The number of resources covering this specific area is still somewhat limited, which makes the Knockout Tournament Mastery course by Run It Once that much more valuable. Presented by their longtime Elite coach Alex Theologis, a man with a proven track record in this format and privy to all the intricacies of these games, this course covers everything there is to know.

As Alex emphasizes in the introduction, Knockout Tournament Mastery is for everyone – whether you’re a seasoned pro or a recreational player who happens to enjoy this particular format. Every important aspect of KOs is covered in the videos, with solid theoretical fundamentals and accompanying calculations and examples to back them up.

RIO Knockout Tournament Mastery at a Glance

The course is divided into 22 main chapters and several logical units, starting with fundamentals of knockout tournaments and progressing through various stages of the game.

Throughout the course, Theologis sticks to the same tournament table to explain things, adjusting slightly as required. This helps keep things consistent and easier to keep up as you learn.

Some of the major topics you’ll find covered inside the course include:

• Bounty Basics
• Opening & jamming – big vs. short stack
• 3-betting and calling – from the short and big stack points of view
• Blind vs. blind play in KOs
• Postflop adjustments
• Knockout tournaments and ICM – bubble, final table, importance of field size, adjusting to very short stacks
• Mystery bounties

Throughout the course, Theologis uses Hold’em Resources Calculator and other poker software tools to explain different situations. These explanations can get a bit overwhelming at times, so it’s critical to take your time with this course and not try to rush through it.

Bounty Basics Explained

The first proper lesson of the Run It Once Knockout Tournament Mastery course is the one you’ll definitely need to watch, even if you decide to skip some later lessons. In it, Alex explains the theory behind different types of KO tournaments and explains how to figure out the value of a bounty.

The video offers very thorough and clear explanations that can be a real eye-opener if you like playing bounties but have never bothered with the theory. Theologis even introduces his “Helping Method,” which can help you figure these things out in real time without too much effort.

In addition to math and theory, the video discusses some other important aspects, such as:

• Future EV
• Soft spots at the table
• What will our stack look like after a decision and implications of this

These are all the concepts and numbers that are referred back to in the rest of the course, so make sure to take your time to understand and internalize them before moving on.

Opening and Jamming Ranges

Figuring out your opening and jamming ranges is important in any poker tournament setting. Most people who have been around have certain ideas about these ranges in regular MTTs, but how do bounties influence those ranges?

Theologis starts by looking at what he refers to as “vanilla” ranges (i.e., non-PKO ranges) and then expands with the addition of bounties to the mix to demonstrate how things change.

It is interesting to see how the added value of the bounties influences both the opening ranges and call-off ranges in certain spots.

For example, Alex discusses how short stacks need to adjust to the fact that they will be targeted more. At the same time, he suggests that, for larger stacks, flat calling instead of 3-betting shorter stacks becomes a much more viable strategy.

3-Betting & Calling

Continuing on from his first couple of lessons, Theologis expands to discuss how to adjust for this knowledge about changed opening ranges.

He once again reiterates that calling, instead of 3-betting, is usually preferred option except in situations where we are holding hands like AK and big pocket pairs. Having some strong hands in the flatting range protects us and allows us to see flops with suited and connected hands that play well after the flop.

In these two videos (short and big stack), he also discusses how our bluffing ranges change (as there are certain hands we’d rather see flops with), and how we almost have no 3-bets in our range when short-stacked (only calls and jams), as other players are too incentivized to get involved and try to get the bounty.

Blind vs. Blind Play in Knockout Tournaments

A couple of videos are focused on the blind vs. blind play, which makes up an important part of any tournament strategy. Theologis examines situations where the big blind covers the small blind, and then moves on to discuss reverse situations.

Some of the things discussed in this section include SB opening range adjustments (virtually non-existent when the big blind covers), and how the big blind increases its isolation range to include some of the pure vanilla call ranges when they cover.

Limping and Multi-Way All-Ins in PKOs

A couple of videos in the Run It Once Knockout Tournament Mastery course are devoted to two interesting topics. The first deals with limping, which is generally regarded as not-so-viable strategy in tournaments.

In PKOs, however, Theologis suggests there are situations where we want to limp more – with hands that we want to see flops with, but there are stacks that cover us left to act.

Another interesting aspect is the hands that we can use for multi-way all-ins. Alex runs some numbers and compares different ranges to figure out how to find the best candidates for these situations, focusing primarily on avoiding the hands that are likely to be dominated.

ICM Considerations in PKOs

Several videos towards the end of the course focus on ICM (Independent Chip Model) aspects and how these change in different stages of bounty tournaments.

For example, during the bubble stage, short stacks have to further tighten their ranges, as they can expect to get looked up much more. Big stacks have to be more careful, too, as short stacks can call wider since their risk premium is lower.

Talking about the final table, it is really interesting to see how things can change, as the value of bounties (expressed in big blinds) starts to drop.

Is RIO Knockout Tournament Mastery for You?

