whitelime you should learn the auto-topoff function :p

please talk a bit more on the next episodes, could be anything just talk! :D

the dead time doesn't bother me. i guess you could concentrate all your power and try to will full tilt to present you with lots of exciting spots because youre making a video... Just like in 'The Secret'! 'I am Emil, I deserve interesting spots because it's my video day, and if I don't have anything to say I will fill the dead air with mindless chatter.' That should help.

pls talk something sometime k thx

Pauses in commentary don't bother me at all because I usually make notes on the content (bullet points) and with motor-mouth machine-gun commentary style ala Deathdonkey I need to constantly pause and rewind to keep up, with whitelime's more leisurely style I can utilize those pauses to make the notes while at the same time reflecting on the action. Different approaches, both work for me.

Same issues as last week, it seems like you really don't wanna be doing these videos. If that's the case, spare us both our time and yours, I'd rather see someone that wants to do these and wants to share information.

What stupid unfair comment. You know whitelime personally or something? How would you know if this differs from when he is doing something he enjoys. I don't even think he should attempt to meet your unfair demand of enthusiasm let alone listen to this crap about "you should really try to get excited when you win $600" when thats a big blind in his regular games. If you dont like the videos and in the matter in which they are done dont fkn watch, but do not encourage someone this great to stop making videos and ruin it for the rest of us who really like them.

And yea, Thac and Nutsflopper are way out of line with their comments. Get a clue guys.

A great player playing makes for a good vid alone imo. If I can play like that then perfect. I am a fan of whitelime and enjoy his vids. However to make some spots more interesting you could put out a line like "If he had raised me here I would just be calling and probably doing X on the turn because..."

Also some more player analysis would be cool. In this vid you thought that a played who had ~200$ stack at the start of the vid was a potential reg later on in the vid. Simple stuff like this was obvious to the viewer but apparently not to you. The little things make for the best videos fwiw.

Hey guys,

I probably take lots of situations for granted that you guys want explained. It'd be much easier for me to explain them if you point them out as much as possible so for future videos, I'll know which spots to expand upon.

If you are making a video for the beginners then explain everything, why did you raise KT in position against a limper. And why did you then bet the flop, would it have made any different if the high card would have been a king instead. When he calls what is the first thing you should think about and how would you proceed on some different turn cards. Why do you think it is more value to check the turn and call his river bet instead of 2nd barreling. Is there some other line that also would make sense etc...

If it's for more advanced players then you don't need to explain why you do standard plays really but still need to explain how your game plan is against this specific opponent. I will raise here because he will call me light and if I hit I will be able to get three streets of value. How are you able to pull out a win against the other regulars? How can you abuse the fish without getting abused by the other good players at the table? How do you plan to adjust against the overly aggressive BTN? Why is it better to use a different bet size in this situation? etc...

The most important thing though is to explain your thought process, usually it's not so important exactly what you do in a specific hand it's much more important that you explain how you got to the decision you did.

Try to plan your live session before hand, what do you hope to achieve during this hour? What are you planing to teach the people that is watching this video?

[But during live play it's very important to take the session as it comes though, thats why I think it would be good for you to record three live videos and pick the one that you think went best for next week]

Hope this helps a little :)

I'd like 4tabling videos, but this one is good, just add more emphasis like If he raised me I would do that, stuff like that.

If you are making a video for the beginners then explain everything, why did you raise KT in position against a limper. And why did you then bet the flop, would it have made any different if the high card would have been a king instead. When he calls what is the first thing you should think about and how would you proceed on some different turn cards. Why do you think it is more value to check the turn and call his river bet instead of 2nd barreling. Is there some other line that also would make sense etc...

If it's for more advanced players then you don't need to explain why you do standard plays really but still need to explain how your game plan is against this specific opponent. I will raise here because he will call me light and if I hit I will be able to get three streets of value. How are you able to pull out a win against the other regulars? How can you abuse the fish without getting abused by the other good players at the table? How do you plan to adjust against the overly aggressive BTN? Why is it better to use a different bet size in this situation? etc...

The most important thing though is to explain your thought process, usually it's not so important exactly what you do in a specific hand it's much more important that you explain how you got to the decision you did.

Try to plan your live session before hand, what do you hope to achieve during this hour? What are you planing to teach the people that is watching this video?

[But during live play it's very important to take the session as it comes though, thats why I think it would be good for you to record three live videos and pick the one that you think went best for next week]

Hope this helps a little :)

Very helpful post. Thanks. The thing is, during hands, I feel like for the most part I do go through reasons for why I'm betting or checking. The dead time is usually when I'm not involved in a hand. Anything in specific you want to hear about in these spots?

