Jon "Apestyles" Van Fleet: $20 Million+ in Online MTT Cashes

Well, hello there my friend. Welcome to another episode of the chasing poker greatness podcast. As always, this is your host, the founder of chasing poker greatness.com Coach Brad Wilson, and today’s guest on CPG has over $20 million in lifetime online MTT caches and is genuinely one of my favorite human beings in the world of poker, Jon ape styles Van Vleet Fleet. It’s been about a year since the last time the great eight was on CPG. And you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the man that continues to thrive, his Twitch stream remains one of the most popular poker streams on the face of the planet. He’s now an ACR sponsored pro he sold 1000s and 1000s of his eight styles bundle. And he’s recently released a new ape sales bootcamp over on BBC poker. In my opinion, the world at large needs a billion or so more human beings like Jon, he’s authentic, empathetic, quick witted, quick to laugh and genuinely cares about his fellow human beings. You probably don’t want to see him sitting at your poker table though. With that said in today’s round three conversation with Jon ape styles Van Vleet Fleet, you’re going to learn what on earth the pocket snails project is and why it’s near and dear to Jon’s heart. The only platform where the ape is a net losing player with hopes to turn that around and 2022 how Jon deals with being live on stream during the amazing highs and gut wrenching lows that come with being a poker player. And much, much more. So Now without any further ado, I bring to you one of the greatest online poker players of all time. Jon “Apestyles” Van Vleet Fleet. Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” Fleet Mr. Apestyles, how you doing, sir, welcome back to the show.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (2:13) Doing good. Happy to be here.

 

Brad Wilson (2:16) Yeah, I was checking to see because I was like, Man, I feel like he was just like, recently on. And I looked at

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (2:22) Oh, it was a year because I feel like I’m on a lot. So I was just like this. He just like when he gets he’s like, I can’t find anybody. I’m just gonna

 

Brad Wilson (2:33) I mean, it’s been a year, which is like, quite incredible. It does not feel like it has been that long. 

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (2:39) It doesn’t. So I guess at the beginning of our last the last time we spoke. I was like just beginning streaming. You are Yeah. Right. And I was like crushing everything, right. Nice. Nice. Yeah, that was at the very beginning. And now I’m on like, three, four months, like, just like downswing where I’m running like, more than three big blinds per 100 EV big blinds per 100. Just like, like cannot win all ends right now. You know, it’s just crazy.

 

Brad Wilson (3:11) Yeah, how much in AYP styles dollars is the downswing of three months?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (3:18) Like three, four? Yeah, like pretty big. Yeah. But I played 25, k’s and 10. So it’s like three or 4000 is like, not like, you can close to unheard of like, I’m totally within the realms of normal variance. But there’s a there’s a site where you can check. I think it’s something dope, primed out. Yeah. Yeah. And like, there’s, you know, where you can put in your ROI, the average field size and what you’re used to. And you see, like, there’s all these, like, really big ones, and this ones, but there are also these ones that are like, Fuck your life, like, yes, for like 5000 10,000 games, just like, like it exists right? Now, that being said, like, I don’t really like blaming variants or blaming, like the down swings on luck. So downswing, like I think are actually in some ways more beneficial than up swings in that they make you focus on what you could what you’re possibly doing wrong. They make you like they motivate me to work on the things outside my game that I can control like getting in shape and things like that. So in general, down swings are okay in that way, but fuck, man, I want to get some money.

 

Brad Wilson (4:39) Yeah, we can we can talk about all the benefits of the down swings when you’re in the downswing and that’s just like, yeah, we’re trying to like okay, we’re gonna make it through. Things will turn around eventually. I know they will.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (4:52) Well, the thing is, like I have sort of insulated myself from from worrying too much about money, like Oh, on that level, which is lucky for me during and I was like, Damn, if I just started off random like this in the very beginning I would have just like,

 

Brad Wilson (5:08) how many how many like potential like poker crushers started their career off on one of these straight down off a cliff and we’re like, nope, fuck this game.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (5:20) Because I did the opposite, right? Like, I didn’t know anything. And I heated and I was like I the best one like the 11 ribeye and the 30 ribeye in like two days, and I was like, okay, he’s just like printing money online that they’re,

 

Brad Wilson (5:39) they’re just just printing. I think in the time that we spoke last, I don’t know if it had recently happened or happened directly after but I know you join ACR as one of their their sponsored pros, right?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (5:54) Yeah. So that’s kind of the timeline, right? So like, my history in online poker is I’ve been around for a long time. And I moved to go play Poker Stars Party Poker and such. And I ended up like crashing when I moved like, one, like two, 3 million, and playing the biggest games and playing against like very, very good players. And then I moved to ACR, which is a drop down in byens. And objectively easier fields, like for sure, like, there, there are people who study fields and tell you to play on a car, you know. And, and then just like, like, so it’s like frustrating, because I’m like, Huh. Like, I’ve moved down, and I’m playing but the thing is, there are other, like, there are other possibilities. Besides variance. Like perhaps maybe I thought, hey, you know, I’m a big high stakes Crusher, like I don’t have to pay attention to these the ACR too much. Or maybe I was labs.

 

Brad Wilson (6:56) He’s gonna run right over them.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (7:02) Yeah, maybe there’s something but but the thing is, I I’m doing what I have to do during these time periods, which is just like, I’m getting my database reviewed by by by my peers who I respect. And I’m, like, I’m doing this publicly. So I think if I was really sucking, like I’d hear about it. But I’m like, Yeah, I’m doing what I can do. But it’s still you have been losing them.

 

Brad Wilson (7:30) Yeah. Do you? Do you have those times where you start just, you know, questioning? Everything.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (7:39) I think it’s not a downswing. Unless you’re a little bit questioning your confidence. Like, yeah, but I’ve done so much that, that I don’t, I still have confidence in my win rates are pretty high. And I’m looking at everything. And it’s really, in my database, it looks like it’s about the all wins, right? But, um, but there’s still always that nagging voice that’s like, but like, you know, what have you. What if the game has passed you by? What if they just like, What if everyone knows what you’re doing that? Because I sold this course. Right? And we sold 1000s of them. And now everyone’s like, doing my shit against me. So like, maybe they figured me out? Yeah, so definitely, you’re gonna have those those thoughts on the downswing. But all I can do is focus on the things I can control. So like, I’m trying to get in better shape, because I’ve been sort of letting that go when I moved in everything. And just keep focusing on the process. And also, making sure that my mental game is good. Like, recently, it has been good, but recently at like, Have you ever been like on a bad run deep experiment, and you just get that like crushing Doom feeling where you’re just like, I’m gonna get it in good. And it just gonna?

 

Brad Wilson (8:58) No, I don’t play tournaments. So mostly, it’s our head that no, because I don’t play tournaments, right. So, I mean, in cash games that manifests is like you just no matter what you do, you, you just get it all in good. And you’re going to lose, and you get really bad, and you’re going to lose, and you’re just never going to win. That’s sort of the feeling of like, just dread or existential angst before like any major decision, you’re like, Okay, I’m supposed to bluff catch here. And then you bluff catch, and you lose, and you’re like, okay, like, Oh, that was yesterday. No, over and over and over.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (9:34) That was yesterday was like, oh, okay, I have the right combo. I just know, I have to call this combo, and people never bluff. Right? Yeah. And then I looked it up. And it was like, yep, you have to call this every time. It was like pure calls in all these spots, you know, and I was just like, I mean, at first that actually usually pacifies me in a way like You know, sure, if I’m like, you know, as long as I’m executing the strategy diagnose, correct, like, that usually is better than, like, if I put, like, way better. Um, although recently it just been kind of neutral. It’s just, um, that entitlement sleeping, or sleeping in, where it’s like, I work so hard, and he did it, and I deserve this. Like that kind of things coming up, right? And I gotta remember, yo, first of all, like, poker has given you everything. So there’s no entitlement there. And poker doesn’t owe you anything. I mean, it just, it’s gambling, like, that’s what you get into. But for sure, that kind of stuff comes up. But it’s useless. Right? Well,

 

Brad Wilson (10:48) I mean, you got to deal with it, you know, it’s just, it’s just always a part of the process, the ups and the downs. And like, it’s, it just is so so this is kind of a funny little story. Recently, I’ve been annoyed at at something. Like, it’s just been an annoying situation. And I started to feel like sorry for myself a little bit, right. I was like, Oh, my God, like, this is such bullshit, we’re not going to deal with this. So I like went to the couch, and was just feeling really bad, like, just down depressed. And I turned on HBO, Max, and they had released a new documentary. And it was called life of crime. 1984 to 2020. So 36 years of following these three humans around. And so I just started watching it. And in my, like, just a horrible mental state. When I read the description of it, I was like, oh, it’s following drug addicts around for like, 36 years. Just press play,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (11:54)  and just like sweet, yeah,

 

Brad Wilson (11:56) I would feel better about my, that was it. That was it. Like, I just gotta, like, I want to anchor myself and like an alternative reality of like, holy shit. Like, this is like some real struggle right here, you know, and oh, my god, like, it worked like a charm, I realized is that, it was that at the end of the, at the end of the documentary, I was like, Holy shit, man, these people that like, they didn’t have any chance. I mean, you know, they made really bad decisions at 19 started going to prison, got addicted to drugs, and then just it was this vicious cycle where they couldn’t get off drugs, and they had no support. And I mean, you know, at the end, let’s just say like, when you watch it, you can predict the outcome of everything that happens. And I mean, it shows their kids growing up in this like, terrible, terrible city in New Jersey, or terrible part of town. I mean, it’s just like, it’s heartbreaking, and gut wrenching. And it really gave me some perspective of like, God, I got to deal with like, like, you know, somebody bought one of my products, you know, and I had to walk across the room to like, put up a payment portal for $700. It’s like, like, what are my problems in life? You’re really right. They’re just so insignificant compared to what they could be. So yeah, I as as a confessional, I broke down, I watched a documentary that I thought would probably put my issues into perspective. And they absolutely did. And I mean, who it was maybe the most powerful documentary I’ve ever watched, honestly.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (13:33) Oh, man, that sounds like the kind of documentary that I’d walk away feeling this.

