioned in the introduction, the course also offers a number of resources to help you with your future studying. In this section, you'll find several lessons explaining how to best use tools such as HRC, how to spot and fix any leaks you might have, and more.
You'll also get a ready-made RYE HUD that you can download and import with no additional effort, which will be useful for all tournaments, not just PKOs. There is also a lengthy PDF file that contains all the PKO math stuff explained in the videos. Since this is probably the most complex part of the entire course, having a readable version you can refer to as well is quite useful.
Final Verdict: Is RYE Bounty Beast Worth Buying?
There isn't too much content out there addressing progressive knockout tournaments specifically. The Bounty Beast course is one of the rare resources that target this specific niche and does a very good job at it.
That said, you need to keep in mind that this can be quite an intensive course at times.
There is a lot of math and theory involved and if you want to make most out of it, you'll need to invest time and effort to understand the formulae and really come to terms with them. This isn't a general MTT course and its real value is hidden exactly in these sometimes complicated explanations of differences you need to understand and adopt.
The Bounty Beast course retails at $997 but you can get $200 off using coupon code HOWTOKO at checkout – $797 for a course which has this much novel content is a very good deal.
If you are into PKOs as it is or see this format as something you really want to try, then this is definitely an excellent course for you and the money spent will be well worth it. But don't go into it thinking you'll find a lot of general MTT strategy inside, because you won't. if you're struggling with basic concepts such as opening and 3-betting ranges, you're better off starting with a more general tournament course.
Once you have your fundamentals sorted out and are ready to conquer PKOs, though, go for it. You won't regret it.
If you're looking for a good theoretical poker course that's not too complicated but presents an effective and manageable approach to the game, SplitSuits' The One Percent might just be the answer.
The course itself contains ten video lessons and a bonus video with questions and answers. It is taught by James 'SplitSuit' Sweeney but it's not something he came up on his own. Instead, it is a course based on Ed Miller's book of the same name.
The way Sweeney envisioned his The One Percent course is for it to act as a companion of sorts for those who read the poker book on this topic. Although you can get a lot of great information from the videos alone, it works best if you actually watch it after reading the book or combine the book with video lessons.
The course itself presents an interesting and unique approach to poker in general. It isn't focused on any particular segment (cash games, tournaments, sit and go's, etc.). Ideas and concepts discussed inside can be applied to all forms of Hold'em games.
Table Of Contents
So, What is The One Percent All About?
When you observe poker from a theoretical point of view, there are different ways you can approach it. The one presented in the book and in the course is based on frequencies. This may suggest that this is a GTO course but it is not. While it is based on statistical and mathematical models, The One Percent presents ideas that are simpler to understand and easier to implement in your sessions while still helping you significantly improve your play.
When you play poker, certain things happen over and over again. You raise before the flop, you c-bet the flop, you're faced with a 3-bet, etc. There are many such occurrences in poker and the strategy presented in this course revolves around understanding how often they happen and how you can respond to them accordingly.
While this is definitely a math-based course, Sweeney has done a great job introducing many examples (both from the book and fresh ones) to help learners visualize the stuff that are being discussed. This helps make the course much easier to keep up with and make most out of.
What's Wrong With Your Current Strategy?
The first video in The One Percent series deals with the very concept of frequencies and how you can use these to improve your game. It's not just about recognizing these frequencies in your opponents. It is equally as important to look for them in your own play and fix any issues you come across along the way.
As SplitSuit explains, concepts in this course apply to tough and fishy games alike. While there may be different frequencies to look out for in different types of games, there are always certain things that you can recognize and take advantage of.
He gives a couple of examples that are quite common, especially in lower stakes games:
- Slot machiner – players that get involved with too many hands before the flop trying to hit a miracle hand and get paid.
- The TAG – players sticking to a very simple strategy of playing just good hands and giving up when faced with too much heat if they don't have the goods.
The course uses these two examples to further break down the strategy. You can easily adjust to both of these types by following two simple rules:
- You should usually continue when your opponents bet
- When you bet on one street, you should usually bet on the next street
These rules make sense to some degree, but the question becomes – what does usually mean here? How do you turn the verbal expression into an actual number?
Presenting the New Approach
In the second video, Sweeney continues to expand on the strategic approach presented in The One Percent. After providing some general ideas about frequencies and how to use these to plan your strategy, this lesson starts to build an actual mathematical model that can be implemented into your game.
