Matias G.A

The big moment that over eleven people have been waiting for: Who do I believe is the best poker player in the world? What is my argument for it? Why talk about it now? (I have a real answer. First, I’m going to explain how anyone outside poker’s elite can actually judge it.) For those outside the top twenty players in the world in any format (and I count myself as outside in most), how can you really tell who is best? In my opinion, you can’t with any real confidence. Not in a game with such a short- to mid-term luck factor. The release of high-roller tournament results showed us that even crushers like Ike Haxton, who everyone I know would tell you is one of the absolute best in the world, can experience years of bad results. So, to me, determining the best comes down to whose votes count. So, whose votes count? I’d argue that the best players in the game know best. How do they vote? Fortunately, they cast the one kind of vote we can trust: They vote with their wallets. No matter what they say, the best we can know is who they are willing to play against and who they aren’t. So, who do the best in the world keep quitting? The PLO specialist who: • Had the highest winrate at 6-max HSPLO games without table selecting. • Beat everyone at HU PLO until he got no action. • Offered the world half PLO, half NLHE, where he got only one taker – Linus – and beat him. • Moved to HU NLHE, playing anyone willing to battle him and beating them all, until they were no longer willing to try. • Learned limit games and quickly played anyone in the world at 8-Game. Until nobody would play him there, either. This player challenged everyone to everything and had no takers for long periods, playing anyone who’d step in the ring until they tapped out. The best cash game players in the world – who are the best to judge high-level skill – voted him best by quitting him. Does dominating heads-up cash make someone the best at every form of poker? Of course not. But heads-up is the format where elite players can tell us, with their own money, exactly where they believe they stand. And, for whatever it’s worth, I would bet that he’d be the best in 6-handed cash games if he wanted. The player who the other best players voted for, with their wallets, is BERRI SWEET. That’s why I believe he’s the best poker player in the world. What makes him so good? As I shared, I’ve had the privilege of working with BERRI for many years. I have had a front-row seat to the way he thinks about the game. I have even helped him with his game, though he has helped me much more with my own. I believe what makes him so good is that he is by far the best at hand-reading and leveling. I have long said that the biggest edges in poker come from knowing your opponents’ ranges better than they do. BERRI tends to know what people have. And he’s as close to unshakeable and unafraid as any player I know well enough to see what is actually going on emotionally during the tough times. For those who have watched my videos and learned how I think about the game, the best idea I can give you of how he thinks is to say that BERRI approaches the game much like I do… if I were 1.5x as smart and 5x as confident. Or, that’s the best idea I could give you until now, because starting today, a small group of ambitious players will get to learn from him. To explain how that happened, I need to introduce you to someone else. Why am I sharing this now? The first 1:1 non-poker-strategy coaching client I ever had is named Matías González Ayesa – a Spanish high-stakes NL cash game player (up to $10k NL 6-max) and coach. When I was promoting the launch of @joinbtg, Matías approached me. He was a highly competitive tennis player as a teenager and found poker soon after making the decision not to go pro. He said that in tennis, great up-and-coming players get mentored by those who’ve been where they want to be. He asked if I’d be that for him, and we worked out a deal. (I’m grateful to him for getting me into 1:1 coaching!) Matías has coached at Educapoker for nearly seven years and is extremely well regarded in the Spanish-speaking community, though less known outside it. A few months ago, he talked about wanting to get more invested in his students’ success. Long story short, he wanted to start a CFP (coaching for profits). Further, he thought it would be fun to work on it with me. So, we agreed to build it together. Matías already knew BERRI and I worked together because BERRI had reviewed some of his HU hands as a favor to me. Eventually, one of us asked the obvious – and seemingly ridiculous – question: “What if we could get BERRI involved?” He said yes. SWEET! It has been a few years since my battling days on Pokerstars, where I went by the screen name MrSweets28. My friendship with BERRI SWEET had nothing to do with our screen names (I think?), but once he agreed to join us, the name came to me: SWEETPOKER. SWEETPOKER is a high-stakes online NLHE cash game CFP. We are launching and accepting applications starting today. Our aim is to start SWEETPOKER with 21 players. We are looking for players already playing 500nl+, though we’ll consider applications from 200nl players. Matías (@v3rson is bringing with him two more of Spain’s best-kept secrets from the rest of us: Xoán Míguez and Enrique Lago (@kikelake). All three play and win at up to $10k NLHE. If you are wondering how I can teach people 6-max NL cash at a high level, don’t worry… I won’t be. My job is to teach people the things I teach in BTG – how to manage their careers, their study, their mindset… supporting them off the table so they can perform on it. And perhaps a lesson on adjustments and exploiting opponents sneaks in, as it has in BTG on an occasion or two. SWEETPOKER won’t be the right fit for everyone. Its coaches will also host a monthly bonus strategy call inside Beyond The Game over the next year. BTG is open across games and stakes, though I recommend it most for mid- and high-stakes players. Applications close in one week: joinbtg.com For SWEETPOKER, we’re looking not only for great players with high potential, but for great people we’ll enjoy helping: ambitious, thoughtful players who are hungry to learn and motivated to find out how good they can become. If you know a 200nl+ player who SWEETPOKER might be great for, please share this with them. And please let me know, too. Referrals/vouches will go a long way in the application process. If you’re already playing 500NL+ online and want the chance to learn from Matías, Xoán, Enrique, BERRI, and me, apply to become one of SWEETPOKER’s first 21 players. (We’ll also consider exceptional 200NL applicants.) Apply: sweetpoker.co