 

Brad Wilson (13:38) I did not feel in a good, great place just because of how messed up it was. And you just sometimes I think people kind of slipped through the cracks of society and don’t, they don’t get there. There’s, there’s no hope. And that’s just like, yeah, it’s pretty awful.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (13:58) What was sick is like, like, like, like, when I when I quit drinking, and first started going to meetings and stuff, right? Like, you know, I met people, like, I don’t want to met people within recovery that were like, you know, just had way different life stories than I did, you know, and, but I realized, though, that, like, I’m not that much different than those people except I had support. I had people that that that, that looked out for me, you know, and so like, I couldn’t have been, I can have been born into that situation. I was lucky. situation that onboarding to I want to I want to touch back on that, that Doom feeling kind of though, when we’re like, deep in the tournament. Um, I was talking with it. I was talking with Elliott row about that. Oh, no, I’m sorry. It was actually Frake that I was talking to you about that. And he was talking about, like, Why do you think you feel that like, what’s, what is that? And it’s like that That’s your body’s you’ve had a bunch of shitty experiences in a row and your subconscious your body’s like warning you of like danger, right? And actually, it’s just, it’s an old mechanism. It’s useful in the past, right? But really, for what we’re doing, it’s not necessary. So this idea that I can just be like, Okay, I’m feeling kind of messed up right now, like with this, like impending doom, but I see what you’re doing. Thank you, thank you, subconsciousness, for letting me know that this is this is a dangerous situation for me. And it just like realizing that everyone has something like that. And it’s just a mechanism is not personal. And it’s not real.

 

Brad Wilson (15:40) Yeah, it’s like trauma manifesting, like, in the moment, and I mean, yeah, like we’re not, we’re programmed to fear. We’re programmed to fear like, you know, a tiger jumping out at us and eating our faces off. We don’t really know how to deal with the variance of online poker yet, maybe maybe in 1000 years, we will have evolved to be able to handle online poker.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (16:03) It’s all just numbers. And like, in the end, like the importance of it all is just important, because I say just, I mean, as long as I’m like, I have the things that I need, like, whoop over my head, food, friends, all that family. Like, um, the ups and downs there is important as I make them, you know,

 

Brad Wilson (16:23) absolutely. And segwaying that segues quite nicely into, you know, a lot of times when I’m messaging you on Twitter, I’m not actually messaging you. And spoiler alert, when people message me on Twitter, they’re not always messaging me either. They’re messaging our assistants and I saw that recently, you had the chance to meet Barb in real life for the first time. And yeah, just wanted to ask you, you know how that went.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (16:51) Barb is just like, the best in that she’s she just makes everyone feel better. But she’s also just kind of cool and funny. So shout out to Barb love you she’s gonna come out and visit. She just, I wanted to give her presence because she like she sent me like a badass telescope for Christmas and like, but she doesn’t. I don’t know what to get her and she’s like, I’ll tell you what, get me a trip. And I want to watch you play. If she’s really into poker, you know, she made the she made the ladies event final table one time and she also went to aciac tournament recently for like, 10,000

 

Brad Wilson (17:26) you need to maybe you need to ask Bob how to beat ACR. That’s the That’s where you go.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (17:33) Pretty soon. Pretty soon you’re gonna be hitting up Barb’s Twitter and I’m gonna be like, Yeah, I’m Barb’s assistant YouTube Barb’s assistant here.

 

Brad Wilson (17:46) I assume. We got some telescope. And we’re interested in astronomy.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (17:52) I mean, I am in I got a great view of my house as like a beautiful view of trees and Portland stuff, but also lots of clouds. So a lot of times telescopes, you can see the city from where I’m at go to so.

 

Brad Wilson (18:03) Yeah, so you can you can see the clouds quite clearly now. So Barb’s come in to sweat. You got to come on stream.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (18:12) Oh, yeah, I think so. She who knows her? She’s like, she may be shy. Like there’s a little spot. I might set up like a co host or like a CO CO guest whatever spot there. Yeah, co Grindr.

 

Brad Wilson (18:27) CO Grindr. Do you ever have like a co guests that you you stream with while you’re playing?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (18:34) Um I don’t know what a co guest is man. CO.

 

Brad Wilson (18:40) CO streamer.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (18:43) Yeah, I had I did dual stream is very easy. The other day that was really fun. Actually, people people love that I did one with like, Matt staples, not a stream. But I did. I did some duels a while back and I have had people just kind of like sit here. But without them being miked up that can be kind of weird. Just because, like, you know, it’s like when I’m streaming. It’s already hard enough bouncing between like focus and light, and then entertaining. And then like, focus entertaining and talk to this person, just like, that’s that. So I may not do that too much.

 

Brad Wilson (19:20) But yeah, you did three, three balls or too many balls.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (19:24) I cannot juggle.

 

Brad Wilson (19:29) So you mentioned earlier, you know, you mentioned your coaches and like working your way through this and studying hard. You are one of the more prominent poker coaches in the MTT world, I believe. So how does Mr. Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” fleets find coaches that he trusts and works with?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (19:53) Well, I’m like Jordan from BBC. I actually met him the first time because I was downswing. It In these 18 minutes, it goes that were like it was actually a very similar situation in that they were lower stakes, and I was used to beating and but I had beaten every stakes, like steak on stars. And that was like, I haven’t been to 18 minutes. And the biggest winner in them was Jordan at the time he was he just crushed the 18 minutes. And so he was doing stuff that I just didn’t understand. He was like mid race folding off the 10 big blinds and just so aggro. And I hit him up. And he showed me a few things. And I liked the way that he thought about poker, I’ve always believed in coaching. And so it’s kind of funny that like 15 years later, we’re working together now. And so I will go over my database with with guys like Jordan, I’ve got a study group of guys that I can’t really mention, but like a bunch of other crushers also. Like be friends with Yeah. Yeah. But like the people who I’m lucky enough to have peers who are very good, who I can bounce things off of. And it’s, it’s not like it used to be where you like, during my downswing in 2008. It was the same kind of thing where I would send my hands to everyone, and everyone was like, No, you’re thinking about the game pretty well, it sounds like it’s even better now. Because I can look at solvers. I can look I can do I can, as long as my approach is okay. And that’s what I like. But I can’t imagine that it’s not, you know, because it’s, it’s, it tries to be objective.

 

Brad Wilson (21:34) Can anybody imagine their approach is not okay, though.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (21:39) Well, the thing about my approach, I think, is that all have a course that I’ve designed. And so someone else we have, of course, and we’ll be teaching the same things and using different words, because we have essentially, the same method in like, of looking at the game, which is solver, driven, equity driven, like math driven. And there’s more to the game than that, though. Actually, I think there’s actually quite a bit more, and people don’t really give it as much love as they should, like people are trying to play like the bots. It’s like, no, no, no, you’re playing against the humans. But But I think in general, you can’t teach like, the, you know, reading weakness and strength in game flow, but you can teach the math and solver approach, you know, in the more

 

Brad Wilson (22:35) that’s more tangible, for sure, it’s yes, abstract.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (22:39) There is more to the game, like there. You disagree?

