It’s been a while since we’ve seen new content on the Solve for Why Academy’s YouTube page, but luckily for fans of great poker entertainment it appears that the drought will end soon.
Starting with Episode 1 of the Solve for Why Chronicles in April 2017, the poker training school has consistently churned out some of the most well-produced poker content in the industry. The final episode (for now) of the Solve for Why Chronicles was posted in June 2018, but that made way for another series that was truly the hidden gem of the 2018 World Series of Poker.
The Results May Vary WSOP vlog aired for eight episodes, documenting the WSOP experience through the eyes of Solve for Why founders Matt Berkey, Jordan Young, and Christian Soto, as well as other members of the team and the Pigtails Production crew. Results May Vary is a hilarious and binge-worthy series, so if you haven’t seen it yet, we encourage you to check out some of the episodes we’ve put together in this article.
Solve for Why simultaneously produced another series during the WSOP, titled Inside the WSOP. Let’s take a look at some of the best episodes from all three of these series, and we’ll talk to Berkey and Soto about the future of the Solve for Why YouTube channel.
RESULTS MAY VARY: WSOP VLOG EPISODE 1
Within the first two minutes of the debut episode, we know we’re in for something special with the Results May Vary WSOP vlog. This series chronicles the WSOP exploits of the Solve for Why team, with highly-entertaining results.
“I absolutely loved making the Results May Vary series,” Berkey says. “Justin Tyrrell and Travis Linder at Pigtails Production had a vision of bringing a bit of a lighter look at the grind that is the WSOP and I think they nailed it.”
In Episode 1, the Solve for Why team tackles the tough questions and gets to the heart of what the WSOP is all about:
SOLVE FOR WHY CHRONICLES: EPISODE 18 – DID DOUG POLK END MATT BERKEY’S CAREER?
The Solve for Why crew decides to have a little fun with an ongoing “feud” between Berkey and Doug Polk. The crew comes to the rescue and gets a bedridden Berkey back up and running again after he falls into deep depression as a result of the feud.
“I can probably speak for the entire team when I say Episode 18 is by far some of our best work, and the funniest poker vlog episode I have seen done yet,” Soto says. “The Matt Berkey vs. Doug Polk ‘feud’ made for some good content!”
This episode also features Soto taking Berkey’s Maserati out for an unauthorized spin, a trip to Disneyland, and highlights from a Live at the Bike session featuring an incredible lineup that includes Berkey, Dan “Jungleman” Cates, Doug Polk, Ryan Fee, Jason McConnon, Dan Merrilees, and Garrett Adelstein:
RESULTS MAY VARY – THE MAIN EVENT: WSOP VLOG EPISODE 6
It’s Main Event time for the team, and one of the highlights of the entire Results May Vary series comes at 4:52 of this video, after Berkey has been eliminated from the tournament. He gives us a hilarious rant about the experience of playing in the Main Event while preparing food for himself at the Solve for Why HQ, and this segment is truly must-see.
Throughout the WSOP, the Solve for Why team were filming and producing both the Results May Vary and Inside the WSOP vlogs, along with a heavy playing schedule.
“This past summer was a lot for all of us to undertake; we were certainly spread too thin,” Berkey says. “Most of our time collectively was spent playing, but we also were putting in 10 hours a week or so creating content.”
“Everything from the Results May Vary series to the Inside the WSOP series to preparing content for the August launch of S4Y TV, all of the coaches were being asked to wear a lot of hats while attempting to win some hardware. Coincidentally, Matt Hunt almost did exactly that with an impressive second place finish in one of the $1k turbo bracelet events.”
We’ll take a look at Solve for Why coach Matt Hunt running deep in that $1k turbo later in this piece, but for now let’s take in Results May Vary Episode 6:
INSIDE THE WSOP: TWO $400K POTS IN ONE NIGHT!
Berkey finds himself in a tough spot when a seat in a $1k/$2k cash game opens up at the high-stakes Ivey’s room inside the Aria. The dilemma – Matt is playing online at the time and is the chip leader in a $100k guaranteed tournament on WSOP.com.
He makes the choice to head down to the Aria and get into the cash game, and on the way he plays in the tournament on his phone for as long as he can. The cash game ends up playing huge, with $4k/$8k double straddles as the norm.
This episode of Inside the WSOP gives us chance to take in some high-stakes hand analysis from Berkey, who ends up playing in a couple of huge pots and giving us his perspective on just how crazy it gets on the high-stakes scene in Las Vegas.
RESULTS MAY VARY – WSOP VLOG EPISODE 4
We get an inside look at the Solve for Why HQ, which has been transformed into a production studio and living quarters for the team during the WSOP. It turns out that Berkey and the crew are “roughing it” for the summer, in a scenario that’s probably pretty familiar for anyone who’s ever shared a poker house in Las Vegas for the World Series.
Matt Hunt runs deep in the $1k No Limit Hold’em (30-minute levels) event, and we get a look at his run to a second place finish and $159,532 payday:
It’s tough to narrow down this list to just five entries; all of the episodes of these three vlog series are excellent, well-produced and entertaining, and represent some of the best in poker content creation.
The Solve for Why YouTube channel has an extensive library of other content as well, but it’s been a few months since we’ve seen anything new from the Solve for Why crew on the channel. The good news is that’s about to change.
Our YouTube channel will absolutely reemerge at some point. The biggest challenge is creating content for so many different outlets. It’s difficult to pour resources into high-quality free content all while not diluting the content we are producing for our site.
– Matt Berkey
The Solve for Why Academy has been consistently producing video content for its paid subscription service and the YouTube content has been on hold.
The WSOP content from last summer was well received in the poker community, and according to Soto there’s a good chance we’ll get to enjoy more Solve for Why content when the 2019 WSOP rolls around.
“The feedback in terms of the quality of the product was through the roof,” Soto says. “I’m a little sad that it didn’t pick up traction as it pertains to views. I feel this way mostly because of the quality of the production was high end. As it pertains to the Results May Vary series returning, we will see. Something will be on the forefront this summer but I do not want to reveal exactly what it is just yet.”
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