One thing I will say about the Knockout Tournament Mastery course is that it includes a lot of math and ranges. This isn’t always easy to keep up with, especially if you’re less naturally mathematically inclined, but it’s also the only way to really dig under the surface and explain how these tournaments differ from the “vanilla” ones and where the need for different adjustments comes from.

It really depends on how far you want to take your Progressive Knockout game. Even if you only pick up some smaller adjustments and understand basic principles, your game is bound to improve significantly.

On the other hand, if you are ready to put in the work, Theologis really breaks down this format to the finest detail. If you take the time to understand, learn, and memorize all the slight variations, you’ll be ready to compete with the best and easily crush the average competition in these events.

This is an advanced and detailed course, so the $499 price tag for lifetime access seems pretty spot-on. It will require some commitment, but if PKOs are your cup of tea, your commitment will undoubtedly be handsomely rewarded.

But, the challenge with poker training courses is twofold. The first — and more obvious — one is figuring out which one to pick. Reading reviews and talking to those who have purchased the course already can help a lot in that department.

The second challenge or fear that many players have is whether they’ll be able to get value out of the training materials. How do you actually go about learning poker in the most efficient way and getting the best value out of the resources you’ve paid for?

The Game Plan by Kevin Rabichow is a course designed primarily to tackle this second challenge and teach you how to consume poker knowledge. If you’re hesitant about getting involved with a poker training site or have tried it in the past but felt like it didn’t help your game as much as you had hoped, this course is for you.

Run It Once and Kevin Rabichow have come together to offer the ultimate course on how to learn poker in the modern era of training courses, HUDs, and solvers, to create a very interesting and unique product. If you’re still confused as to what I’m talking about, don’t worry; this detailed Game Plan course review will tell you all you need to know.

The Game Plan Basics: What Poker Learning Consists Of?

The first couple of videos of Kevin Rabichow’s Game Plan lay out the foundation for everything discussed in later lessons. The introductory part is split into two parts, simply called:

• In Theory
• In Practice

With the ‘In Theory’ segment, Rabichow explains how you should approach the idea of poker learning before digging into any particular course or lesson. He explains the process you should go through to try and figure out how comfortable you are with major strategy sections such as preflop play, postflop play, GTO, and exploitative adjustments.

While the first video asks the player to try and evaluate their theoretical level of knowledge, the ‘In Practice’ segment asks a different important question: how does your theoretical knowledge translate into actual gameplay?

Rabichow goes through several major areas that you can use to evaluate this segment, such as:

• Generating edge: you’re not automatically making money from your opponents making mistakes.
• The skill of execution and table presence: the difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it.
• The river decision-making: a lot different from earlier street decisions as there is much more nuance.

Evaluating Your Abilities

The next two segments of The Game Plan are named ‘Evaluate’ and ‘Improve,’ and these tie in together.

The ‘Evaluate’ section is geared to give you the tools needed to identify strengths and weaknesses in your game and figure out where your biggest edge comes from.

The next few videos present you with detailed forms that you need to fill in to evaluate the current state of your poker skills. There are four core segments Rabichow focuses on in separate videos, namely:

• Strategy evaluation – identify your strengths and weaknesses and figure out what are the fundamental areas of your game that need improving first.
• Theory evaluation – figuring out how good your theoretical understanding of the game is. In this segment, you’re trying to figure out how confident you are about your background knowledge in those main areas that have been identified earlier in the course.
• Study evaluation – this segment is designed to help you figure out how effective your current studying process is.
• Skills evaluation – trying to determine what’s the skill gap between you and your opponents. The goal is to figure out where your execution can improve and what areas you should focus more in your studying routine.

There is a separate Google document for each of these sections, and after watching the video, you can go ahead and try to fill out the form for yourself, answering the questions inside, i.e., rating your skills and abilities.

This is a very important step in the process, as it all leads to building your study template, which is the final lesson in the ‘Evaluate’ section of the Game Plan course. Based on the different evaluation sheets, you’ll come up with your own conclusions about what you need to work on and what should be your highest priorities.

READ MORE: Kevin Rabichow on the Ecstasy of Choice in Poker Training

The Game Plan: Improving Your Play

The previous section of the course should end up with you having a fairly clear picture of where you are as a poker player, what your biggest strengths are, and what areas of your game need to improve. Based on these conclusions, you can start building your study plan.

Rabichow recognizes there are many different study methods, and not all of them are best suited for all types of players. He also identifies the biggest strengths and weaknesses of certain types of training materials, such as:

• Poker content (videos, streams, etc.)
• GTO sims and poker solvers
• Analyzing your own play using a hand database
• Community participation

The main idea behind this module is to help you identify the type of resource that would be the most effective for the type of knowledge you seek to acquire and for the type of person you are.

Like the previous section, this one also requires you to be honest with yourself and admit if you’ve faced the type of issues that Rabichow discusses when addressing particular poker training options. It is important to understand these pitfalls and take them to heart so that you can avoid them the next time you get down to studying.