 

Brad Wilson (22:43) No, no, I agree. I agree completely. I don’t disagree at all. I think that like, there are available data points that guide us. And then there are also so I went on this long. This this daily, somebody posted in the village, my my Slack community, about chicken sexers. And this took me down this weird rabbit hole. So chicken sexers. Chicken sexers. Yes, in Japan. So there, somebody has this job, where basically chicks that are a day old, they need to know what sex the chicks are, right? So they have people that will separate the males and the females, right. But the deal is that they teach through intuition. The person who’s sexing the chickens do not do not know why they know, a certain chick is a male or female, but they do know and they are right. And they so they teach through experience. And over time, the people that they teach, just watch them doing it, their brain picks up on something like subconsciously and they’re able to do it as well without articulating why. Which that led me down this like really, really long rabbit hole of just like what intuition is, and the power of the subconscious mind and really, like trying to relate it back to Poker in that in that way. Because sometimes we do have those moments in poker where you just you have a feeling that you cannot articulate and that feeling drives your decision. And, you know, sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn’t, but

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (24:24) you could even kind of try to object like make it objective to if you if you’re talking about game flow, you’re talking about just a binary pattern of left value. Um, but I think that there’s it may even be bigger than like this whole idea of like, the field guys versus like the math nerds. I mean, I think that that’s actually sort of a false dichotomy. But I think that it’s best to be as informed as you can be math wise, but also being very aware of the fact that you’re against the human being bad as biases. is doing multiple things at once is like, without trying to telling you what they have quite often,

 

Brad Wilson (25:10) right? Yes, I do agree that there are, you know, I trust that there are in game reads there’s an intuition plays a part in decision making. And depending on who you ask, it can be a larger role or a smaller role. But I would say that ultimately, you know, we train we trained as poker players to, in a sense be reflective, or reflexive, with our decision making where like, we’re faced with a scenario by reflex, we know what to do, or we have a good idea what to do. And that’s based on all of our study all of our learning that leads us to that moment in time. I mean, otherwise, how would you be able to play 20 tournaments at the same time, without trusting that sort of meta cognitive ability to parse information and then make a decision? So I think from that sense, like, feel players like, I don’t even know if that’s like, I don’t know what turret what that means anymore these days, because I feel player to me can just be like a well studied human that knows what to do in a situation, by reflex through studying in the same way that like, you know, I always use the analogy of like an NFL quarterback, right? Like, they roll out to the right, they chunk a ball 50 yards into a window of like three feet. They’re not consciously thinking about doing any of that it’s through, like, repetition, and practice. Right?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (26:32) Exactly. And so, like, I remember, I think it was one lucid, who posted, he said, something about me and wncg both teaching GTO courses, and then playing but playing street poker. And I was like, thank you. Um, I think I might have talked about that before, because it’s the same thing, right? In that. Um, I think the optimal state when I’m playing is sort of calm, but also like experimenting, thinking about all the factors in play. And yeah, just being willing to try stuff. And occasionally, like, like, something just doesn’t make sense. Or it feels like, this is the moment they’re gonna try. Or sometimes I even hear, like, when I’m playing live with somebody, like you can hear, like, wrong ways people think about the game, you know, and so I tried to like, so you can kind of use that to, sometimes to, to make call downs where you might not, or to make big folds where, where you’re not where people don’t have bluff. Like, there are a lot of spots like those where it’s just like, okay, like, I just don’t see how you can be bluffing here. Yeah. Well, I mean,

 

Brad Wilson (27:48) yeah, it’s like some, sometimes people just don’t have gloves, sometimes they don’t have folds. And sometimes they don’t have value, right? Like it works. All three of them kind of work work together. And like, the thing that I love most about poker, and I’ve always loved the most is that it’s a puzzle with a variable that you’re playing against a human being. And what you said there about listening to what they’re saying, right? I mean, this is what like world class professional poker players have always done is get in their opponent’s head and understand what their opponents are doing better than they themselves understand what they’re doing. Because when you do that, you see the flaws like you see the flaws in their strategic maps and that allows you to take adVan Vleettage of those flaws, which is you know what street poker, exploitative poker, you know, is kind of about it saying? Like, yes, I’m willing to take this risk that makes me exploitable. But I’m banking on the fact that I know what they’re doing better than they do. And so they won’t be able to capitalize on that risk. I’m taking.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (28:48) Yeah, like, like, in Vegas recently, like, you know, how at first do is these for me, I get like excited to play Live Poker. And then like, two weeks later, and like

 

Brad Wilson (28:57) this fuck Live Poker.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (29:01) Um, at first, it was a little bit tilting hearing people talk just like, like so wrong about poker. They were always like, using like, emotional terms to describe what they were doing it and like, it tilted me because it was just like, like, they were doing it to me, too. They’re like, Oh, yeah, I can see that you were brought up and I was like, anyway, but instead of instead of being like, ah, you know, like, annoyed by it. I think it’s better to view that as part of the puzzle, like, what’s the best strategy versus someone that thinks in this way? Like, what are some counter strategies? Like what does this mean that they’re going to be overdoing it underneath? You know, and like really approaching it from from a like, how to best exploit the fact that’s probably that’s that’s the more interesting puzzle than you know, just trying to figure out what the solver would do or whatever. So,

 

Brad Wilson (29:55) yeah, and more profitable I think over over the long run to against especially that specific player profile.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (30:02) Yeah. I mean, I think, like, I’m going to start making up like, like, I’m gonna start like really agreeing with like, like, the more wrong it is, the more I’m like, yeah, like, I’m just gonna totally agree with it and go with it that

 

Brad Wilson (30:16) we both know, like, as people that have coached just, you know, spent 1000s and 1000s of hours coaching people, we both know how difficult it is to communicate information to another person in a way that allows them to execute it in real time. That like, honestly, people get upset about like, Oh, you’re just teaching people how to play poker better, blah, blah, blah, like what? And it’s like, dude, you’ve you’ve probably never tried to teach anybody how to play poker, because it is exceptionally difficult to communicate concepts in a way that another human can actually use them while they’re playing poker to upgrade their game. And it’s exceptionally rare that anybody says anything at a live poker table that upgrades everybody’s game around them.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (31:02) Oh, no, no, no, like, I mean, okay, like, I just sat down on the table, like one of the first times I sat down with a guy kind of whispers to me, oh, guy raises from the cut off there, do three bits. That off four bits. So I was like 40 bigs with ace king button called with Jack’s, I think it was ace king off suit. And I said, you know, the guy to my right was like that’s drawing like Pro. Use. Just call. Like, what do you do? They’re like, like, how do you what’s like, what’s the exploit? Because I’m just like, it was like such a normal spot. I was like, wow. Probably that I can make this person fold. Like in big pot. Yes.

 

Brad Wilson (31:58) And when they start putting a significant portion of their stack in quite deep. It’s probably bad news. For bluff catching.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (32:08) Although sometimes really tight players have this this is I swear, this is phenomenon that happens more versus me than anybody else. No,

 

Brad Wilson (32:15) I know exactly what you’re gonna say. And I’ve found the same thing. What do you call it? Because the way it just going off like a rocket, I don’t know exactly how to describe it. Like,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (32:27) honestly, like, this is probably slightly offensive, but in its pas.

 

Brad Wilson (32:34) It’s, it’s more precise language. Actually. That’s

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (32:37) it just like, I don’t I don’t know. It’s like, they’ll play like 15% of hands and then just run this like ridiculous bluff. And you’re like, what? I think it’s because they’re just like, I’ve been so tight. It’s my third win ahead. I’m just gonna make it happen.

 

Brad Wilson (32:53) What’s interesting, like in cash games, what’s so crazy about it is like, I can feel it coming. Like I it’s like, I have a sixth sense. Like, I know this person. I don’t know why they’re about to just go off like a rocket. But they do. And they have like, the weirdest hand to do it with. Which I think that like, it’s probably just some sort of intuitive, intuitive read based on like how they’ve previously played their good hands, or their posture, their body language or their energy or some other data point that you’re internalizing. That’s like, Yo, this person, I don’t know why what’s possessing them to just go crazy right here, but they’re about to go crazy.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (33:35) Yeah, I mean, it’s not like Like, like, when you when you look at an amazing painting, that you know, is just like, incredible. You can’t really analyze it by any sort of objective means or anything like that. And I think that

 

Brad Wilson (33:47) fast is this beautiful painting.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (33:50) I feel bad because I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, it just it just like,

 

Brad Wilson (33:54) what’s an interesting phenomenon?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (33:56) Yes. Um, and it’s like, very true. Maybe not with with all super tight players, but it seems to happen like like, I’m like, it just it a lot of the times it happens when you like, I mean, I’m supposed to call this hand I have to call this hand and but you’re so tight, but I’m just gonna call anyway, you like what?

 

Brad Wilson (34:24) I’ve looked at a lot of data, and I can say definitively, I have yet to find any spots that are like that have no air composition. Like I found a lot of under bluff spots, but like, somehow, some way in every single scenario that I’ve looked at, there is some portion of air in that range.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (34:43) That word never that word never you better. Like never say never in this in this case, because I remember I got tilted because a guy bet 1/3 on the river and he was like He folded. Just a very clear call. And I was like, You A rage like, like, I’m like, Listen, you know, he’s he’s betting 1/3 pot, he’s risking one for three, that only needs to win one. And for us, we need to defend, like 75% here, right? And he’s like, he’s just never bluffing. And I was like, and in that hand, of course, he wasn’t or I don’t know, he folded, but we wouldn’t know. But like, I like, Hey, let’s go into your database and, and see if that statement is true. We’re just gonna filter for less than third pot bets and see how often it’s true. They were bluffing like 40 something percent of the time, it was like super high. Yes. People bluff small all the time. It’s not, don’t you can’t say never.