In this lesson, you'll learn how the 70% model works in practice. It is founded on the idea that you should be continuing with about 70% of your range on every street. At the first glance, it may sound confusing and even fishy. However, after watching the video and seeing the visual representation of the model in the form of a pyramid, you'll start to understand what it's alla bout.
The video also explains how you can take advantage and exploit those players who don't adhere to the model. You'll notice how the edges of the pyramid become jagged for these players, leaving them vulnerable. If, for example, they're folding too much on a particular street, you can bluff them with impunity. If they're taking close to 100% of their turn range to the showdown, you can be much more liberal with your value bets.
Expanding the Fundamentals
The first two videos focus on the basics of the idea and the fundamental underlying model. However, so far in the course, all examples suppose there is no initiative change at any point during a hand. This isn't how things actually work in poker, though. Initiative often changes and the aggressor can easily become the defender and vice-versa.
SplitSuit addresses this very important topic in detail using the same fundamental principles already explained in the course. He explains how it is important to build your range in a way that you have two pyramids for two different scenarios. In the event the initiative changes, you want to have another pyramid ready but built in a way that allows you to stick to the 70% model.
The way to achieve this is through the balance. You don't want all your strong hands in one pyramid and all your weaker hands in the other. This will make it very hard to continue on the later streets. Instead, you need to mix things up so to keep both of them well-balanced.
This may seem complex and it is to some degree. However, things are made easier to understand through some examples. Additionally, Sweeney emphasizes the importance of understanding the overarching idea of these principles. If you can do this, the rest will fall in place on its own as you play more hands and analyze your play by applying these principles.
It's important to mention that Sweeney admits this isn't the optimal strategy that you must adhere to 100% of the time. It is envisioned as a solid foundation that you can always revert back to in tough spots. Of course, you can and should adjust your play according to particular circumstances.
Practical Application
This video takes everything that's been discussed thus far in The One Percent course and tries to put it in a more concrete framework. If you aren't too experienced of a player, you might be wondering what does this 70% even mean.
You'll get your answers in this video.
Using several examples, SplitSuit explains with how many hands you should be continuing with and this may feel fishy at first. There are some hands that you'll see that you might never consider in certain spots. But that's the whole point of this course.
The idea of The One Percent is to teach you that you don't want to be giving up on too many hands too easily. This will make you much harder to play against and will turn you into a much more profitable player.
And if you're wondering how this makes you any different than a fishy player who almost never folds, Sweeney offers a very good explanation for this as well. By building a solid starting range and not getting involved with trash hands to begin with, you're creating a situation where you can actually adhere to the 70% model and be right most of the time. Bad players get involved with all sorts of random hands and that's where they make a cardinal mistake that leads them down the rabbit hole.
Balancing Out Bluffs & Value Bets
When you find yourself up against good players, you can expect they'll be paying a close attention to what you're doing and adjust their play accordingly. So, to avoid becoming transparent and ensure you're not the one being exploited, you need to find a good balance between your value bets and bluffs.
Once again, the answer to this problem is found in frequencies.
In this video, Sweeney provides some solid numbers you can use as a baseline for your bluff vs. value bet ratio. He also explains how to build your ranges and polarize them more as you move on to the later streets.
Spotting & Exploiting Frequent Errors
One of the biggest advantages of adopting the approach presented in The One Percent resides with the fact that most players don't really understand frequencies. Many of them make certain mistakes over and over again and this video provides some of the most common situations where frequency errors occur, such as:
- Static high card flops
- River raising
- Small sizes
- Top pair scenarios
- Monotone boards
SplitSuit goes through each of these scenarios and explains the main reasons behind mistakes. This is one of the better videos in the whole series as it will help you put things into perspective and give you a chance to figure out if you're the one making mistakes in some of these situations.
You'll also be given tools to fix these mistakes and take advantage of them when you recognize them in other players. This knowledge should put you well ahead a large percentage of the players in almost all games.
Learning to Recognize Key Events
Several times throughout the series you'll hear the frequencies explained in the lessons are to be used as a baseline but you are supposed to deviate from them every now and then. If you were wondering how to recognize the spots where you should adjust your play, this video provides an in-depth explanation.