The Gameplan – Putting the Process to the Test

The final section of the Run It Once Game Plan course features Kevin Rabichow putting his own studying plan to the test in a training module focused primarily on the heads-up play.

This module takes you through all the steps that go into building a successful learning strategy, starting with preflop ranges for heads-up play, going over flop and turn strategies, and wrapping up with river considerations.

The ‘Gameplan’ module is a very solid course on heads-up play in its own right, but it is also a great example of how the process described in the course can be applied by an actual player serious about improving their game.

Run It Once Game Plan: Summary

In the sea of different poker courses, The Game Plan by Kevin Rabichow manages to stand apart from the rest. It is an excellent resource for everyone wanting to learn how to study poker. And, as much as that phrase may sound strange, this is a big issue that many players face these days.

If you feel like studying poker is a struggle for you and that no matter how many hours you spend, you don’t get the desired results, The Game Plan could be the best investment you could make.

Instead of buying different courses, hoping that one of them works for you, you can learn the process that helps you get the best value out of every course out there. The Game Plan teaches you how to recognize your strengths and weaknesses, how to approach removing the leaks from your game, and understand what is the best type of training for you, specifically.

I’ll admit that my first thought was that this was a bit out there, but after watching the course, there is no doubt in my mind that it can be of great help to anyone looking to study poker seriously. The Game Plan is not designed for beginners or casual players, that much is clear, but if you have serious plans for your poker future and those plans include poker training in one way or another, this course can give you a great kick start.

Kevin is active on Twitter as @krabichow and you can find out more about him and his course at these links:
Course: https://www.runitonce.com/courses/the-game-plan/
Coaching Website: https://www.kevinrabichow.com/
IG: https://instagram.com/krabichow

We also go over this week’s home game results and discuss these topics:
How to help us out – https://rec.poker/support/
Home Games – https://rec.poker/homegame/
Go Premium! – https://rec.poker/premium/

RecPoker is a vibrant and encouraging poker learning community. We are committed to learning the game, but our priority is building healthy relationships where we can not only grow in the game, but grow in our enjoyment of life. The membership website at rec. poker is awesome, but it’s just a tool to help us build that community. You can join for FREE, giving you access to the groups, forums, and other member benefits. If you want to enjoy the premium content, or become part of the RECing Crew, those options are available, and you can get $10 off your first payment using the code RECPOKER.

Time Stamps

• 2 Tables of Heads Up Pot Limit Omaha
• Established number of hands (between 10,000-35,000 hands)
• Galfond would lay odds

Phil is a perfect 5-for-5 against some of the top players in the world including Venividi, ActionFreak, Chance Kornuth, Brandon Adams, and Dan “Jungleman” Cates. Combined, he is up over $1,500,000 from his opponents between the poker and side bets.

What does this have to do with learning the great game of Pot Limit Omaha? Simple: Phil has turned his hundreds of thousands of hands into a course for his Run It Once Training site called This Is PLO. In it you’ll reap the rewards of his having broken down thousands of hands and running them through the solver, then sitting down to record his thoughts of how to play PLO.

For all intents and purposes, there are two ways to learn any type of poker: through intuition and through studying. Intuition lends itself to watching others play, feeling out the right time to bluff, watching what hands win at showdown, and figuring out how to manipulate situations to your advantage at the table in order to win the most with your best hand and win when you have the worst of it. Many modern players, however, lean towards studying and putting in work away from the table in order to understand the fundamental mathematical reason and the why behind every decision at the table.

Who Should (and Shouldn’t) Buy the Course?

This Is PLO is for the truly serious poker player who wants to dig into the depths of the game and uncover every nuanced reason for being in Omaha. Phil has put together a course that covers over 15 different segments of the game tree. Each segment of the game tree is broken down into four different branches, and each branch has 3-5 separate leaves. If the conversation of a game tree and the multiple facets of decision that fall off it leaves you scratching your head then it’s recommended to look elsewhere to learn the fundamentals of PLO. A wonderful spot to start this journey is through the more beginner level PLO course From The Ground Up on RIO. But if you’re serious about taking your game to the next level, this is the course for you!

As you can see illustrated in the screenshot below, each tab is broken out into Dynamic Boards, Straight Boards, Flush Boards, and Paired Boards.

The first few videos within the course are all about the fundamentals and delve into the math behind calling ranges and Minimum Defense Frequencies required to call down your opponent based off their bet sizing. It is very dry, it is very much like a professor walking his class through a problem on the chalk board. It is what’s required to win.

You will need to break it up in to multiple sessions and probably go back and rewatch it to make sure it sinks in. This section of the course is also inherently necessary to understanding the base level strategy in order to lay the foundation for your entire game so that you don’t have any fundamental flaws or leaks. You are going to need to understand terms like MDF, 1-A, and also want to learn from a mathematical perspective. In short, you need to be prepared to go back to school and unlearn all of what you thought you knew about PLO.