 

Brad Wilson (35:47) It’s not exactly an original thought to say, Well, I’m gonna choose a sizing that looks like I never bluff. What I bluffing, right? Is not that hard to do. It’s not that not that difficult of a thing to do.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (35:59) Also, it’s actually kind of cool. Like, I’ve, if you see men bets on the river, like that’s, that’s I brought that shit into the game. I’m sorry, guys, but like, part of it is it’s like in the back check that one week goes back called the big blind Check, check out a position just like Rise of the river with an equity adVan Vleettage, but mainly from like, low pears and stuff. So one of their dominant bet sizes is going to be a min bet. And it works quite well for value get calls a lot. And people don’t do it. They the toughest thing to do against is to raise pretty aggressively, right? But I started bluffing with that, in that it felt so wrong, like betting one to 10 as a bluff, but it is hard to defend that it’s really hard to defend that. Because like, there are some parts of your parts your range that you’re just gonna feel stupid doing something other than folding with right. So anyway,

 

Brad Wilson (37:00) guys, yeah, I don’t know where you went. You got blood drawn out of you today. And so, you know, how did that go? By the way we Okay.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (37:09) Um, that’s something might vary. So yeah, you know, I’m like, Whoa, man, I’m busy.

 

Brad Wilson (37:14) Yeah, you’re dizzy need some food.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (37:19) I mean, I. Sometimes I do get going when it’s when it starts when it comes to talking about poker. For sure.

 

CG Nacz  37:30  

You survived preflop bootcamp. You shot the fish in a barrel. Now, prepare yourself for the feeding frenzy. A comprehensive strategy for gutting every fish and your player pool data driven hero bluffs like called outs and perfect value bets are maximally designed to hurt some feelings feeding frenzy available now at chasing poker greatness.com/feeding frenzy

 

Brad Wilson (38:10) Alright, so we’re back from an impromptu poker excited break discussion type thing.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (38:19) And basically we decided that when we’re talking about the river donk we’re not referring to like we’re talking about check call check call he’s unless you were talking about Yeah, but yeah,

 

Brad Wilson (38:32) you know, cash game so it was like a super deep spot with like the seven Tibet going into bot. Which I don’t know how often that happens in Mt. T’s unless it’s like the first level.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (38:43) Yeah, you started talking I was like wrong dude. All in preflop um yeah, I actually that’s that’s actually a focus of mine going forward is 100 Big Blind play into under big blind play. A just like, like when Sims first came out, I was like, I’m a target player. I’m just going to run all the 5040 3020s 1510 just to see the nuances and there are nuances between those stack sizes, but I still can like kind of suck sometimes deep stacked. Especially because like 50 bigs there are some hands that you start betting good and getting in with that you actually don’t you know, so there are different thresholds for getting it in and I make mistakes we’re gonna see for sure,

 

Brad Wilson (39:31) absolutely. It’s a different it’s a different game. You give me 20 big blinds and I am like, I feel desperate and like, holy shit, I gotta like get this money in ASAP or I’m gonna whittle away to nothing like I feel just like in total desperation mode and completely uncomfortable.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (39:49) I’m like, This is my office. We’re just we’re just hanging on by threads. It’s that’s tournament life.

 

Brad Wilson (39:55) Yeah, I don’t like to thread get me up to 100 big blinds where I feel safe and comfy. Um,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (40:01) all right, like, um, I respect that. And I think probably for a professional, it’s probably the better way to go. I think you have to be a certain kind of crazy do MTTs for a living, because like I’ve said before, I’ve been, I’ve been doing this for like 17 years, and all my years for a couple have been six figure ones, including the losing ones, you know, and it’s not, it’s not that fun by the downswings?

 

Brad Wilson (40:31) Well, from the cash side, the up swings are nice, though, right. And they, I’ve never had the feeling of like a giant NTT score. But I’ve heard that they’re quite nice, but like, I remember probably a five year stretch where I think I had like three losing months, and one of them was like breakeven playing cash, you know, just, it’s just like, nice and steady.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (40:59) Yeah, like MTTs, you’re on any given day, you are a, like a dog to win money. Like, you’re 7030. Even if you’re like a 20 ROI player, you’re only like 50%, to win over 1000 MTTs it depending on the field size, if it’s 1000 person fields. So it there, you’re embracing the various with MDTs. But if you don’t enjoy having a big stack, with two tables left in a tournament, with a bunch of money up top, I don’t know what you’re in poker for, you know. So, I just I’ve always found the dynamic nature of entities to be really interesting. And it’s what I popped in, when I was a fish and attract it attracted me, I was like, I can turn this into that, you know, and the sitting there with just your cash didn’t didn’t appeal to me as much when I was a fish and you know, arguably still in

 

Brad Wilson (41:59) funny on you being a fish topic here and the variance of MTTs. I’ve recently been buying action from somebody who’s playing in some of the larger buy in or, you know, like the two hundreds or the five hundreds on ACR that’s trying to like, you know, basically sell off and minimize their risk. And one of the things that they showed me, I’ve known them for a while I can’t imagine them not being a favorite in the tournaments that they’re they’re battling in so like every week was like, here, go here, here’s some money, and it’s gone. Like it’s every week, like no, no return, no return, no return. And he’s like, he’s like, Well, I’m struggling. He’s like, but I take solace in this. And he sent me a post of his ACR graph. With your ACR graph above it. He’s like, the above is that’s ape styles, and they look identical. It was I was like, okay,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles”( 42:54) okay

 

Brad Wilson (43:00) the silences, silence is deafening here, bro. Like,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (43:05) I’ve got like, like, above a six, or whatever. 100 We rent rich when we’re in like, and that that holds up below 60 big blinds deep. So it’s like, but like the end big blinds per 100 is looking is looking nice, but the big one 300 is not

 

Brad Wilson (43:20) met its variance. It’s like 500 tournaments, or we just talked about, right? But

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (43:24) like, it’s totally within the realms of like, normal variance, you know, but like, I feel this pressure now. And I think that’s what’s been killing me man. I’ve been on down swings before and I’m like, like, I don’t know, the downswing is like I said, they’re just there. You can you can use them as tools to get better if I just go on like this the whole my whole life like I think I’d be obnoxious and I wouldn’t have learned a lot of valuable lessons. But in front of people, I felt like

 

Brad Wilson (43:54) at least you got to learn your lessons you know?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (43:58) And like like the thing is, like everyone can like like say that like all day kind of shit is corny, but like the truth is, if you look back on your life, right? Like the so called like good scores are like the best days are not the days that motivated you to become the person that you are, right? No, they’re not. But like, I this new thing of doing it in front of people has added a new element to where I feel this like weird disconnection with like. I’m like, supposed to be this ape styles guy who’s supposed to be constantly crashing and like sees through cards or something like that. That’s That’s what I tell myself. And when I don’t live up to whatever, like that image is, or when I feel like I’m just like, not like, people, people, buy my action and watch me and then I like I don’t when that adds a new layer, like adds a new layer of like feeling like you let people down that that, that kind of sucks.

 

Brad Wilson (45:10) But do you ever feel like, Do you ever feel like you have to respond or react to things differently when somebody’s watching you on stream than you might otherwise would? If nobody were watching you?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (45:22) Yeah, nicer. way nicer. Like, if I’m by myself, like I’m like, well, it’s

 

Brad Wilson (45:33) like, stuck on that.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (45:37) You know, I mean, just because, I mean, for me, it’s kind of fun to be like that, you know, but like, it’s, it’s not like, I’m also gonna be a bit more vocal about being upset.

 

Brad Wilson (45:50) That’s the one that’s the one that has always made me feel differently. It’s a weird thing that it’s even hard to put into words that without left to my own devices, I can deal with most things. But as soon as like somebody watches me and things like unravel, you know, you get stuck three or four times, it’s almost like there’s an expectation of a negative response that you feel like you need to fulfill just because this humans watching you.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (46:17) I feel that a little bit, but for me, what I do is like, okay, like, if I’m on my own, and like some some stupid shit happens in like, this new day, like, I’ll definitely like swear more, like out loud. And if I’m in front of people, I will do that, but I’ll just be like, I’ll be more like, fuck, like, this feels really bad. Just talking about how I feel more than being like this. Because if I, the thing is,

 

Brad Wilson (46:57) you talk about how you feel, instead of feeling how you feel. Yeah,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (47:01) um, which kind of helps actually, but it helps get me back to where I need to be. Actually, I find that it’s more positive. And when I’m like, when I get into, like, grumpy Rage Mode or something, you know, I’m for what it’s worth, even when I’m by myself that that doesn’t last it’s like, a minute and then I’m like, okay, get back. But like, I’m just a little bit less polite. Um, and part of that is because very much intentionally I don’t even think it’s fake. It’s like there’s a lot of negative energy out there is just not what I want to put out. I don’t want to put out that that like random angry energy, like, you know, in that moment when that when like, you know, Joe Blow 86 fucking sucks out on you. I hate your job. Like, you

 

Brad Wilson (47:57) curse the year you were born.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (48:00) And it’s like, that’s a screen name. You know nothing about that person, you know? And like, I definitely have felt that way before though. I mean, like in the past I really want bad things to happen to do now I try I’m like I want I wish a bad rash on you I hope you get stuck in traffic. But I don’t want to share that like random angry energy because it’s bullshit anyway right? It’s not it’s not good to have to release that and put that out there. But like sometimes I feel like I do push it down a bit and at the end of sessions, it’s like yeah, I gotta find a way to get it out like working out like that.