Sweeney breaks all possible events at a poker table into three main categories:
- Non-events, common, normal events that don't really call for any changes
- Bad events – something happening that you don't want to – i.e. button calling your raise instead of going HU vs. blinds (calling for lowering the frequencies)
- Good event – such as favorable flop texture –where you should increase your frequencies
Recognizing these events is very important. However, it is even more important to be able to plan for them ahead of time. This, of course, takes some time and practice, but once you are able to do it, you'll be able to plan your entire hand even before any of these events actually happen.
Thinking in Terms of Frequencies
All of the ideas discussed so far are relevant with regards to hands you actually choose. The One Percent course is focused on wider ideas so you aren't given exact hand charts to follow. Instead, it encourages you to think in broader terms.
In this particular video, you'll learn how to think about hands from the frequency perspective. It will open your eyes to some possibilities you may not have been aware of and it may even help dispel some myths about bluffing and value betting in certain spots.
Raising & Dealing with Raises
The final two videos in the Red Chip Poker The One Percent series deal with raises. These lessons discuss situations where you should consider raising instaead of calling as well as those spots where you bet and are faced with a raise.
The basic strategy starts from the main principle of making sure you're continuing often enough (i.e. 70%). From there on, you can start thinking about how to build your raising ranges and your defending ranges in the spots where you're the one facing the raise.
Like the rest of the series, these two videos come up with some ideas that may seem strange at first. Overall ranges that Sweeney suggests may seem way too wide in certain spots but if you've been keeping up with the materials discussed up to this point, you'll understand where these ideas come from and why they work.
How To Get The One Percent Course
You can pick up the One Percent course in two ways:
Finally, you'll get a set of tips and tricks on how to go through the lessons in the most efficient way. There is a lot of content to consume and a lot of it is pretty hardcore math stuff and formulae. You should take your time, make notes, and let things really sink in before moving on.
Bounty Beast Course Structure
The course is split into several main sections, which are further broken down into smaller groups. As mentioned, this isn't a general MTT course so you will find very little of the general stuff in there. The bulk of the content is focused on progressive knockouts and adjustments needed to thrive in this particular format.
The Math
The first set of lessons focuses on mathematical aspects of MTTs and PKOs. In these lessons, you'll find the information about how to correctly value bounties in these tournaments and how things change as an event progresses. Due to the nature of PKOs, the bounty pool decreases as more players bust out, which calls for strategy adjustments.
Using programs such as HRC, ICMIZER, and KOculator, the course provides various examples of situations where adjustments need to be made. In this section, you'll also find a great number of formulae that describe the math behind these adjustments.
This isn't the most exciting content out there but it is very important. To understand why PKOs are different from regular MTTs, it is essential to understand how two separate prize pools work together. The only way to do this is by using somewhat complex calculations.
As an added benefit, you'll also learn about pros and cons of these different software solutions. All three programs have their use in terms of figuring out PKO adjustments but they also have certain limitations. Understanding what these are will help you determine what program to use in different spots for your own studying.
This section also covers two very important topics that are essential to any MTT player, not just to someone playing PKOs: ICM and money bubbles.
Although the course is designed in a way that it doesn't spend too much time on things that you should already know, the topic of ICM is explained very well. Even if you're new to this concept, you'll be able to understand it fully just from watching these videos.
The first couple of lessons address the influence of ICM and the bubble factor in general. In every tournament, ICM plays an important role in the decision making processes as it influences hand ranges quite significantly. Only after going through the fundamentals, the course moves on to the specifics of ICM in PKOs.
Using several examples and going back to the things discussed in earlier videos, the course focuses on ICM adjustments that come into play in PKOs. It teaches you how to correctly add bounties to the ICMIZER to get correct results and come up with appropriate ranges.
Differences in Bounty Tournaments
After dealing with the math, the second part of the course focuses on differences between regular and bounty tournaments. By going through some interesting scenarios, you'll learn about how things change, especially as the tournament progresses and you reach the final table.
One topic that's discussed at length is the situation where only bounties are left to play for. This isn't too uncommon as players might deal for the regular prize pool and then continue to play only for bounties. This takes away the ICM pressure so it may not be in your best interest if you're up against weaker players who could otherwise play too tight.
Another important topic discussed in this section touches upon some of the common leaks and mistakes in PKOs. Players who aren't experienced with progressive bounties often tend to have certain misconceptions about these tournaments, leading them to make errors such as playing too tight early on and loosening up on the final table.
