ShardbearerMohg

Matt, I’ve recently been consuming a lot of YouTube content featuring high-stakes players like yourself. I’m being mindful of your warning from earlier in your blog, where you mentioned that poker YouTube should be used for entertainment, not study. There are a few high-stakes players I’d like to ask for your opinions about. The first guy I wanted to ask you about is Owen “Pr0digy” Messere. Owen has been very active on various YouTube channels throughout 2025, to the extent that I would say he is possibly the most active (or one of the most active) HSNL player on YouTube. He’s been on a lot of channels talking about his journey to high stakes, doing commentary and analysis, or talking about his own hands. I personally wasn’t aware of Owen until I saw him playing Doug Polk in a live heads-up challenge where he beat Polk for around $200k in his own backyard (The Lodge) back in the summer of 2023. He’s had further significant success in the ensuing 2 years, particularly online. Matt, what I wanted to ask you is, do you think it’s minus EV to be giving out so much information in a manner similar to what Owen has been doing? It seemingly hasn’t affected his results, but I’ve noticed certain other HSNL pros are a lot more guarded with their public profiles, and have a very limited online presence away from the tables. For example, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Linus on any podcasts, poker YouTube or anything of that nature. I’d say you and Owen are some of the most visible HSNL players in that regard.

Also, just to go on a slight tangent here regarding Linus. Owen said on one of his YouTube appearances that he places DavyJones (Roberto) a tier above Linus. He heaped a ton of praise on Davy, and commented on how Davy has owned him time and again in multiple spots. Owen also talked about doing a deep dive on some of his opponents. He mentioned doing deep dives on Asianflushie, Barak, and DavyJones specifically. I’m assuming he has also done deep dives on other opponents, likely including you Matt, but those are the ones he mentioned. He was very complimentary about each of those players, but especially Davy. Matt, would you agree or disagree that Davy is a tier above Linus?

Lastly Matt, I wanted to ask you about Munez (Sergey Nikiforov). In a previous blog entry, you mentioned four specific styles which you see elite poker players using. You mentioned GTO savants, intuitive geniuses, solid mistake-avoiders (Munez) and simplified strategy guys. Regarding Munez, would you say he is better now than his compatriot Stefan Burakov was at his peak? Was Stefan ever actually better than Munez? The most recent thing I heard about Stefan was that he had to drop down to 1K to rebuild his roll. I don’t know if he is still there or what he is doing now. Did you ever play much against Stefan and what was your take on his skill level? Thanks Matt and I appreciate the blog.

Hey Matt. I was wondering, do you have any idea what happened to Poker Detox? I noticed a while ago that the site is now owned by a person named Ivan Stokes, who I've never heard of. It also appears to only be an MTT stable after being focused on cash games for several years. I know Pat Howard left a long while ago, but I thought Nick was still running it for a long time after that.

Hi Paul. I thought the JThh hand (10 minutes into the video) was very interesting. My own reasoning for checking the turn would be that betting and getting raised puts us in a spot where we are likely priced in to call, but we are almost certainly going to be behind when our stack goes in the middle. I can understand why the hero checked. I don't think check/shoving over the villain's bet really accomplishes much other than getting hands that floated the flop to fold. Having 2 hearts ourselves also makes it harder for the opponent to have a flush draw that can bet/call. Any thoughts on all of that Paul?

His contract with RIO expired and he said in his last video that he wasn't renewing it. He is still very active outside of RIO. He has a YouTube channel, a Twitch channel and he has his own coaching business.

Hi Demon. Thanks for continuing to maintain such an inspiring and helpful blog. I wanted to ask a couple of questions about the post that I am replying to. You mentioned that you have some students who are open-minded and others who aren't as trusting or aren't as open to absorbing new information. There is a guy named Pete Clarke, who used to be a coach on RIO and operates his own private coaching business (known as Carrot Corner). He has done a few YouTube videos that show him coaching his students. In a series that he released a few months ago on his channel, he had a student named Jess who was struggling to beat 25NL. After multiple sessions, she was still struggling to beat the games she was playing in. It seemed like she wasn't grasping or understanding what Pete was telling her to do, and a few people commented that Pete was being too harsh with some of his critiquing of Jess' play. I could tell that she was getting a bit uncomfortable but she kept going and put a brave face on it, which I respected. Others said it might have been that Jess simply lacked the intelligence to implement the instructions which Pete was trying to give her. I thought the series was fascinating and I can see arguments for both sides of the discussion.