 

Brad Wilson (48:47) Yeah, is that is that your go to method for leasing that sounds good on the five guests.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (48:55) Well, like like listening to music for me like in like, like working out is the ideal but like there’s there’s like, like to say that like Yeah, the thing that I do after a bad session is workout. I wish I was like that kind of

 

Brad Wilson (49:10) I played a full ice cream cake by myself. Exactly. And adopt for kittens.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (49:16) Were double calling Pizza Hut in in Dairy Queen or something, you know. Now, although you knew I got a kitten

 

Brad Wilson (49:28) last. No, I didn’t know that at all.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (49:33) Like, after my big run, where I got ninth place and I got like nine like 90k was million for first it was on stream like 5000 people were watching it was crazy. I just actually didn’t get a kitten in response like there was a kitten that needed adaption to that agreed agreed to get an advocate pushing it back actually. Because I kept days breeding and day for him. And then I finally got this kid now It was I was so exhausted after four days of streaming and I got my kitten Luna slash kitty cow cat. And she just fell asleep on me the first night. I don’t know man like, I’m not even like a this is a little bit embarrassing, but I got teary eyed like I don’t know I fell in love with her. So I’m like, obsessed with my cat like she’s crazy. But like, it was just like right after all that emotion and then like getting this baby kitten I feel like I got that imprinting. You know when you get a kid or something. So like, I swear, like if you come from my cat like I would I would do I would hurt humans for sure.

 

Brad Wilson (50:42) As it should be. Yeah. Luna Luna makes dream appearances.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (50:47) Oh, hell yeah. She’s got an emo and everything. We got taco now to

 

Brad Wilson (50:51) you. So you have another kitten as well. Oh, tacos the dog. Oh,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (50:55) it was like a big like, how does like a cat dog in Luna is a dog like she’s like, a dog is exactly like she’s, she’s like, super, like, wants to play and he’s like, like, in tacos. Like he just wants to like, sit in your lap. And doesn’t want to think so. It’s funny.

 

Brad Wilson (51:15) Yeah, you’re a you’re a human ape. So it all makes sense. It’s

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (51:18) like, it’s like, what’s it called? Dr. Doolittle over here. Mom. Animal Farm. Yeah.

 

Brad Wilson (51:27) Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (51:29) Oh, I was just gonna say that actually. Like, that’s what that’s what keeps me sane during that season, for sure is just like hanging out, like in my house with my animals, the partner and just like doing my thing.

 

Brad Wilson (51:40) Yeah, like living life away from poker. And I mean, I think it’s really it’s an easy trap to fall into when your identity becomes poker, and you feel worthless when you’re down swinging. And you feel like, you know, a God sent from on high when you’re just crushing everything in the world. And so, you know, compartmentalizing and just isolating yourself away from poker, I think is overall pretty healthy.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (52:06) I think so too, in, um, again, like, I was watching this video. And this guy’s actually a little bit obnoxious. I forgot his name Simon something. But, but like, he was talking about these two different mindsets. There’s like there’s one finite mindset, which is that like, we’re in the game to win, like, we gotta win or lose, you know. And then there’s the the infinite mindset, which is, I’m in the game to play. I’m in the game to keep playing the game and to keep getting better. And I’ve been in that infinite mindset for a long time. I’ve been just playing to get better playing because I love to play In the downswing. Yeah, can I actually do like, can you edit some of my crying because I know I missed a little bit. But in reality, like, I’m still just playing the infinite game, having fun getting better, and there’s like, so much still to wear. So it just, you know, it’s not that hard to stay.

 

Brad Wilson (53:06) Well, yeah. And the, the rewards make the suffering worth it. Ultimately, right, the moment of triumph feels lesser if you didn’t suffer to get there. So

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (53:17) true. However, I would say that, most of the time when I when lots, I’m like, This doesn’t feel as bad as it was as good as it felt shitty. I’m like, where are the balloons? You know? Like, where’s it? Where’s like, I’m just sitting here, eight hours into my computer, you know, like, this

 

Brad Wilson (53:35) leaf man is relief when that going straight down, goes goes back. Oh, thank god.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (53:42) It’s relief. That is exactly what it what it is. Um, and I think it’s kind of fun that I get to do this publicly, too. Like it just like, You know what, even if you’re trying your hardest, like occasionally, in tournament poker, is through poker. Yeah, well, I am going to show everybody how you can climb out to is there’s money to be made.

 

Brad Wilson (54:06) That’s in it started somewhere. And we we are, I went away

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (54:12) is like, like, at, like that site. America’s cardroom. Like, I take it personally. That like, like, I’m up on every single online site, except for America’s carbon, a site that I’m a pro on and like, that makes me so mad. You know, and I call the shot last year that I can make 200k on ACR and actually like, Oh, but I believe in myself enough. Like I’m gonna call it again. I think I can make 200k from this point. This year. No problem.

 

Brad Wilson (54:45) No problem. Well, we’ll check in

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (54:48) easy, you’ll see

 

Brad Wilson (54:50) focus ease next year. Yes. Jon, so I actually so I had a template of things to talk about and then Yeah, we, I think this always happens when you come on the show. If I remember correctly, we go, we go down some some tangents, you know,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (55:08) let’s go. Let’s stick to the template. Let’s go.

 

Brad Wilson (55:10) Let’s go back. Let’s go back a little bit. Okay, so I wanted to ask you about coaching, because you are one of the more well respected, well renowned poker coaches in MTTs. So I wanted to ask you, how you go about systematically upgrading your coaching ability, specifically, because this is something that’s kind of near and dear to my heart being a coach myself?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (55:34) Well, for me, there’s like a little bit, there’s two different kinds of coaching. There’s, there’s like, the kind of coaching that I have, like, where I’m just trying to meet them where they’re at, like, I’m trying to figure out the wrong way that they’re thinking about the game. And then a lot of times, it’s just convincing people to believe in like that in my method sometimes, right? Like,

 

Brad Wilson (56:01) you’re converting them

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (56:02) to the church of GK

 

Brad Wilson (56:03) atheism. Yeah. But

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (56:10) and then there’s, like, the high stakes guys who come to me because I’m always on top of like, like the most like, the newer solves, and the newest, like, approaches to things. And that’s like, were just always having people writing stuff for me. And then like, always having an eye on what’s new, has has just, like been important for me. It’s funny, because like, I don’t keep it, I don’t give a damn about like newest iPhone, whatever. But like, I just need like whatever’s new as far as the programs go, I just always have them.

 

Brad Wilson (56:48) Why do you feel that that compulsion to figure out what’s new and to be sort of bleeding edge? 

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles”  (56:56))  

Well, I just figure that, like, no one really knows the full answer yet to poker. It’s not solved like chess. So whoever has the best models is going to be the one who wins. And so I just work to have the best models. Yeah.

 

Brad Wilson (57:10) It’s interesting. Like, I don’t know, if you’ve had these thoughts of like, you know, I spend most of my waking energy mapping out poker strategies, analyzing data. And sometimes I’ll have this like, realization that like, wow, like, I’m spending my full lifeforce in like figuring out this silly ass card game. Kind of feels, feels kind of strange sometimes. Um,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (57:37) I think I had those thoughts, like more like 10 years ago, and I’m like, Alright, so this is like what we’re doing, we’re just putting everything into this. But like, at this point, because I have sort of an encyclopedia of work within poker. Like, I kind of view myself like, Yeah, this is just my, my life’s work. Like, this is my profession, this is your work, right. And

 

Brad Wilson (58:02) I just mind to, like, it just is my life’s work.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (58:07) And I’m actually like, pretty okay with it. And especially now that I’ve heard, like, through the stream that people have benefited from my court cases, and from working with me, that’s actually like, kind of keeps me like, keeps me in a good mood to, I was thinking about that the other day. This is then when I was like, sometimes when you’re reading that, like, on when you’re read in bed, it’s really easy to like, you can even your friends when they’re on, like when they went back and kind of have mixed emotions, kind of.

 

Brad Wilson (58:45) You’re jealous. But yeah,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (58:46) for sure, you have, like, have that jealousy. And I noticed it. Even when I was in Vegas, like, like, a couple of my friends were in Detroit. I want to go watch Live Poker, like I’m in. I was like, Dude, you got to stop. Like, I’ve got to change this, this, this, this kind of small, petty mindset, you know? And I realized that, like, everyone’s, like, almost all my friends have gone are the people I was hanging out with a read, read my books, you know, bought the bundle, like, bought my products. So like when they win based on, like, my knowledge, I’m winning, you know what I’m saying? So, I need to just like, every time a student of mine, anytime someone like that, that’s a good friend of mine wins, celebrate with them, and then I’m always fucking winning. I was like, oh, yeah, that’s a much better way to look at it.