There is a seemingly reasonable explanation for these mistakes as bounties get bigger on the final table. However, the total bounty pool is actually smaller and your chips have their own value derived from the regular prize pool. So, you'll learn a lot about why these misconceptions can have a very bad effect on your bottom line and how to get out of that mind frame.
Practical Hands
Like the title of this section suggests, this is where the Raise Your Edge Bounty Beast course moves away from pure theory and addresses some practical hands and scenarios. If you've kept up with the theory this far, these hands represent an excellent opportunity to get things to really sink in.
Mmasherdog Poker Course Review
Some of the topics particularly addressed in these lessons are preflop all-ins, adapting your 3-bet ranges, and open jamming.
All three of these areas require certain adjustments in PKOs. Using the same ranges you would in regular MTTs will usually be a mistake. Free slot machines with bonus rounds no downloads. You need to account for the fact players will be widening their calling ranges as they're going after bounties, there will be more pots going multiway, and certain hands that may be good 3-betting or jamming candidates in a regular MTT may not play well in PKOs at all.
Multiway
The final set of lessons of the Bounty Builder course addresses play in multiway pots, more precisely multiway scenarios involving all-ins. It probably comes as no surprise that these scenarios require certain adjustments as players have much more incentive to get involved in all-in pots in PKOs. Unlike regular MTTs, knocking out a player comes with an additional cash prize, which is something you need to account for in your decisions.
Tool Usage & Bonus
As mentioned in the introduction, the course also offers a number of resources to help you with your future studying. In this section, you'll find several lessons explaining how to best use tools such as HRC, how to spot and fix any leaks you might have, and more.
You'll also get a ready-made RYE HUD that you can download and import with no additional effort, which will be useful for all tournaments, not just PKOs. There is also a lengthy PDF file that contains all the PKO math stuff explained in the videos. Since this is probably the most complex part of the entire course, having a readable version you can refer to as well is quite useful.
Final Verdict: Is RYE Bounty Beast Worth Buying?
There isn't too much content out there addressing progressive knockout tournaments specifically. The Bounty Beast course is one of the rare resources that target this specific niche and does a very good job at it.
That said, you need to keep in mind that this can be quite an intensive course at times.
There is a lot of math and theory involved and if you want to make most out of it, you'll need to invest time and effort to understand the formulae and really come to terms with them. This isn't a general MTT course and its real value is hidden exactly in these sometimes complicated explanations of differences you need to understand and adopt.
The Bounty Beast course retails at $997 but you can get $200 off using coupon code HOWTOKO at checkout – $797 for a course which has this much novel content is a very good deal.
If you are into PKOs as it is or see this format as something you really want to try, then this is definitely an excellent course for you and the money spent will be well worth it. But don't go into it thinking you'll find a lot of general MTT strategy inside, because you won't. if you're struggling with basic concepts such as opening and 3-betting ranges, you're better off starting with a more general tournament course.
Once you have your fundamentals sorted out and are ready to conquer PKOs, though, go for it. You won't regret it.
If you're looking for a good theoretical poker course that's not too complicated but presents an effective and manageable approach to the game, SplitSuits' The One Percent might just be the answer.
The course itself contains ten video lessons and a bonus video with questions and answers. It is taught by James 'SplitSuit' Sweeney but it's not something he came up on his own. Instead, it is a course based on Ed Miller's book of the same name.
The way Sweeney envisioned his The One Percent course is for it to act as a companion of sorts for those who read the poker book on this topic. Although you can get a lot of great information from the videos alone, it works best if you actually watch it after reading the book or combine the book with video lessons.
The course itself presents an interesting and unique approach to poker in general. It isn't focused on any particular segment (cash games, tournaments, sit and go's, etc.). Ideas and concepts discussed inside can be applied to all forms of Hold'em games.
Table Of Contents
So, What is The One Percent All About?
When you observe poker from a theoretical point of view, there are different ways you can approach it. The one presented in the book and in the course is based on frequencies. This may suggest that this is a GTO course but it is not. While it is based on statistical and mathematical models, The One Percent presents ideas that are simpler to understand and easier to implement in your sessions while still helping you significantly improve your play.
When you play poker, certain things happen over and over again. You raise before the flop, you c-bet the flop, you're faced with a 3-bet, etc. There are many such occurrences in poker and the strategy presented in this course revolves around understanding how often they happen and how you can respond to them accordingly.