This being said, Galfond actively encourages the student to learn from a solver, understand the whys and hows of what it recommends, and then understand how to incorporate it into your game and deviate accordingly. It’s more than plugging situations into a computer; it’s also understanding the information that comes out. Naturally, it would also be sensible to have some working knowledge of the Run It Once Vision GTO Trainer tool in order to get the most out of this course.

READ MORE: Vision GTO Training Tool Review

In order to deviate from proper play, you must first know what proper play is. Once you make your way out of the fundamentals there are still plenty more lessons to dive into and Phil uses real life examples of hands he played in his heads up matches and explains his reasoning behind each of his decisions. This, coupled with some solver work to help provide clarity to the fundamental approach, enables Phil to provide a holistic answer on how and why decisions are made in PLO. Sometimes he follows what a solver would do, while other times he walks his own path, but there is always a what and a why for the play at hand.

To paraphrase one segment of Galfond’s videos: I’ll simplify my strategy slightly against what a solver would do and it may lose EV but it’s easier to implement in the long run, which means it’s a better strategy as I can stick to it and know what I’m doing across all situations.

The vast majority of This Is PLO material is based off of Galfond’s Heads-Up play from his challenge but don’t let that dissuade you; all of the fundamentals crossover and will strengthen your PLO game no matter how many players are at the table. If that doesn’t convince you then keep in mind there is also a 6-Max section.

Galfond pairs up with Richard Gryko for 20 different videos covering the nuanced differences between playing PLO Heads-Up vs. multiway. Gryko has multiple solo videos where he breaks down the theory of different spots and, to quote a friend, “Richard Gryko is an amazing player but isn’t the best teacher”. The theory videos are akin to going back to college and trying to stay awake during your 9am Physics class taught by your least favorite professor.

They are extremely dense in knowledge and, as such, if you want to truly ingest the information, you’ll need to watch it multiple times. With that said, they are important and are going to help you build an overall strategy if you give them their due. Thankfully the other 75% of the 6-max coursework is much more palpable.

Phil sits alongside Grkyo and they banter back and forth about situations: what Phil would do, why he would do it, what the theory dictates, and what his counterpart actually did in reality. It helps drive home the concepts and the differences between the two worlds; as much as some players may buy this course and think they can skip all the Heads-Up content and dive solely into the 6-max videos, I would challenge this idea and suggest that it would be detrimental to their overall learning. Spend the time on all sections and allow this section to sharpen your overall game.

Clearly This Is PLO is for professionals who look to make their living by knowing how their four cards interact with their opponents ranges and a variety of board textures. If you play PLO as more than a passing fancy online at stakes of $2-5 or higher or live at $5-10 and above, you are doing yourself a disservice by not buying this course and putting in the hours away from the table to become the best version on yourself at the table. It is a time commitment, as well as a monetary commitment, but it will reap huge rewards in a very short time. Plainly speaking, the $2,499 you invest will be a distant memory as your hourly increases and pays for the course in all but a handful of sessions.

Phil Galfond’s This is PLO: Pros vs. Cons

Pros:

• Most knowledgeable coach in the entire world
• Extremely extensive material, hundreds of videos broken down in a comprehensive manner
• More material being uploaded regularly

Cons:

• Expensive
• Helps to have a basis in solvers to learn faster, mathematically based

Let’s be clear: Phil Galfond’s This Is PLO isn’t for the faint of heart. If you buy it then you’re committing to hundreds of hours of video content, thought experiments, and familiarization with new terms and concepts. You truly have to want to get better at your Pot Limit Omaha game and that isn’t for everyone. There is a purity to the game that will be stripped away and the notion that it’s “just a game that you can gamble on and get large amounts of chips in willy-nilly” will vanish. But then again, everyone around you will still have that notion and you’ll be left picking up the free money that sits down on a daily basis.

READ MORE: Phil Galfond Discusses This is PLO, His First Ever Full-Length Course for Run It Once

That said, whether you’re making a transition or Pot Limit Omaha is the first poker variant you’ve tackled, there is one problem that comes up immediately. How to learn to play the game correctly and adopt profitable strategies?

Phil Galfond’s training site Run It Once (or RIO, for short) offers a vast, excellent selection of coaching videos to help you become a better PLO player. However, if you prefer a more hands-on approach, the RIO Vision GTO Trainer, created by Matthias Pum, is just the tool you need.

RIO Vision GTO Trainer in a Nutshell

As you’re probably aware, PLO can be a very complicated game. With four hole cards instead of two, the decision-making process becomes increasingly complex. It’s hard to know what the best course of action is in different spots.

RIO Vision GTO Trainer is designed to help you address these concerns and find answers to all the questions you may have.

The tool allows you to easily set up different post-flop scenarios for heads-up and six-max PLO spots at 50bb and 100bb. The interface is quite intuitive, although it may take you a little while to get used to it and learn how to use all the available functionalities.