 

Brad Wilson (59:38) Right? Absolutely. And I mean, when you’re running deep, you want those guys they’re cheering you on too, right? Like

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (59:44) 100% also, um, I just I guess like, I had kind of like a weird perspective about Live Poker because like, you know, all the 1220s and stuff. I’m just like, Live Poker. So It was slow. And so I sometimes get like that. I know for a fact that if I had like, the first like a couple of big ones, I’d be like, you know, kind of a live guy. But I know like, like, I definitely had those feelings a little bit of like jealousy, not even jealousy, just kind of like over it feelings. And I really, and then when I saw them, I was like, No, I don’t want to I don’t want to feel that way. I think it’s, I’d rather be in a winning mindset where I just, you know, stoked for others? Yeah, way to be.

 

Brad Wilson (1:00:35) It is, it’s a better way. It’s a way to be a better friend as well, you know, Oh, yeah. And like you said, you get to win more often when you’re cheering them on. And you know, you’ve influenced their poker trajectory as well.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:00:48) You don’t know how much I hear. It’s actually like, Oh, no. No, not throughout my life. I don’t know. I haven’t always known. But I value right. Like, at one point, I had a bunch of money, but I was only focused on money. And I wasn’t in a good mindset at all. When I was like, okay, so money isn’t necessarily happiness. And I’ve experienced this. And I’m like, What’s the goal? What’s the end goal? And I’m like, well, in the end, like, I don’t care about, like, how much money I’ve made, or like, whatever I care about, how many lives I’ve influenced positively. And like those around me. And if I’m, if I’m cheating that, then I’m killing it. Right? Because who cares about the other stuff?

 

Brad Wilson (1:01:40) Right? What’s it good story about realizing the influence you have on people’s lives? I’m sure you have some personal stories.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:01:50) When the other night, somebody said, as I was, I was going through something I was I was like, going through it on stream. And I was like, I kind of talked myself out of it. And somebody said that i i, whenever the way that I spoke convinced them to not kill themselves, not in their own life, which was like, to be honest, that actually hit me like really hard, because I thought about my friends that I wished I’d had that. But, I mean, that was huge. But like all the time people coming to me and tell me how it benefited? Me and I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t want to talk about it. Because it I don’t want to cheapen it, because it’s not even so much me helping them. I just feel like connected. You know, and I’m saying that I can that I can do that. That that? Yeah, they’re just I think I might have told this story already. Like, before I started streaming, I was nervous about it. And I was hanging out with my friend Jess. And she said she was going through like a tough clients she worked at, and she was just reacting to it all with love. Like, no matter what she was just always bringing love. The situation was pretty positive regard. That it always worked. Like, the way she is when she said it with conviction, like it moved me. And I was like, I’m gonna bring that to the stream. And if I do that, if I’m always just putting out good energy like that, like a kid. Like, there’s, like, hopefully that that’ll be what comes back to when, like, I think the universe needs more of that. So, um, yeah, I’ve been, it has worked out that way. And, um, yeah, hopefully, you can just keep doing what I’m doing.

 

Brad Wilson (1:03:50) Yeah. How’s it feel to make that kind of impact in somebody? Because, I mean, that’s like, quite a major, major impact. And I know, you’re your humble guy. And so, you know, like you said, cheapening, it or, you know, fully taking the credit or whatever it is. But you know, the reality is it like, at least from that person’s perspective, you did have a major impact in that,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:04:17) because the stream ended like right after that, like it shut down because of some technical issues. Well, actually, that is why it’s shut down like, but I was kind of glad that it did because I got in my feelings about it.

 

Brad Wilson (1:04:29) Come on. Everybody wants to see the ain’t getting in his feelings on stream.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:04:33) Um, I didn’t shut down because of that, but like, they’re, like, a bunch of shit happened. And then it made sense to shut off the stream. Yeah. But like, I want to reach out to that person. Because like, like, I’m not sure if they heard my response because I it was it was big to me. And because I didn’t touch spots in my life like lots and lots of tough spots where I’ve never really actually, like had a plan for killing myself but like I’ve definitely been like, not living with make life easier. Like, I’ve definitely been in tough spots like that base password, I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I just want people to know, you know, that like, especially when you’re young, like nothing that you’ve done, like when your money is really going to mean for the most part is going to fuck up the rest of your life. You know, like, I was, like, straight screwed up my life until I was 20. I don’t know. It bums me out, though, that some people like his life candy. Good. Yeah,

 

Brad Wilson (1:05:49) I think that through each stage of our lives, at least in my experience, you know, the human being that I was at 20 is not represented. It’s not represented by the human being that I am now at 38 Or when I was 25 to 35. Like, it’s just an ever evolving and changing and you really don’t know what your life will look like in five or 10 years or what kind of human you’ll be.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:06:11) Yeah, I mean, I’d like to think that like 20 year old me would think I was cool, but I think 20 year old me would probably think guys a little bit sappy. Like this the kind of corny

 

Brad Wilson (1:06:22) but what do you what do you think about 20 year old you,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:06:26) man? Like get a fucking job kid? Right, fair enough. Exactly.

 

Brad Wilson (1:06:33) There you go. What do you think is your your poker superpower?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:06:38) I think for the most part, not not getting too ruffled. And then sometimes when I’m just sitting there, like some some nights, when I’m very, very zoned in I do feel like I can just see through cards. See, through cards,

 

Brad Wilson (1:06:57) see through cards. Tell me about that feeling. Seeing through cards, what do you think is like happening there.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:07:03) It’s just like, I’m in the flow of things. And my mind is very quickly, like picking up the exact necessary information and prioritizing correctly. And my hand reading skills, like, I just feel like when I’m really focused on the two cards that this villain has, right, and their timing and everything that occasionally I just feel like completely locked in. Not all the time. I do believe that my A game is like, really nice. Also, I think the distance between my A game and like, my see the game is getting much shorter. Although there’s still there’s still some distance.

 

Brad Wilson (1:07:54) And this is something that’s like improved over time.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:07:58) I’m also just like, just not letting myself play. When I’m not like fully focused. I mean, occasionally that has to happen, where I’m like, have to have to do some things on my computer and handle some messages. But I’m not playing well, when I do that. Right. I just think that you have to play poker, like, very present, ideally, taking notes, watching the flow of the game, and playing methodically. And ideally, with without too much emotion influencing you. Yeah.

 

Brad Wilson (1:08:32) It’s interesting to like, I think, maybe eventually, we’ll be able to scientifically break these things down. But just being able to trust that inner sense. You know, I think that that that trust of, you know, our ability to just cognitively prioritize the right data points, and then act on that trust in the moment, regardless of kind of what happens is such a vital skill to a poker player, because when you stop trusting that little voice inside your head, you just in my experience, my play always goes downhill like whenever I’m like locked in, in the Zone, I’m folding hands that just feel like they are folds. And it feels right. And I’m trusting my you know that it’s like a meta meta cognitive ability to analyze information by chicken sexer. Right. My inner chicken sector is what I’m, I’m trusting that like, I’m seeing things clearly and I’m acting on them with confidence. Like when that happens, I’m in my zone. And that’s like, the highest level that I play at.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:09:38) Hmm, it sounds like we we experienced fairly similar similar flow states. And I think that if you talk to anybody who’s who’s good at what they do, they experienced the things somewhat similar. I like think I’ve talked about this before how I I use like a meditation been in news. Yeah, I do neuro peak now actually, which is like, it’s different. Um, I watched like videos, and we decided that I need certain, like, I think, less data or something. We’re training my brainwaves based on this profile we did. And I watched videos on YouTube and if I have the right brainwaves, it gets brighter. If it’s wrong, if it’s like the wrong brainwaves, it gets darker. And it just kind of like subconsciously trains your brain to have the right brainwaves. It’s crazy.

 

Brad Wilson (1:10:36) That sounds crazy. And I haven’t investigated that.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:10:39) Yeah, I’m neuro peak, I’m going to be doing some work with him in the future. Also, they do a heart rate variability variability where you put the strap on. And it measures like you do belly breathing for like 10 minutes, and it measures how well your heart is beating in response to your breathing.

 

Brad Wilson (1:10:57) Yeah, breath work. That was something I wanted to ask you about too. Have you invested into any sort of breathwork app or training?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:11:06) I mean, literally, yes. Like too much. Like I work with someone I meet with someone who’s neuro peak, like, weekly. I’m kind of a slacker though. Like, you know what I’m doing something that I kind of hate when people do to me, like people who hire a coach who don’t want to actually do work, they want you to like somehow, like osmosis your knowledge into them. And like, I’m kind of doing the same with them. Because like, my shitty brain is like, Oh, you want me to meditate? But like, put things on, like you want barriers to meditation, basically. So like, I have to admit that I don’t hate it as much as I’d like. I go to like, instead of every day, I do think three a week. Yeah, but But overall, I really like it because it’s objective. And even though I was doing three a week, like I’m, I’m actually like increasing this brain, my beta frequencies or something. I don’t remember exactly what we’re doing.

 

Brad Wilson (1:12:09)  

Yeah, you’re too You’re too alpha, you need more beta?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:12:15) Yeah, when I walk in the room, everyone goes up there, I stir buddy down. who’s boss.