Also, the first seven episodes of this season have already been recorded so you won't notice your input being taken into consideration in those.

However, expect some bonus content very soon where I'll try to incorporate your input. Let me know what else you want to see changed because I'll probably start on this tomorrow.

limablanca,

there was a stretch around 40 min in on the left table where you were playing almost every hand due to a rush of cards, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how you might adjust your play based on your image of hyperactivity in that situation.

wow I scrolled down to the comments because I expected there to be heaps of praise. I really can't believe some of these posts. This was absolutely one of the better NL vids to be found online anywhere.

When you have spent years training yourself to block everything out, forget the last hand and concentrate on the hand in play it must be as hard as hell to suddenly become a person who chats about a hand he played 5 mins ago.

Best way is probably to record the video then record the audio later. Then you can still say "the reason why I bet this here is because I felt the player was blah blah blah", you could even say "hang on I am going to stop the video here because I want to explain what just happened".

Just different people. The guy who was pissed, was pissed because every other video site makes just these types of videos. The difference between Deuces and the others is that there's a lot of what ifs, team videos, etc. This series isn't unique, and that's Deuces biggest selling point (along with the no DRM and 7day trial, which are amazing). So since he's had accounts at other sites, he sees this as just more of the same.

Anyone else who's upset, is upset because they're the type that need a lot of things going on to keep their attention, as opposed to the happy fellows who can stay focused while there's so much dead time.

Personally, if there was a magic redo button, and it could make the series better for both parties, I think it would be a sporadic theme for the series. This one is just straight up a NL holdem video at certain stakes with no real focal point. Every other video site does that, and I think videos without a focal point don't really give the author much to discuss.

I think the first video was pretty amazing, this second one seemed a little lackluster to me, but it was probably just the situations you ended up in. I'll admit that I am the type of person who gets distracted easily and do have a little trouble maintaining focus on these videos. It's not unbearable, but outside of Jfish videos (which are incredibly hard to watch just due to my nature) this is the only series that I've encountered this issue with. I have a rakeback free subscription to leggo poker, and I've noticed this problem with their stuff too. Just no direction to anything, just random playing with a walk through by the player.

Truly though, I think my lack of focus is more of a personal thing than anything else, and it's probably the same issue with the other two guys. Despite all of that, even with the silence I think the first video in this series is probably the best video on this entire site. I think if half the members here weren't members of the Cult of Krantz*, and he didn't talk the entire video Lightsabers would probably receive the same type of feedback. I think for you especially, not having a focal point when making your video gives you less topics of discussion, and with a theme for the series, or focus before going into each individual video, this series could have been much better.

*I am a member of the Cult of Krantz

Same issues as last week, it seems like you really don't wanna be doing these videos. If that's the case, spare us both our time and yours, I'd rather see someone that wants to do these and wants to share information.

Thac seriously, wtf is that attitude man, you got your membership for free, sure this vid isnt the greatest ever made but theres no need to complain in this manner about something you got for free, dont get how such a competent mod on 2p2 can pull this kinda bs here.

Also you should use auto reload on FTP

Whitelime,

Your videos rank in the top 5 on my list and I'm a member of three different training sites. You're calm, well-spoken, and very thorough about describing your thought process. No need to entertain in the dead spots. In fact often in the dead spots you look to fill the time by talking about hands that other players made. Many video producers don't do this. The 'dead spots' fit both the content of the video and also fit your personality. And so I wouldn't change a thing, other than making the video longer. The '88' and 'AJ' hands were quite well explained and executed.

Thanks for the great content,

Madfish

These are exactly my thoughts. i like the video. keep up the good work.

I usually love your vids but there was just so much dead time in this one. One possible improvement is to make a really long seassions across 3-6 tables, and do the commenting afterwards. Then you would get lots of history against some regs and could talk about ajustments you would make against specific opponents.
The other way to avoid dead time would be to choose a topic you would like to discuss before you sit down and fill the holes in the vid with your thoughts on that subject.

I seriously dont get the major hate on this video I understand there are pauses but thats due to a lack of action more than commentary

Emil, maybe if you could expand on the tendencies of the regs and how you would expliot that in the long run it would be great, also an idea for future videos is record yourself on 4 tables, and then record the audio afterwards pausing at interesting spots to explain your thought process and plays, im a member of cardrunners and the recent stinger PLO and cts 5-10 vids have been done this way and recieved great reviews, hope this helps.