While this is definitely a math-based course, Sweeney has done a great job introducing many examples (both from the book and fresh ones) to help learners visualize the stuff that are being discussed. This helps make the course much easier to keep up with and make most out of.
What's Wrong With Your Current Strategy?
The first video in The One Percent series deals with the very concept of frequencies and how you can use these to improve your game. It's not just about recognizing these frequencies in your opponents. It is equally as important to look for them in your own play and fix any issues you come across along the way.
As SplitSuit explains, concepts in this course apply to tough and fishy games alike. While there may be different frequencies to look out for in different types of games, there are always certain things that you can recognize and take advantage of.
He gives a couple of examples that are quite common, especially in lower stakes games:
- Slot machiner – players that get involved with too many hands before the flop trying to hit a miracle hand and get paid.
- The TAG – players sticking to a very simple strategy of playing just good hands and giving up when faced with too much heat if they don't have the goods.
The course uses these two examples to further break down the strategy. You can easily adjust to both of these types by following two simple rules:
- You should usually continue when your opponents bet
- When you bet on one street, you should usually bet on the next street
These rules make sense to some degree, but the question becomes – what does usually mean here? How do you turn the verbal expression into an actual number?
Presenting the New Approach
In the second video, Sweeney continues to expand on the strategic approach presented in The One Percent. After providing some general ideas about frequencies and how to use these to plan your strategy, this lesson starts to build an actual mathematical model that can be implemented into your game.
In this lesson, you'll learn how the 70% model works in practice. It is founded on the idea that you should be continuing with about 70% of your range on every street. At the first glance, it may sound confusing and even fishy. However, after watching the video and seeing the visual representation of the model in the form of a pyramid, you'll start to understand what it's alla bout.
The video also explains how you can take advantage and exploit those players who don't adhere to the model. You'll notice how the edges of the pyramid become jagged for these players, leaving them vulnerable. If, for example, they're folding too much on a particular street, you can bluff them with impunity. If they're taking close to 100% of their turn range to the showdown, you can be much more liberal with your value bets.
Expanding the Fundamentals
The first two videos focus on the basics of the idea and the fundamental underlying model. However, so far in the course, all examples suppose there is no initiative change at any point during a hand. This isn't how things actually work in poker, though. Initiative often changes and the aggressor can easily become the defender and vice-versa.
SplitSuit addresses this very important topic in detail using the same fundamental principles already explained in the course. He explains how it is important to build your range in a way that you have two pyramids for two different scenarios. In the event the initiative changes, you want to have another pyramid ready but built in a way that allows you to stick to the 70% model.
The way to achieve this is through the balance. You don't want all your strong hands in one pyramid and all your weaker hands in the other. This will make it very hard to continue on the later streets. Instead, you need to mix things up so to keep both of them well-balanced.
This may seem complex and it is to some degree. However, things are made easier to understand through some examples. Additionally, Sweeney emphasizes the importance of understanding the overarching idea of these principles. If you can do this, the rest will fall in place on its own as you play more hands and analyze your play by applying these principles.
It's important to mention that Sweeney admits this isn't the optimal strategy that you must adhere to 100% of the time. It is envisioned as a solid foundation that you can always revert back to in tough spots. Of course, you can and should adjust your play according to particular circumstances.
Practical Application
This video takes everything that's been discussed thus far in The One Percent course and tries to put it in a more concrete framework. If you aren't too experienced of a player, you might be wondering what does this 70% even mean.
You'll get your answers in this video.
Using several examples, SplitSuit explains with how many hands you should be continuing with and this may feel fishy at first. There are some hands that you'll see that you might never consider in certain spots. But that's the whole point of this course.
The idea of The One Percent is to teach you that you don't want to be giving up on too many hands too easily. This will make you much harder to play against and will turn you into a much more profitable player.
And if you're wondering how this makes you any different than a fishy player who almost never folds, Sweeney offers a very good explanation for this as well. By building a solid starting range and not getting involved with trash hands to begin with, you're creating a situation where you can actually adhere to the 70% model and be right most of the time. Bad players get involved with all sorts of random hands and that's where they make a cardinal mistake that leads them down the rabbit hole.