 

Brad Wilson (1:12:23) See, if things wouldn’t have if you would have gotten out of poker out you had a career as a professional wrestler, like, locked up.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:12:31) I mean, I was being ironic but

 

Brad Wilson (1:12:37) breath. So like, I’ve gotten into breathwork. Like in the last six months or so. And I have an app on my phone. It’s literally called breathwork. Without the Oh, and it’s just like, it’s it’s crazy how impactful it is, as a daily exercise to like gain energy to calm down to go to sleep at night to wake up in the morning. The impact that oxygenating your body has is massive. And so like for anybody in the audience, I would certainly check out some sort of breathwork it’s like, really, actually quite quick and painless and way easier than like meditation. Just like a couple of minutes you do Guided Breathing exercise, and then you’re done.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:13:23) Yeah, my goal this year is to get into some Wim Hof stuff as well. There’s all these things on the docket, and then

 

Brad Wilson (1:13:30) start slow, man, you know, 30 seconds, one minute.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:13:36) I mean, like, I do have a pretty regular meditation practice. Like, I used to do it a lot, right? Like, I’ve been like to 10 day silent retreats and stuff like I’ve I’ve,

 

Brad Wilson (1:13:46) how was that? Because I’ve always wanted to do one.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:13:49) Crazy. The first time was really hard. Like, because you get can’t bring books. I was gonna sneak in snacks, and you can’t really eat anything after noon. But then my friend that I was going with was like, Dude, you’re gonna do their thing. You got to do it the way they say it. And I was like, put snacks though. But I didn’t bring them in. And there were a couple things that were pretty crazy. Like. Yeah, the first thing like, you know, can’t talk to anyone except for the teacher. And you just meditate all day. And you’re doing these breath meditations. And for me, like on day three. I just felt so bad. Like, I felt just like so sad and lonely and just like, but I had no story for it. It was just like all this off like really negative energy. And like, I went to the teacher and I was like, I don’t know if I can do this. Like I’m like crying. And like I’m not used to this at all. You reflect this, I thought they drugged me, even though I’m just drinking nothing but water and eating veggies, like because I’ve never felt anything like this. And the teacher was like, in my opinion to doing great. I was like, what? And the teacher was like, Well, when you do this breath meditation, you have these things that you push down these, some cars, we call them. And when you do this breath meditation, it’s like a drill, chisel, and they rise to the surface. But once they’re there, they’re gone. And if you keep doing it, it’s kind of like coal on water, like water on coal, where at first all that steam comes up, let’s vote comes up. And then after a while, there’s, there’s no, there’s no more. And I mean, at that point in time, I was like, cool, but this this is crazy. This hurts, like, Stop, like, but I made like, the cars are roped off. So I made it through that night. And then the next day, it kind of still felt weird, but like, a little bit better. And it kind of helped me because I was like, at least that wasn’t I’m not feeling like that, you know. Um, and there were a lot of crazy experiences like that. By the very end, I probably could have gone another 10 days. And I would say it was it was valuable. At the end, though, they say to like to meditate for two hours a day. Like I’ve yet to meet somebody that actually keeps that up.

 

Brad Wilson (1:16:28) Well, yeah, because the people that do are meditating when you try to talk to them, they don’t have they don’t have any time to

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:16:35) two hours a days, like, but they sell it they push it pretty hard. They say if you do two hours a day of meditation, you’ll have more energy you won’t need to sleep.

Brad Wilson (1:16:45) Probably true. I don’t know. So sleep is so integral to my mental health and my health in general that like it is always my priority. I think I always get skeptical and somebody’s like, Don’t sleep. You only need five hours of sleep or six hours of sleep like you know, you’ve never seen me on six hours of sleep. You know, I’m useless and I feel like trash and I hate everything. So maybe maybe I’m just

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:17:13) kidding. This is such a nice opportunity to burn you but I did not come on here that we needed to it was actually like kind of like too basic to go in. Like like I used to grab more of those low hanging fruit kind of jokes. But yeah, it’s like, you know,

 

Brad Wilson (1:17:28) I think like an hour ago I called you obnoxious or I implied that you were obnoxious. I don’t think you you caught the burn. But now Now it’s just I can’t remember. I can’t remember the I can’t remember what you said. Or the way that you phrase it. But oh, God, it’s out of my brain. Now it was it was like just a silly,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:17:50) Z. Z. Here’s here. Oh.

 

Brad Wilson (1:17:59) And you pay me back by withholding your Zinger and making me feel bad about releasing mine not having to self discipline. That’s how you do it. And that’s the ultimate Zinger is no Zinger at all.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:18:10) outplayed. But yeah, I don’t know actually, I like I like talking shit like with my friends and stuff like like, I’m like, but never like, like to actually try to bring somebody down. Of course

 

Brad Wilson (1:18:25) not. You pick on you pick on the people that you enjoy spending time with and that that to me is just like part of my life experience.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:18:33) Yeah, exactly. Um, although like, I I might have used to take it too far. You gotta you gotta watch you know, but yeah, um Yeah, so I guess since I’m since I since I didn’t choose to make that joke, it means that I actually don’t like

 

Brad Wilson (1:18:55) it. We come full circle.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:18:59) Not as a joke. But yeah, I’ve enjoyed this conversation and speaking of full circle, I do think that we are like coming pretty soon but what’s the template? What else is on the template?

 

Brad Wilson (1:19:11) I don’t even though we’re gonna talk about like systematically improving your coaching ability and you know your communication. Yeah, that you are 100k away from like 20 million lifetime winnings I saw on I believe it was pocket fives or Hendon mob or somewhere?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:19:32) Well tell me they actually how about you tell me because I’m interested. How do you systematically improve your coaching and communication?

 

Brad Wilson (1:19:39) I think about coaching all the time. It’s it looks like you’re just you’re writing some jotting some notes down. Um, well, I learned about learning. I learned how people learn effectively, and try to upgrade my teaching process to help people We’ll learn better I for my coaching sessions. At the end, I have my students always summarize our coaching session together through like after watching the replay. And then we go through that summary at the beginning of the next one, just so the concepts that we talked about I can we can double check that they’re being integrated and understood correctly, because a lot of times, a lot of times either I’ll miss speak, or they’ll miss hear or misunderstand. And I think it’s always good to go back and double check that, you know, the takeaways are actually what I was intending.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:20:38) Yeah, so like, when I coach somebody, what I do is I get their background, and then I try to think about, like, what their current coaching background is, like, how that how am I’m gonna fit in there. And then I through a session that kind of figure out where the target areas are going to be usually with like a leak finder. And we come up with goals and homework. And then I make them summer as usually at the end of the session. Well, if you’re gonna do homework, you’re not I’m not gonna work with you. Because like, it’s, it’s it’s a mutual thing. As far as like improving, I’m not going to just, like, tell you something, and you’ll be able to execute it right away. Always. Right. Absolutely. And so I like that idea of, I don’t always check in on the homework, though, because I’m not. I need to be more organized on that. And I don’t always start the next session reviewing, but I tried to, because I keep records of everything. But

 

Brad Wilson (1:21:33) yeah, I, you said something important, though, is coaching people from the paradigm that they’re on is what’s most important. And I think like as poker players, it’s the thing we get quite good at is getting in people’s heads and understanding how they think about poker. And really, that’s the spot that you have to be in when coaching people. And it’s funny like I have, so I extracted myself from private coaching at the beginning of this year. But while I was doing it, like everybody had to click through this page here that I’m showing you, the podcast listener won’t be able to see it. But yeah, it was a lot of the things that you spoke about, like if you’re not willing to do your homework, if you’re not willing to. If you’re looking for instantaneous results, if you want me to hold your hand, then find somebody else, because that’s not really, really how I go about business, or what my expectations are of my students.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:22:29) I like that starting off sassy.

 

Brad Wilson (1:22:33) We’re setting expectations, right, so that so that we can have a relationship that’s mutually beneficial, and that we’re both happy with.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:22:40) I actually, I’m with that, in fact, I think I use and that’s because actually, they can make these like, I’ll take out the last one because I am pretty happy with the solver work. I also like to gamify things. So

 

Brad Wilson (1:22:54) gamifying is fun. gamifying is good.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles”  (1:22:56) Like that’s that’s kind of I think that’s that’s how I try to keep things interesting. Also, just like when I use solvers, I’m not like, Okay, you played like this, let’s check the solver. I’m just like, I’m, I’m like, Okay, so these are my these are like, this is my evaluation of the hand based on these evaluations. These are my predictions. These are why this might change based on how this this player is playing like, like, here are the exploits. Now, based on based on these predictions, let’s look at the solver and try to get the solver to answer our questions. That’s, in my opinion, a more effective way than just kind of like immediately going to the solver to check

 

Brad Wilson (1:23:42) right. Yeah, for sure.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:23:44) You will remember anything

 

Brad Wilson (1:23:46) you don’t. That’s another thing too, that I’m learning about is how to stifled the forgetting process. Right. Because ultimately, like that’s something that that’s the that’s the thing that you want to ward against is forgetting information that is that you communicate to other people and so it’s not always just about like making sure they remember it, but it’s about making sure they forget less or coaching them in a way so that they forget less of the information or the valuable takeaways.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:24:17) Just gave me an idea. There you go, you can I’m gonna get Barb to start sending them little like reminders of concepts and stuff I’ll bill you for okay. Yeah, um, just the best,

 

Brad Wilson (1:24:37) the best way to do it because email, yeah, the email, the best way to go about it is I’ll send you a book that I’m reading that I can’t remember the name of it right now, but it’s all about metacognition and that whole process, and like sending like a quiz of something that somebody learns directly after you teach it to them is one of the very best ways that they retain that information. because it because it strengthens the retrieval of process of the information, which is a vital part of the process.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:25:07) That’s the thing. Yeah, I think. Yeah, it when I first started coaching, I thought it was like all of that superior information and just like letting you know, everything that I knew that they didn’t know that that just like, I mean, that was, I mean, not a terrible premise, because it was just like, I’m trying to give you the value. I’m just giving you all this information. But like, I just found it, I was just like talking over people’s heads all the time. And then that’s when I started realizing one or two topics. Go in on them. Like, make sure they’re understood. And then like, repeat, like, bringing up with him the following weeks. So that there’s consistency there. Yeah, we’re on the same page.