This is a good thing, though, as it means that RIO Vision GTO Trainer is a powerful piece of software that lets you break down all the different spots to the minute detail and get the answer you’re looking for. Plus, there are great video tutorials to help you understand how to use all these different options (scroll down to check them out).

RIO Vision GTO Trainer is a poker solver tool, which means it will supply you with mathematically optimal solutions for various spots. It will tell you how often you should check or bet in a certain spot and how to size your bets depending on the board texture.

However, unlike many solvers out there, this one is actually quite easy and intuitive to use, and you don’t have to wait long to get your results. It comes with preloaded GTO solutions for over 420 board textures and 11,000+ ready-made solver solutions, which eliminates the problem of long loading times.

UPDATE July 2022: 5-Card PLO simulations are now included in the RIO Vision GTO Trainer.

We’ve officially added 5-card PLO simulations to our GTO Trainer, Vision.

Now, you’re able to learn the basics of 5-card PLO, study tricky spots, or test yourself against others in Streak mode.

For more information, check out our website! https://t.co/kX8JrugQY9 pic.twitter.com/0BAaqlbMHi

— Run It Once Training (@RunItOnce) June 30, 2022

How to Make the Most Out of RIO Vision GTO Trainer?

This tool is probably not the best fit for absolute PLO beginners, as you still need to have a solid grasp and understanding of the game to make the most out of all the capabilities this software has to offer. That said, you don’t have to be an expert to use it, either.

The interface is very user-friendly, so setting up the scenarios you want to look at is easy. On the right-hand side, there is a panel where you can apply additional filters to further narrow things down and only focus on the boards you’re interested in, allowing you to save a lot of time.

Because the solutions have been computed ahead of time, you don’t need a powerful computer to use this tool. It even works on your mobile phone, which is quite revolutionary for poker solvers.

Once you figure things out, RIO Vision GTO Trainer allows you to set up everything exactly the way you want it. Whether it’s a button vs. big blind spot or you want to look into playing from the button against an early position raiser, you can easily create and study different scenarios.

If you want to make your learning experience more engaging, there is also the Vision Streak Mode. Here, you need to come up with correct answers for various spots, collecting leaderboard points along the way, and unlocking access to more streaks.

Value for Money: Is Vision Trainer a Good Investment?

The poker community is divided into two major camps. There are those who swear by the solvers and those who think that this type of software shouldn’t be around in the first place. But no one is denying these programs can be very helpful in shaping up your game.

When it comes to RIO Vision GTO Trainer, this tool has a lot going for it. Unlike many solvers out there, it’s really fast and doesn’t require you to have a supercomputer to make the most out of it. It is geared more towards an average PLO player looking to get better than someone already on a very high level.

As such, it is definitely a good buy for anyone looking for a tool they can use without much hassle. At under $100/month for the 6-max or the HU version (you can also get the package deal for under $150/month), it is great value for money even if you play at very low stakes.

Choosing an annual plan saves you 25% off the RIO Vision GTO Trainer monthly price

Of course, like all tools of this type, it won’t do the work for you. To get the highest value out of the software, you’ll need to spend the time analyzing hands, looking into GTO solutions, and understanding how these spots are solved. It’s impossible to memorize every single situation, but, with time, you can develop a very good feeling for “what a computer would do” in a certain spot.

All in all, if you’re serious about shaping up your PLO game, this tool will 100% help you on your journey. You’ll still need other resources to get there, but this is one that you can get for a very fair price and have handy whenever you feel like putting in some study time.

BONUS: Check out a the additional videos below, where Vision creator Matthias Pum guides you through the tool’s numerous various functionalities, including:

• Changing positions and flop texture
• Comparing our actions on different boards
• Introduction to practice mode
• Detailed practice mode overview
• Practicing with the frequency trainer
• Isolating specific hand categories
• Turn analysis in practice mode
• Exporting ranges with AutoHotkey
• River custom mode analysis
• Preflop custom mode analysis
• Analyzing rivers with MonkerSolver Free
• Saving and linking from custom preflop spots

In fact, Run It Once, one of the biggest poker training platforms around, is giving you the chance to purchase ALL courses at a big 25% discount + Elliot Roe’s A-Game Masteclass for 50% off!

What’s up for Grabs?

The RIO Black Friday sale has been designed so that players of all profiles should be able to take advantage. Whether you’re looking for some basic courses or more advanced lessons, there will be an opportunity to get what you’re after at a discount. There will be four stages of the Black Friday sale, to be announced gradually over the next two weeks:

• November 11 – 15: 25% discount on all From the Ground Up (FTGU) courses
• November 15 – 21: 25% off PADS on PADS + PLO puzzles
• November 22 – 25: 50% discount on A-Game Masterclass & 25% off on Annual Vision sub
• November 26 – 29: 25% OFF ALL COURSES/BOOKS/ANNUAL VISION PLANS & 50% OFF A-GAME POKER MASTERCLASS!