I wanted to ask you Demon, do you ever get students where, after the first session or two, it becomes obvious that they just don't have the required basic understanding about poker (or even the level of intelligence needed) to benefit from being coached? Do you vet them beforehand? To be honest I actually had coaching myself nearly 10 years ago now from someone who was a coach on another site. I didn't have a great experience as it seemed like we were disagreeing on a lot of things. It got to a point where I was probably annoying my coach, and they were annoying me, so we ended up parting ways. Do you ever get students like that? I imagine it's a difficult balancing act for a coach when you need to criticise a student's play but you don't want to upset them or damage their confidence too much, especially if they have quite a fragile mental game or have been experiencing poor results for a prolonged period of time (which I imagine is the case for a lot of students).

Thanks Shaun. For me I think 1 hour and 45 minutes is a little too long for a video. Most videos on RIO are even less than an hour. I have watched the first 45 minutes so far. My takeaway was that, seeing your student in this video has so many leaks makes me feel a little better about my own struggles to beat these games. It seemed like from the hands I watched, you were critical of the student's play in the vast majority of hands you reviewed.

Thanks for bringing such high-quality content to Essential members Qing. It's much appreciated!

It's not surprising to me that Tehthys is the best player out of all the players reviewed so far. They have been an RIO member for 7 years, and have presumably played poker for longer than that.. Solid video by the way.

Pete doesn't respond to comments on RIO unfortunately. I have the same thoughts as you about the K2 hand.

Hey Frankie. This is a timely and appreciated video for me as I've been struggling to implement donk bets into my own game. A common pitfall that I encounter is that if I donk the flop, I find that I often get into tough spots where I don't know what to do on the turn when the donk bet gets called - which is the most common outcome. I'm not sure if the pool plays differently on Pokerstars compared to Ignition, but I find that when I donk myself, the most common response from opponents when I donk is that they call, followed by raise and fold. I feel like by donking wide against a pool that underfolds to donks, I'm just putting myself in tough spots with no obvious benefit. Would you agree that having a plan for the turn is a crucial part of a good flop donking strategy? I've seen different pros have different views. Some people say you always need to have a plan for the next street (except on the river), while others say you should only be trying to make the best decision based on the current node you are on.

Hey, Mato. I am currently in a somewhat similar situation to where you were before you joined a CFP. I am stagnating at 50NL over a big sample (currently 200k hands). I believe that 50NL is the stake where the competition intensifies. I do not see regulars making big postflop mistakes that were prevalent at 10NL-25NL. It seems, to me at least, that it is difficult to move up without having access to MDA blueprints which are used by CFPs. I do not know which spots are underbluffed, overbluffed or overfolded by the population I'm playing against, and I believe that joining a CFP would help me understand those spots which are currently costing me the most EV. A solver also won't tell me about which spots are underbluffed, overbluffed etc by the pool, which makes CFP blueprints even more attractive to me. I am not saying it's impossible to move up the stakes without using an MDA blueprint, but it seems to me at least that it's significantly more difficult without it.

As far as I can see, MDA is rarely discussed or utilised in videos on RIO. I suspect this is because the information is simply so valuable that pros who have access it would prefer to keep the information a secret, only to be revealed to their private students or students in their CFPs. Would you say that the coaching you received in BrPC helped you significantly more than any of the video content you watched on RIO? Without wanting to put words into your mouth, I get the impression that most people who have transitioned from training sites such as RIO into CFP stables such as BrPC, would say that the coaching and material they have access to in their CFP is infinitely more helpful compared to content on traditional training sites such as RIO. I am sorry if that ruffles the feathers of anyone on RIO, but that is my impression. Most people who join CFPs, as you did, don't seem to regret their decision at all. Many of them consider it to be the best decision they have made in their poker careers.