Balancing Out Bluffs & Value Bets
When you find yourself up against good players, you can expect they'll be paying a close attention to what you're doing and adjust their play accordingly. So, to avoid becoming transparent and ensure you're not the one being exploited, you need to find a good balance between your value bets and bluffs.
Once again, the answer to this problem is found in frequencies.
In this video, Sweeney provides some solid numbers you can use as a baseline for your bluff vs. value bet ratio. He also explains how to build your ranges and polarize them more as you move on to the later streets.
Spotting & Exploiting Frequent Errors
One of the biggest advantages of adopting the approach presented in The One Percent resides with the fact that most players don't really understand frequencies. Many of them make certain mistakes over and over again and this video provides some of the most common situations where frequency errors occur, such as:
- Static high card flops
- River raising
- Small sizes
- Top pair scenarios
- Monotone boards
SplitSuit goes through each of these scenarios and explains the main reasons behind mistakes. This is one of the better videos in the whole series as it will help you put things into perspective and give you a chance to figure out if you're the one making mistakes in some of these situations.
You'll also be given tools to fix these mistakes and take advantage of them when you recognize them in other players. This knowledge should put you well ahead a large percentage of the players in almost all games.
Learning to Recognize Key Events
Several times throughout the series you'll hear the frequencies explained in the lessons are to be used as a baseline but you are supposed to deviate from them every now and then. If you were wondering how to recognize the spots where you should adjust your play, this video provides an in-depth explanation.
Sweeney breaks all possible events at a poker table into three main categories:
- Non-events, common, normal events that don't really call for any changes
- Bad events – something happening that you don't want to – i.e. button calling your raise instead of going HU vs. blinds (calling for lowering the frequencies)
- Good event – such as favorable flop texture –where you should increase your frequencies
Recognizing these events is very important. However, it is even more important to be able to plan for them ahead of time. This, of course, takes some time and practice, but once you are able to do it, you'll be able to plan your entire hand even before any of these events actually happen.
Thinking in Terms of Frequencies
All of the ideas discussed so far are relevant with regards to hands you actually choose. The One Percent course is focused on wider ideas so you aren't given exact hand charts to follow. Instead, it encourages you to think in broader terms.
In this particular video, you'll learn how to think about hands from the frequency perspective. It will open your eyes to some possibilities you may not have been aware of and it may even help dispel some myths about bluffing and value betting in certain spots.
Raising & Dealing with Raises
The final two videos in the Red Chip Poker The One Percent series deal with raises. These lessons discuss situations where you should consider raising instaead of calling as well as those spots where you bet and are faced with a raise.
The basic strategy starts from the main principle of making sure you're continuing often enough (i.e. 70%). From there on, you can start thinking about how to build your raising ranges and your defending ranges in the spots where you're the one facing the raise.
Like the rest of the series, these two videos come up with some ideas that may seem strange at first. Overall ranges that Sweeney suggests may seem way too wide in certain spots but if you've been keeping up with the materials discussed up to this point, you'll understand where these ideas come from and why they work.
How To Get The One Percent Course
You can pick up the One Percent course in two ways:
- As a standalone course from SplitSuit which you can do right here for $199 for the basic edition or $399 for the pure addition.
- As part of the RedChipPoker Pro package which costs $50 per month but includes a lot of other content. You can read more on our the RedChipPoker Pro package in our more detailed review.
There is no difference in the actual course content depending on where you get it, however, you might want to consider if you want to have lifetime access to the content? If so well then you would be better off buying as a standalone product from SplitSuit.
Alternatively, you might be intending on doing a lot of study over the coming months and years for which the RedChipPoker Pro package would be be a better fit.
Summary: How Good Is The One Percent, Really?
One of the biggest values of The One Percent is the fact the approach it takes is not something you'll find in many other courses. Ed Miller's ideas expanded and explained by Sweeney represent an interesting approach to the game that's close to GTO in some of its aspects but it is much more tangible and easier to digest.
This course can be very valuable to almost all players looking to add some structure to their game. Unless you're already a winner at high stakes, you'll probably find quite a few interesting ideas and concepts in The One Percent.
All in all, while it may be a bit out there, this course is definitely worth watching. It will give you a fresh perspective of poker and provide you with an approach that you just couldn't stumble upon yourself. And if you give it enough time, you're quite likely to realize advantages of this approach and start implementing at least some of its aspects into your gameplan.