Beyond the four stages of the Black Friday promotion, head honcho Phil Galfond has announced something extra special:

PSA: @RunItOnce made its entire Essential library free for the next 7 days. 2,645 training videos are available to everyone with a basic account (free to open, no payment info needed, no strings attached).

Enjoy!

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) November 11, 2021

You read that correctly, all existing basic members as well as those who sign up for Run It Once can get FREE access to the essential plan! This promo will be active for one full week, starting November 11.

What Is RIO All About?

Most people involved in online poker already know about Run It Once and what it stands for. However, if you’re a newcomer or this information slipped by you, you might be wondering what the hype is all about.

Run It Once (or RIO for short) is a poker training platform founded by Phil Galfond, one of the most respected poker players around and arguably the best PLO player alive. Over the years, the site has become one of the top picks for everyone looking to improve their poker game, from beginners to experienced grinders.

In addition to Galfond, the site features lessons and courses from top pros such as Dan “Jungleman” Cates, Jason Koon, Sam Greenwood, Ben Sulsky, and Brian Hastings, to just mention a few.

The FTGU courses are designed to provide players with all the necessary knowledge and tools they need to be successful in whatever format they choose, be it MTTs, SNGs, or Pot Limit Omaha.

PADS on PADS is an advanced MTT course by Patrick Leonard, a man with over $15 million in combined live and online tournament earnings. This course can really help take your tournament game to the next level. You can read our review here.

Presented by Elliot Roe, A-Game Masterclass focuses on the mental side of poker, providing you with tools and strategies to always play your best game, teaching you how to deal with distractions and variance, and much more. You can read our review here.

Overall, Run It Once has something to offer to all players, and there’s never been a better moment to get involved. Even at their full cost, these courses are great value for money, but with these deep discounts, joining Run It Once is a no-brainer.

If you want to become better at poker, that is!

Free Video Offer for Cardplayer Lifestyle Readers

For the next seven days, exclusively for Cardplayer Lifestyle readers, you can access a brand new Essential video from coach Tariq Haji. His main game is NL200 on Ignition which makes his content specifically interesting for all Americans or players who compete at anonymous tables like Run It Once Poker. One of Tariq’s biggest strengths as a coach are his outstanding exploit skills which will teach you important lessons even if you play much lower stakes. 

In the free video, Tariq battles at two $1/$2 Zone tables while teaching you how to hand read and recognize suspicious bet sizes to outplay weaker players. Check out the video now!

From the Ground Up: PLO & SNG Editions Available Now!

Over the last few weeks Run It Once Training launched TWO brand new additions to their From The the Ground Up library. In addition to the ultimate NLHE cash game beginner guide and the all-in-one tournament guide, you can now accelerate your learning curve with the PLO and the Sit & Go editions!

The PLO Edition is the perfect on-ramp into the fascinating world of 4-card poker. Regardless of whether you’re still fairly new to poker or have been playing No Limit Hold’em for some time, in PLO it often takes a little longer for players to feel comfortable at the table. This course offers the solution by teaching you everything you need to know to play and win in this great action-packed game.

The Preflop Mastery section alone consists of 13 videos teaching solid preflop ranges to equip you for all the potential upcoming spots. Opening ranges, 3-betting ranges and what to do when facing 4-bets are all covered in this module. From there, you’ll dive into flop, turn & river play incorporating advanced concepts that will make your opponents fear your skills. 

This course is also great for players with more PLO experience who are looking to shore up their fundamentals. For more visual learners, the 50 pages PDF handbook accompanying the course will make sure that you don’t lose sight of the most important lessons that you’ve learned throughout the course.

Run It Once Training hasn’t always been the obvious option to learn about SNG play. This has now changed: with the SNG Edition of From the Ground Up you’re offered THE place to start your SNG career on the right foot or to revise potential strategy leaks in your current game. Longtime Run It Once Training Pro Ryan Martin shepherds you through everything you need to know to start crushing at this form of poker. Having focused most of his career on Sit & Gos, Ryan knows all the challenges and opportunities that come with this game type.

You’ll learn why the old wisdom of ‘tight is right’ at the early stages has long been overhauled and why it’s still more than possible to earn a fortune in the world of this fast-paced poker format. Across five modules, Ryan teaches you how to master all the different stages of a Sit & Go whether it’s preflop ranges, adjusting your post-flop strategy facing huge ICM pressure or most effectively leveraging a big stack. As with the PLO Edition you’ll get a comprehensive PDF that serves as a cheat sheet and compiles all of the most important lessons, links and charts utilized in each installment.

For all of the From the Ground Up courses you can check out the first two videos for free. So if you’re still unsure, get ready to see which From the Ground Up is for you : NLHE, MTT, PLO or SNGs.

Run It Once Poker’s Biggest Welcome Offer: Earn & Learn

But wait there’s more! If you like the idea of getting one of the From the Ground Up Courses AND want to put your newfound knowledge to use, you’ll want to take advantage of Run It Once Poker‘s  generous Earn & Learn promo.

