WWJTD

There's a series in progress at Deuces Cracked called What Would Joe Tall Do.  Joe takes some NL hands he's played, supplies some reads, then creates a running quiz using surveys, asking what the correct action is at various points in the hands.  After the survey closes down, Joe records a hand replayer video with another NL coach/video producer.  In the video, they reveal the the best option and talk about why that option is indeed the best one.

There are a number of cool aspects to this series.  To start with, you can obviously just watch the video without having taken the accompanying quiz.  There are other hand replayer videos discussing interesting hands, which are quite effective.  If you don't have the interest in going through the quizzes, you can still benefit from watching the videos.

But there are extra rewards for going through the quizzes.  First, the top performing DC members get rewarded for that performance.  Having missed one quiz and tanked another (relatively speaking), I doubt that I'll be able to make enough of a comeback for the cool prizes :P. 

However, the real value for going through the quizzes is that it engages you deeper in the learning process.  How many times have you watched videos somewhat passively?  I mean, you can still pick up stuff from them, but a lot slips by because you think you know it, or maybe it makes sense to you when you're watching the video, but really you have not internalized.  If you take the quiz ahead of time, though, you will find out what you know and what you don't know.  You can confirm what's right, and can really focus in on what's wrong. 

What I personally do (although it makes taking the quiz kind of a pain in the ass), is to keep a spreadsheet with the questions, my answers, and the reasons I picked those answers.  I leave columns for the coach's answers and their explanations.  I then follow along with that spreadsheet as the answers are being revealed in the video, along with the explanations, entering the coach's ideas.  For a follow-up, I highlight the ones I missed (whether I missed the answer altogether, or I had the right answer but for the wrong reason).  Later, I intend to hide my answer and the coach's answer for the ones I missed, and see if I've learned anything in the time since I initially took the quiz.  Kind of like self-coaching.

A couple more cool things.  First, although Joe is a fantastic limit player (all sorts of games), he relatively inexperienced at NL.  By that, I mean, he makes some of the same mistakes I do.  So, he gets himself into trouble spots on the turn and river by mistakes he makes on the earlier streets...in some cases, the same sorts of spots I find myself on occasion.  Watching a more traditional video where the producer is a lot better than I am, you never get to see how to limit the damage you cause yourself earlier in the hand.

Finally, the DC executive producers also take the quizzes and publish their results.  While none of them tank, they're not all at the top, either.  I think what that shows is that there are a number of different ways to reasonably play a hand...depending on your general style and your interpretation of villain reads.  That underscores the importance of having the correct rationale for your plays, rather than just having a bag of tricks.