LAG plays for daaaaaaaays in this video. Love it. Brick has a nice poker mind and this video definitely did not disappoint. 

Haha yeah Tom, lots of good LAG action in this one. I mean from 40 on down, and throughout the final table. It was amazing, 6 handed play lasted for a good hour! What fun it was to be in that intense situation for that much time. Not to mention the fact that it makes for good video-viewing. In terms of this conclusion to the series, Brick knocked it out of the park with his commentary. Awesome opportunity all the way around. 

You have more than hope my friend, you have the way! Aggression and pressure are core fundamentals for every elite player. As is knowing when to tighten up, of course. But aggression is the trait that separates really good players from great players, especially when applied in conjunction with another fundamental of poker: position. Polarized, you must pay the piper. Exploit the opponents in your current games for not folding by bluffing them less and value betting them more. Make it your goal to execute this tight gameplan perfectly, and to quickly build your bankroll. After that, you can use more of your skillset in the bigger games with more reasonable opponents. Having said all of that, there is still a time for aggression in any poker game, so make sure you keep on the lookout for those opportunities. Never go completely Karpov =) I have an old computer game called Kasparov Chessmate, and in the game there are many Kasparov replays, including several vs. Karpov. I have never seen so much moving the pawn one square until I saw Karpov*! 

*Disclaimer: I'm a huge chess fish! 

Ha ha yeah i believe his style of play is called triangulation.Making small improvements all over the board while putting opponents in zugzwang.Which is a genius style on his own and requires extraordinary positional skills and preparation.I think in poker he would be a slick maneuvering nit :)

Thanks for the response Nick, i heard everything you said.

Ahhh! Thank you kind sir. I respect a man who knows his classic literature. Though I still maintain some self-respect from other areas :P 

What's funny is I remember that quote from Data on Star Trek, haha. And now that you menion Sir ACD, I believe Data referenced him when using the quote. 

Eh?

I like 2 commentator mode also! It was a lot of fun to make, and it seems like people are enjoying it as well. 

I know Brick said his exact hand in the video, I didn't look back, but from memory yes, it was 74o. I went back and read your comment on part 3 of this series - well done man! Your analysis was almost completely correct. I think maybe Brick used your post when he was preparing to speak for this video =) Seriously though, you're thinking about this spot very well. The one minor difference is how Brick plays 9x OTT. I think he may continue betting with it, especially if he has a good kicker, though he can definitely check some of it and bet more polarized with bluffs and all of his 2p and straight combos. 

I think the key to making these bluff-catching type of call downs is the villain you are facing. Some villains will be applying the proper bet sizing and frequencies, while others will be very far off from optimal on both their bet size and their betting frequency. You have two options. One is to do an extensive amount of work and make sure that your own ranges are completely balanced in these situations. If they are, then it does not matter what villain you are facing, or what action they take, because you they cannot take advantage of your range. I would advise to always work toward this balance, at least work toward understanding it, even if you don't use it in practice. Because in practice, it is often far more profitable to exploit. This is option number two: Figure out how villain is approaching the game, and these situations, and exploit errors in their play. If they bluff too much, call down. If they are only leading with the nuts, exploit this mistake by making more folds, with stronger hands that are higher up in your range. Also exploit this by barreling them more, because if they're leading strong, their check call range is going to be weak =) 

That was a really good question, Jvank, really good.  

I'll see what I can do. 

Hey man great video once again.I`m curious to know how does one acquire such knowledge and range/position awareness? 

I`m guessing since you seem well versed, you probably played a lot of 6m, hu cash/sng`s, etc. So if you don`t mind telling, what`s your background prior to MTT`s, and what sort of things helped you progress/develop as a player the most ?

Are MTT`s your main game, or do you play/grind any other formats ?

I don't have a specific answer, but that I purely love the game.

I play poker for 2 years now and I guess I became better because I never stopped thinking about the game at any point in those 2 years - I always wanted to learn something new. 

I mainly played tournaments from the beginning on, but last year I did the mistake of grinding way too much without progressing which was totally against my nature. Challenging your mind and yourself as a person was always more important to me than winning money - I guess that's another reason why I moved up very fast and why I struggled back then.

So this year I did a worldtrip and developed a way better balance in my life which is probably one of the most important things to ever be successful at whatever you do. 

So with this basic this year I tried to get better at "poker" in general. I am a really big fan of Isildur and Phil, because they are constantly learning while playing and thats what I did (atleast tried ;)). I never played a lot of tables so I could focus on improving. I feel like most of the players divide between learning and playing - which is not optimal in my opinion.

I played (and I still play): NL500 Zoom, NL200-NL5k CG HU 100BB & CAP, 100-500$ 6-max hypers SNG's, but mainly MTT's of all formats.

All of those other formats I did play them intensively for like 1-2 months and tried to soak up as much new content as possible - mainly to get better at tournaments but I had a lot of fun playing these other stakes too!

It became a quite long text but I hope it covers your questions!

First all of Brick, thank you for being willing to answer questions here in the first place. And secondly, my goodness, what a wonderful example you've given people to follow. You guys saw the video, you know how good he is. He's played poker for two years. He developed to this advanced/elite level in a short two years. It is possible, and the blueprint is right above you.

" I feel like most of the players divide between learning and playing - which is not optimal in my opinion." 

This is a separation I make far too much myself today, and what's more is I didn't even fully realize it until reading the above quote from your post. Fantastic stuff. 

I also love the idea of playing many different formats of NL. This is something I did myself when I was starting out, and something I must do more of today since I am behind the curve in any format besides MTT. Great post, Fedor. 

This comment comes a year later but hopefully is seen. :)

" I feel like most of the players divide between learning and playing - which is not optimal in my opinion."

Can you clarify what you mean by this? I am taking it to mean players should also learn while playing versus dividing time between learning and playing. Is this correct?

Thanks, and thank you both Fedor and Nick for a great video!

The kids got some serious passion, I imagine he'd be interested. And this video would serve as a pretty good reference for him, eh? I'm glad you liked the video, Atwu! It sure was a fun one to make, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. 

No kidding! He's got to be one of the top free agents on the market.