To take part, all you need to do is head to runitonce.eu, download the poker client and make your first deposit and you’ll automatically unlock this incredible list of welcome bonuses:

• Your choice of lifetime access to one of the From The Ground Up courses: NLHE, PLO or SNG
• Boosted Legends rewards for 8 weeks
• Up to 3 months of the Run It Once Training Essential membership
• Up to €100 in SNG tickets
• Up to €600 Welcome Deposit Bonus with no time limit to unlock!

If you want to learn more about this great offer simply check out the promotion page here.

PADS on PADS: Patrick “pads1161” Leonard Joins the Team

Run It Once Training has announced an exciting addition to the Run It Once Training family with MTT legend Patrick ‘pads1161’ Leonard. Pads is well known from many high stakes appearances in televised events but had even more success in the online world of MTTs.

Delighted to announce that I’m partnering with @RunItOnce training for the course

– 100+ immediate videos Feb 8th
– HU in MTTs with @KRabichow
– PSKOs with Pwndidi
– Monthly current trends updates
– HH review with big winners from each site

More info https://t.co/gzz90KTffu pic.twitter.com/XzRCHvtVfR

— Patrick Leonard (@padspoker) January 21, 2021

Patrick’s brand new course PADS on PADS will be available in just a few weeks and it will teach you the secrets to Perfecting Analysis, Decisions & Strategy that has led Patrick to crush MTTs for over $14 million lifetime.

If you want to be one of the first to find out what makes this course so special, you can sign up for a pre-launch mailing list that will share early looks at the content, giveaways and even access to an exclusive Q&A session with Patrick. 

Galfond Challenge: Phil Goes 3-0 Forcing Kornuth to Surrender

In our last quarterly update Phil Galfond found himself being down a considerable amount and people were starting to wonder if Chance Kornuth would be the first of the challengers to break the PLO GOAT. Well think again. Once again Phil was able to overcome a deficit of -$344,000 and grinded back over $1 million to reach a massive lead of +$726,500 after roughly 25k hands played. With Kornuth approaching his loss limit, he decided to respectfully throw in the towel mid-session on January 23, making Phil the winner. With the win, Phil also scooped the $250,000 side bet, making this challenge’s profit roughly $1 million.

Chance displayed great sportsmanship and showed just how great of a guy he is by immediately jumping into a live interview with Phil, his wife Farah and commentators Nick Steiner and Henry Kilbane.

The matchup with Chance was one of the most dynamic battles so far as both players embraced exploitative adjustments on a daily basis leading to frequent changes in the match’s meta-game. Phil maintains his perfect record and brings his total winnings for the Galfond Challenge to $1,433,081. Don’t forget that you can also learn from Phil by getting access to hundreds of his training videos on the Run It Once Training plans.

Vision Streak: The Community Battle is On! 

Would you enjoy leveling up your PLO skills against Phil Galfond WITHOUT putting millions of dollars on the line? Well there might be something just for you. In our previous update on Run It Once Training we talked about the addition of Streak to the Vision GTO Trainer software, which makes the study experience much more engaging and efficient. Since the last update, Run It Once Training members have been battling for trophies in the monthly and all-time Vision Leaderboards to compete for the top spots and to find out who deserves the crown for best PLO student on the site!

And of course Phil Galfond has shown some interest in getting into this leaderboard challenge himself. For the next seven days you can watch him fight for his spot on the community leaderboards in his Elite video: Streak Leaderboard Chase for free.

You can even try the new Vision Streak feature for free by logging into your Run It Once Training account (the free Basic plan suffices for this) and head to the Vision Demo page.

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That’s all for now. This column will be back once again come spring, where we’ll continue updating you with the latest news, updates, and product releases that Run It Once Training has to offer.

Free Video Offer for Cardplayer Lifestyle Readers

For the next seven days — exclusively for Cardplayer Lifestyle readers — you can access a brand new Essential video from Peter Clarke for free! The video reveals six cycles of failure that might be preventing you from reaching your poker goals in 2020. Peter shares specific advice on how you can change each of these detrimental patterns to escape the failure plaguing your game and get on the path to poker success. The video is relevant for all forms of poker and applicable for both live and online players. Check it out now!

Procrastinate No More! Introducing: Vision Streak

All serious poker students have experienced bouts of procrastination when it comes to studying poker and actually taking the steps needed in order to improve our game. Run It Once has sought to improve on the monotony that can accompany working with solvers with the release of their newest addendum to its PLO software “Vision” with “Streak.”

Vision Streak works in conjunction with the Vision software and allows users to drill a variety of spots quickly and rapidly forcing you to choose the best option and counting correct guesses towards your overall score. The program begins with the raise first in strategy from all positions requiring certain scores before allowing you to proceed to more difficult areas of the game tree. High scores are shared among other members allowing for bragging rights for exceptionally lengthy streaks.