 

Brad Wilson (1:25:49) Good. That’s good to hear. And so from there, I don’t know how long we’ve been talking. We were we got started a little late. But it’s always great having you on here man. The final final thing before we shut down shop is you worked on any projects right now that are near and dear to your heart.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:26:10) Yeah, actually I am. I’m I’m one of those fucking NFT guys now.

 

Brad Wilson (1:26:17) I got a congressman who isn’t who isn’t

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:26:19) yet we the story is actually pretty cool. I’m gonna I’m gonna I’ll end with it. We took over there was this other projects a lot of snails that minted and then the developers rug with like $100,000. And all these poker players have I didn’t have because I didn’t what

 

Brad Wilson (1:26:33) is rigged for the podcast listener that may not be familiar.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:26:37) Basically, they they just ran off with the money they stole the money after they made promises to the community to do things like for these things like Shell swapping and stuff and so everyone, the value of them just dropped.

 

Brad Wilson (1:26:48) Yeah, they pulled the rug out from everybody. Right? Exactly.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:26:51) Till like point one five Solana as long as right now is like 110 Back then it was 200 or it’s 120 Actually now. Um, and anyway, so everyone was like, sky is falling, whatever. And then they got the idea of Brian, the developer in Ben and me to airdrop new sales drawn by our artists baby in blue alien on the stream, and people’s wallets. It says we’ve done that. We put these new snails in people’s walls for free and we turned it into a poker project pocket snails, right? And since we did it, they’re now trading at like five and six Solana the biggest this highest sale ever is like 24 Solana. And we’re just like, I’ve made my my seminars, go in for free. I’ve done like, I brought in a bunch of high stakes crushes. And we’re just doing hand history reviews. And even like a partnership with state kings, we’re just trying to build and build and build and turn it into a poker project. So today, I’m going to show on it is that the first three months that like all royalties go back to community through these things like snail races that are pretty fun.

 

Brad Wilson (1:28:00)  

What the heck is a snail race besides just a never ending story?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:28:05) It just like pins deals lined up. Like it’s the sales their actual, you know, the ones that people have. And they, whoever wins there’s also like a CRO that comes down and snags one of them. fun, it’s fun. Um, but yeah, so far, like, this whole project of turning something from like, point one 6.15 was what most of them are selling for one point to something that’s now selling for 5.561 as a floor, pretty nice when I would say. And the idea of growing this project has been has been fun. Also bundle parties coming out soon,

 

Brad Wilson (1:28:48) by no part to the eighth, the second eighth bundle of BBC. Yeah, I think pocket snails followed me on Twitter, and I couldn’t really figure out what the heck it was,

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:29:02) like, get you focused.

 

Brad Wilson (1:29:03) I need a snail.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:29:06) You do?

 

Brad Wilson (1:29:07) So just to correct me if I’m wrong. So basically, when you have this snail, you get access to poker training, because you have the NFT Exactly. So

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:29:17) when this NFT first came out, I was like, What is this just picture like, how is this valuable? And then when they said it was a poker project, I was like, okay, like I can do that. So I’ve just been like, how can I make this project valuable to poker players and that’s that’s what I’ve been tasked to do. So I’ve just been bringing my friends from different fields in and it’s basically training content but I like what I see eventually is that it’s more like a hub of great like poker in NFT Alpha. I can see the discord like being almost like a can mentioned in a sense, at some point where they’re just like, lots of different, like lots of presentations going on all the time from from big names. Who knows? I have ideas. These are just like, right now we have is, yeah, like you said training content. I also have visions of like, just growing like, it’s easy. We have all these streamers on board too.

 

Brad Wilson (1:30:25)  

Yeah, that’s cool, man. That’s really exciting. And we need these project projects to get excited about. It’s just basically like

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:30:32) a poker project. It’s anchored with the NFT. And I’m involved in it, man. Like,

 

Brad Wilson (1:30:37) I’m not having any animal guy. Yeah, they’re funny.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:30:42) I’m not really an NFT guy, though. I spent like a few days talking to NFT people, and I wanted to kill myself, like everyone’s just trying to some smoke. Yeah,

 

Brad Wilson (1:30:51) I’m advising on an NFT project that is being they’re partnering with the World Poker Tour. And it’s like this avatar thing where they’re actually like tangible benefits for having the NFT which, to me is like, quite important that like, yeah, if you’re going to spend money for something, then like you, there needs to be some sort of tangible benefit other than owning this, like weird little JPEG, in my opinion.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:31:19) Yeah, that’s what we’re doing. Exactly. Is that where we made it? We have this partnership with state kings now, where if you buy action on state kings to get a better percent, and if you sell action 800% And we’re just looking to keep doing stuff like that, right? And keep expanding keep building and adding value. Which is cool, though. So people are getting already eight seminars a month from me just for like, and they get this asset that they can sell at a later point. So that’s pretty good. Yeah, it’s pretty chill.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:31:51) Yeah, we’re gonna make it bigger and bigger. So yeah, I hate I hate selling shit, though. And I feel like that’s the thing is, um, why don’t you sell it? hate the idea of selling? I hate the idea of me trying to give you something that you don’t need, ah, push something on you that you don’t need.

 

Brad Wilson (1:32:15) Right? What if they need it, though, but they don’t know they need it. That’s the thing is

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:32:19) like, like, I just bought one of these at full price. Because I was like, oh, goodbye. Right. So like, I would say that what made me start selling my products? Well, like they started selling very well, first of all, is that they were good value. But like, secondly, once I started realizing I’m not selling people anything, I’m just telling people what I use and how I think about things. So once I just started talking about what I do, things sold themselves. When I’m like, hey, you need to get this. I just feel like that’s not me.

 

Brad Wilson (1:32:56) Yeah. It’s, it’s one of the major problems I’ve had. And growing my business, my brand selling courses is like the selling aspect of things. And yeah, just basically the way that I frame it is like, if people are in my audience, and they want to learn more about poker, they have a pain. And so like if they have that pain, where they want to improve, and I have the ability to help them not doing so it’s kind of like you go to the doctor and sit in the waiting room and like they never call you back, right? You never get something to help remedy a struggle that you have. So sort of aligning what I’m selling with what I believe to be obvious pain points that I can remedy, which is basically just a long winded way of saying like not, I don’t like I don’t want to be manipulative. I just want to offer things that solve problems that people are experiencing. And in that way provide

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:33:51) value. Exactly in that’s the other thing is I think I couldn’t figure out why I was getting so much demand as a coach for a long time. And it was because like, I went over it unless I felt like I just needed to give you value into like, it’s very important to me, it wasn’t about the dollar. It’s about me providing a good service and caring about what I do. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that that those things are what matter and they’re also what keep you in the game for a long time. Because if you’re just if you’re just driven by money, poker is not going to be a good game for you. But if you’re driven by the process, if you’re driven by getting better, and you’re competing against yourself, that’s what keeps you in the game, I think.

 

Brad Wilson (1:34:36)  Yeah, and people by passion, people can sense it. It’s not a thing that you can really fake or not that I can’t fake it anyway.

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:34:45) I didn’t realize I even was that passionate? I just like I just liked what I did. Right? But like when I started getting that people were like, I started realizing that that’s actually like I’m not smarter or anything like I like it but I just really Like the puzzle of poker, and I really liked teaching and connecting with people. Yeah. So I can see that you do too.

 

Brad Wilson (1:35:08)  I do very much very much. Final thing is if the somebody listening right now wants to go hang out with you on the World Wide Web, where do you send them?

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:35:21)  I guess there’s discord or H 1000. On Twitter if that was poker YouTube BBC poker DBZ discord. Not that hard to find. Yeah,

 

Brad Wilson (1:35:31)  not not that difficult to find and watch him struggle throughout the rest of this course of this year to wipe out as ACR

 

Jon Van Vleet “Apestyles” (1:35:40)  no struggle, I’m just gonna be like take. All right, good talking to you, Tim. 

 

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