Matt Berkey
The Advanced Poker Training Academy for poker tournament and cash game strategy from high stakes poker pro Matt Berkey and Solve For Why. A 3-day event with play tracked by RFID sensor. S4Y poker practice community for poker video and advanced poker training to prepare for your next cash game or poker tournaments. Matt Berkey, Alex Jacob, and Ben Yu battle it out on the fourth episode of this poker game show hosted by Jeff Platt. The Big Blind brings celebrities and poker personalities together to test their knowledge of gambling, casinos, and everything Las Vegas in a one-of-a-kind trivia show. Watch the entire season of The Big Blind on PokerGO.
Matt Berkey, in his recent Solve for Why podcast with co-host Christian Soto, made it very clear how he handicaps the upcoming grudge match between Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk. And let’s just say he thinks Negreanu is about as likely to win as the US is of defeating COVID-19 before Christmas.
The Solve For Why Coaching Team consists of high stakes poker pro Matt Berkey, Christian Soto, Matt Hunt, and Jack Laskey, co-founder of Just Hands Poker. Together, we have created content such as. Matt Berkey, a successful high-stakes poker pro and poker trainer, gives Negreanu virtually no chance. He went into detail on why he’s taking that stance on his recent vlogcast, Solve for Why. He suggested “Kid Poker” should have negotiated a 10% refund on losses, so as to cut his losses short given how much of a disadvantage he’s at.
There’s no secret about who is favored. Even Negreanu, who wrote in a recent blog post that he’s a heavy underdog, admits it. And he wasn’t looking for an excuse for losing, if he does. Or at least that wasn’t the only purpose of the blog post.
Negreanu has over $42 million in live tournament winnings, most in no-limit hold’em. The poker stars have agreed to play thousands of hands of no-limit hold’em online. So that should be right up Daniel’s alley, right? Not exactly.
Heads-up no-limit hold’em and ring game or full-table, multi-table no-limit hold’em tournaments are similar in the same way free-throws three-pointers in basketball are the same. Sure, both are forms of playing basketball. But just because an athlete can consistently make free-throws doesn’t mean they can knock down perimeter shots. In the same way, a skilled multi-table tournament player isn’t necessarily strong at heads-up.
Berkey all-in on Polk to win
Although Polk hasn’t played poker regularly in a couple of years, he is known as one of the best heads-up no-limit online poker players in history, and maybe the best. A few years back, he crushed the highest stakes heads-up games on PokerStars for quite some time. He became so dominant in that form of poker that he could no longer find anyone to play so he had to quit.
Now he has an opponent in what is certain to be one of the most intriguing matches ever. The two bitter rivals will play between 10,000 and 25,000 hands of no-limit hold’em cash game at the $200/$400 stakes. They have agreed to play two games at a time. Complete details on where they’ll play and how many hands haven’t yet been determined.
Matt Berkey, a successful high-stakes poker pro and poker trainer, gives Negreanu virtually no chance. He went into detail on why he’s taking that stance on his recent vlogcast, Solve for Why. He suggested “Kid Poker” should have negotiated a 10% refund on losses, so as to cut his losses short given how much of a disadvantage he’s at.
“If we’re talking about six-max no-limit hold’em, Doug’s not elite,” Berkey said in his vlogcast. “If we’re talking about super high roller tournaments, Doug’s not elite. That doesn’t mean he’s not profitable.”
He then questioned why Negreanu would even accept such a difficult challenge.
“I can’t see where the stars align that he’s motivated to learn heads-up cash against a guy who literally wrote the book,” he continued.
Berkey then made an analogy to mixed martial arts superstar Conor McGregor stepping into the boxing ring to face undefeated boxer, Floyd Mayweather.
“At least when McGregor fought Floyd, he got paid,” Berkey said. “He got compensated for sacrificing his skill-set to enter the domain of a master. And they both know how to punch, much like both of these guys know how to play no-limit Texas hold’em. But we’re talking about two very different arenas. Even compromising doing this live versus online neutralizes the advantage.”
He continued, saying that Daniel has an “uphill challenge.” Berkey explained that online heads-up poker is “robotic” and pointed to Polk’s experience playing against an artificial intelligence (AI) bot, experience that is helpful in a lengthy heads-up match.
Negreanu is nearly a 3-1 underdog (+280), according to PokerShares. Despite the massive underdog status, Berkey doesn’t think the smart money is on Negreanu at that line.
“I don’t know that he has a fighter’s chance her,” Berkey said of the heavy dog. “I think he has a better than average chance of keeping this match close, I think we could easily see this ending somewhere between minus five and 15 buy-ins. And I think that’s respectable. If they play 25,000 hands, and you lose 10 buy-ins, it’s not really that big of a deal.”
“Do you think he can win?” Soto asked.
“That’s the thing,” Berkey responded. “I don’t know that he has a fighter’s chance. I really don’t because I played a lot of heads-up throughout quarantine, and I don’t think I’m very good at heads-up. My skill-set, like Daniel, is in ring.”
07:4413 Oct
Matt Berkey Reaches Consecutive WSOP Online Final Tables
The Postlegate investigation has gone through several stages over the past two weeks, players and fans of the game dissecting every aspect of the alleged cheating scheme
that has gripped the poker world, but the main question is… if Mike Postle is cheating, how is he doing it? Matt Berkey thinks he knows the answer:Postle’s incredible win-rate over the past year or so on the StonesLive Poker stream almost certainly makes him either the best player in the history of the game, or one of the biggest cheats poker has witnessed.
In an attempt to get to the bottom of just how Postle might be carrying out a scam, Berkey - founder and lead instructor of the Solve for Why Poker Training Academy – had a eureka moment earlier this week…
The main theory is that Postle has been receiving real-time hole-card information – an idea proposed by many in the poker community who are actively investigating the case – and Berkey shows just how that would work if an accomplice is in on the alleged cheating.
According to Berkey it wouldn’t require more than a very basic knowledge of computers, a simple output URL and Windows Media Player allowing a cheat to have access to a version of the live feed – the cards and % showing up on a mobile screen and allowing the cheat perfect knowledge.
It has already been shown in numerous video clips of the StonesLive Poker streams that Postle has a very strange relationship with his phone, keeping it tucked discretely in his crotch area during almost all of his winning sessions.
Clever detective work has also shown the exact same blue screen on Postle’s phone that Berkey’s RFID software experiments show in his video.
Matt Berkey Instagram
Not quite a smoking gun as yet, but a very damning piece of circumstantial evidence, and it supports the lawsuit that was launched this week against Postle, Stones and others.
In the legal action, such possibilities are mentioned several times:
‘Mr Postle’s systematic use of one or more electronic devices, for the purposes of cheating’.
It also covers as yet unnamed accomplices – referred to as John/Jane Doe 1-10 - who ‘Conspired with Mr Postle to cheat at the game of poker through one or more electronic instrumentalities’, and who ‘installed or implemented electronic devices’.
It may yet turn out that Postle is innocent of the cheating charges – though that seems increasingly like a 1-outer on the river - but the chances are that if cheating occurred, the method uncovered will look very much like the one Berkey discovered.