Hey guys,

Just wanted to chime in to let you all know that while a lot of these episodes have been recorded, we're definitely listening to what you guys are saying. I'm preparing another version of this video right now which I'll release on Sunday (I'm leaving for the next two days otherwise I'd put it up right away) called Episode 2 Redux. This is testing a new idea I have for how to deal with videos that have some dead air time while there's not much going on, but the hands *might* still be relevant. The problem with cutting out dead air out of these videos is that you guys miss the opportunity to ask questions about hands that may be interesting to you even though the author didn't necessarily find much to say about them, or just miss out on relevant history that is potentially useful later in matches (this is especially true in HU matches but I think also true in 6max games).

So what I'm doing is testing out some editing magic to *try* to provide the best of both worlds. This is a video that will speed up to 200% playback speed during hands that aren't commented on, then go back to normal speeds during commentary. It will only be sped up during longer (30s+) silences which obviously we'll try to avoid as much as possible, but since a lot of these videos are recorded already, it may help improve your feelings about those videos without stripping away a lot of the value you get from this sort of video -- having the opportunity to sweat a player like Emil in the moment and learn what he does in certain situations.

While we're going to try to continue to improve on our ability to provide in the moment commentary, Josh is right with his comments -- this stuff is HARD to do sometimes and it's not necessarily indicative of our level of commitment when there's a lot of silence. That said we owe you guys the best, and we're going to commit to it in whatever way possible.

Please check this video out and let me know what you think of the format. I think it is a huge improvement because you can speed up the playback without actually missing any of the commentary (which is the disadvantage to trying to skip through a video like this).

There really seems to be a lot of polarization on this video so I'm working hard to come up with a format that is as valuable as possible to as many of you as we can help. I'll repost this post when I put up the new video -- please let me know what you think of it as a format because after watching one video sped up (Hoodie Wars #3) during moments of slow commentary (in this case, both players were just folding a ton preflop for a while), I felt it was quite a significant improvement.

holla,
Rob

Amil,

I know this is kind of nitty. About 24 min in UTG opens and you flat J8cc next to act. I don't really like this play, and even at 1 2 (which I venture is less aggro than 3 6), I think you are going to get squeezed a fair bit as well. With bad position against other potential players, and a UTG range that probably has you in bad shape, I don't see a lot of merit in this play. Am I missing something?

Preflop is pretty close here. With a robot short stack still yet to act, I'd definitely say fold this but with everyone having 100 bbs+, I think calling here is fine. Also, IIRC, leroy stacked off a few minutes ago so he could be tilting. As for squeezing, I think these days most regulars don't go out of their way to squeeze too often. It's sort of a play that I think was more popular a couple of years ago.

Best way is probably to record the video then record the audio later.

No, I think a training site needs both real-time commentary and review-style commentary. They are slightly different beasts and while the latter might be technically more perfect, seeing the producers thinking on the spot is equally invaluable. Even donks like me can make sense of hands if I think about them long enough - but the thought-process in the moment is equally important IMO.

....

Love how DC listens to it's members. For example, Josh got advice to number his tables in commentary and so he does it in his newest series, and now Entity is now looking into criticisms on Whitelime's vid. I don't remember CR responding in this personal a way in all my time there, so please DC, don't let this great self-criticism slip and don't get lazy like CR did.

Excellent video, Emil is absolutely one of the very, very best NLH players in the world, savor the ability to watch him play, and try to understand why he makes every decision he does, because there will be a fundamentally good reason behind it, and if you can work that you, you might be on your way to being 10% as good as Emil is, which would make you extremely good (and rich).

Emil, what do you estimate the overall EV is of your 3 barrel with the AJ at the very end of the video? Like is it close or is it way +EV?

Emil, why is it better to check back an A high flush draw as opposed to a T high flush draw?

If you are really stuck for how to fill up dead air time, make some lightsabre noises.

I love this!

Plenty of talking, even about hands not involved in.

Enjoyed it.

Emil, why is it better to check back an A high flush draw as opposed to a T high flush draw?

Because A-hi can win at SD unimproved whereas T high almost never can.

Emil, I'm bumping an old thread so hopefully you can get around to this question in the not too distant future. I'm just getting around to watching this series. You've mentioned a few times how you're more willing to cbet big card flops like AQ7 as opposed to middle card flops like J95 since the middle card flops are more likely to hit your opponents' range(s). Can you give your reasoning behind this? For example, at 40:15 you have to 3-barrel to get your opponent off his hand when the flop is AdQd7c. I would figure this flop would be much more likely to hit my opponent's range than say a Jd9d5c flop.