Every day in the channel “What’s on the river?” a summary of videos and articles on poker strategy is published. Of course, not only them – we talk about everything that might be of interest to a modern regular. This includes news, promotions of poker rooms, announcements of tournament series, reviews of poker social networks, bright stories from the GipsyTeam forum, and results of the best online players. But the most popular genre is lessons from famous trainers.
Firstly, this is useful information: today many stars teach poker wisdom. Secondly, this beauty is literally growing under our feet these days: there is not much news, scandals, intrigues, and investigations in poker, so advice on the game is the main way for all successful players to communicate with the audience.
We have selected eight creators whose lessons appear on our channel regularly. We talk about everyone’s favorite topics and formats with examples of high-quality posts.
Phil Galfond
One of the most diligent authors in the poker world, founder of the top school Run it Once, a coach with 20 years of experience, the most famous Omaha player on the planet, an avid heads-up specialist, and just a good guy. Truteller and Jungleman once learned to play from his videos, but Phil still hasn’t gotten tired of making poker content. And the quality of the content is always the highest, no matter what he talks about.
This year Galfond started doing a weekly newsletter; we publish summaries of each article in the channel. Here, for example, is his recent text about what poker and video games have in common:
Ben Rolle
The most media-savvy tournament player and coach, on whose cult course more than one generation of today's MTT regulars grew up. Founder of the Raise Your Edge poker school, streamer, and video blogger. He often publishes clips from streams with the most spectacular hands.
In the spring of this year, he published his results in all poker rooms – if he saw his ABI and ROI, haters (though he doesn’t really have any) would burst with rage.
On YouTube and Twitter, Ben is an unsurpassed master of videos and posts in the “do it right, it will be fine” genre. For example, check out this one:
Saulo Costa
The main sensation of this year's poker YouTube, the owner of a large stable of cash players and a former instructor of Galfond's Run it Once. He started recording videos regularly just a few months ago, and Anton "sandr1x" already says that “there is enough information on his YouTube channel to understand how to break mid-stakes.” Saulo's main strength is his very effective balance of GTO and exploit. He demonstrates his skills on hours-long streams, where he explains every hand played.
Well, in short videos he not only teaches you how to fearlessly check-raise and overbet (he’s a Brazilian, after all!), but also gives powerful motivational speeches. We recently posted an interview with Costa about his coaching experience.
Finding Equilibrium
A legendary YouTube channel about GTO play, the author of which prefers to remain anonymous. Makes deep and detailed videos about the optimal strategy, constantly experimenting with formats.
At the same time, it is known that he was never a poker pro! Great irony: one of the main experts on GTO studies (and popularizes) the theory simply because he loves the game. Recently, they broke down ways to combat the playing style of some elite pros, including Michael Addomo.
You can see the full video breakdown from the Finding Equilibrium page on this very topic below.
Level Up
A podcast by Upswing Poker coaches Mike Brady and Gary Blackwood has been running on the school's YouTube channel since early 2023. Mike and Gary thoroughly explain fundamental poker strategy: balanced 3-betting, post-flop sizing, full-range betting boards, and so on.
All of their lessons are based on GTO. We translated one of the most striking issues for the main page.
In the latest videos, the presenters began to dig deeper: playing in PKO tournaments, optimal play of AK preflop and postflop, and strategy on flops with an ace.
Fedor Holz and Steffen Sontheimer
The first one needs no introduction, the second one has less media coverage – but certainly no less skillful. Both are recording videos for their school's Pokercode channel. Fedor mainly plays the role of a cheerful poker pensioner: he recalls the peak moments of his career, gives advice on tells and psychology, and has fun in every possible way – for example, he once tried to fool a lie detector (quite successfully!).
Steffen, on the other hand, often produces more classic educational content: playing live sessions with commentary at fast tables (which he has specialized in throughout his career) and analyzing hands. Fedor also posts many informative videos on his page, one of which you can see broken down by our staff.
Jonathan Little
At the end of the 2000s, Jonathan was one of the world's main MTT stars, and at the same time, he won millions live. In 2011, he wrote his first book (which made waves in the community) – and a dozen more since then. He runs the Pokercoaching website and is actively developing a YouTube channel; he has about 170 thousand subscribers (for comparison, Galfond has three times less). There are already more than 2,000 videos on the channel, Jonathan is frighteningly tireless. Ilya Gorodetsky says that once he was waiting next to Little for a flight from the Bahamas – Jonathan looked at his watch and, seeing that there were still 20 minutes before boarding, he immediately sat down right on the floor at the gate, took out his laptop and began cutting through content.
The most upbeat genre of his videos is hand analysis. Little analyzes the play of popular vloggers and sensational hands from streams and TV broadcasts.
James Sweeney
The main (albeit unofficial) ambassador of the Flopzilla program and the owner of the most impressive beard in the poker community. Author of several books, co-founder of the training site Red Chip Poker, and the soul of The Poker Bank channel (112,000 subscribers). It makes very suitable content for micro-limit players: it teaches you how to calculate odds and equity, how to build ranges correctly, “3-bet and don’t piss,” and also analyzes played hands.
In many videos, James explains with his fingers how Flopzilla makes it possible to learn about everything about poker that you need to beat the micro limits. And he tirelessly repeats a simple truth: to start making gains, you just need to work on your game more than the average opponent.
Bonus: Daniel Negreanu, Lex Veldhuis, Doug Polk and more
We've only listed trainers who produce content regularly—several videos a month, or even more often (hi Jonathan!). But from time to time, other players, including the most famous ones, also release interesting training videos. Doug Polk sometimes (out of inspiration) suddenly rushes to analyze hands – and sometimes his own hands are analyzed. Lex Veldhuis, after moving to YouTube, recently recalled his adventures on the shows High Stakes Poker and The Big Game (and even made it to the main GT ). At the beginning of the year, Daniel Negreanu recorded a large-scale series of videos (21 videos!), where he analyzed his victory in the Super High Roller Bowl tournament for $300,000 step by step – we selected the most interesting episodes. Here, for example, is an interesting hand that started with an open-limp on the button:
All posts about poker strategy can be easily found in the channel using the hashtag #strategy_gt. The other day, the number of subscribers to “What’s on the River?” has exceeded 9,000 – when we bring in the five-digit mark, we will definitely organize some kind of celebration. See more posts here and let's celebrate together!