Throughout 12 different modules you’ll learn the foundations required for a successful GTO approach at the four-card tables. Each module is organized into the different positions you can find yourself in at a table and you can explore the correct answers with Vision’s intuitive learning modes for a deeper understanding.

Vision Streak is included in all Vision plans and enhances the software that was already one of the most powerful ways to improve your game. If you want to find out more about Vision and the new addition of Vision Streak, you can do so here.

Introducing Elite Q&A Calls

A few months back, Run It Once Training began offering an exclusive benefit to their Elite Members: Monthly Q&A Calls with some of the best players on the planet live on Zoom.

Back in August, we released a detailed article about these calls outlining the structure and benefits. In a nutshell, the Elite calls were launched as a way for Run It Once Training members to get in touch and communicate on a more personal level with the coaches on the site. Discussions have ranged from getting specific strategic tips in tough spots to discovering how pros climbed and worked their way to the top of the poker food chain.

Run It Once Training has held four calls featuring Sam Greenwood, Daniel Dvoress, Kevin Rabichow as well as pre-Black Friday nosebleed crusher (and now successful restaurant owner) Hac Dang. Elite members can not only participate live during the event but also get access to all previous Q&A sessions in a new section on the site.

If you want to check out the previous Elite Q&A calls and get ready for the next installment, all you need to do is upgrade your account now.

Kevin Rabichow: Crowned Heads-Up NLHE Legend

Towards the end of summer, Run It Once Poker launched the 2020 Legends Showdown inviting a mix of high stakes Heads-Up NL crushers as well as MTT high roller star Fedor ‘CrownUpGuy’ Holz to battle it out on the virtual felt. Over the course of nine matches, at stakes of €50/€100, players competed for spots in the semi-finals for the final showdown of the best of the best.

It was Fedor Holz, Pauli ‘Fiilismies’ Ayras, Bjorn ‘asianflushie’ Li as well as Run It Once Training Elite coach Kevin Rabichow who reserved their spots to battle for an additional €60,000 in prize money. In the semi-finals Fiilismies destroyed Holz, winning over $91,000 over the course of 1,500 hands. Rabichow matched the destruction with an impressive match in which he booked a win over asianflushie for almost $80,000.

With both finalists being well known in the high-stakes Heads Up NL pools there were lots of expectations for the big showdown, which was held as a 3-session match with 750 hands in each session. After some crazy ups and downs it was Kevin Rabichow who crossed the finish line with €10,796 in profits, capturing the €40,000 in prize money bringing his overall profit for the 2020 Legends Showdown to €144,000. Congratulations to Kevin for this great performance!

If you’re looking for insight on Kevin’s game and how he approaches HUNL, he has released over 135 training videos on the Run It Once Training Elite plan.

Run It Once Training Releases New Book: Poker Foundations

For the first time, a team of Run It Once pros combined forces to get their thoughts into one text in an effort to improve your game. Lead author Cory Mikesell is joined by Phil Galfond, Kevin Rabichow, and Tommy Angelo to build the foundation required for success at the tables with the release of Cory’s book Poker Foundations.

Want to start learning poker from the beginning the right way? Want to understand essential Game Theory concepts that pros love to discuss? Want to rise from the micro stakes and become a pro? Then you want Poker Foundations.

Most books for beginning and intermediate players teach tricks that are obsolete before the book is even complete. With Poker Foundations, you will learn the deepest poker truths which never age.

Cory Mikesall, Run It Once Training – Elite Pro

You can find out more about the book and even get a free sample chapter here.

Galfond Challenge: Can Kornuth Break Phil?

One month ago the Galfond Challenge finally returned after a brief hiatus with Chance Kornuth taking on Phil in his high stakes PLO challenge. After the once in a lifetime comeback of Phil in his first match against Venividi1993 and the dominant performance against ActionFreak, Phil was the clear favorite heading into the match in the eyes of the poker community. 

It seemed like everything was going as expected as the action saw Phil building an early lead of $280,000 after 4,800 hands. However, after a forced break due to difficulties with Chance reloading his busted account, the momentum drastically shifted and Chance struck back winning big in five consecutive sessions.

It’s now Phil who finds himself down $234,000. Things appear to be even more dire for him since, as the decided favorite, he is laying $1,000,000 to Chance’s $250,000 in a side bet that goes to the player up at the end of the match. You can follow all the action on the Run It Once Poker Twitch channel and if you want to track results make sure to check out the Run It Once Poker website.

Run It Once Poker: Announcing SNG Select

Just a few days ago Phil Galfond released one of the most exciting update posts since the launch of the site in February 2019: The upcoming addition of a new game type, SNG Select. These SNGs, which are just around the corner, aim to follow in the steps of previous policy and feature decisions at Run It Once Poker, as they take their own unique approach to tackling some of the problems that they see with current versions of SNGs. 

Unilaterally increasing the variance for players who enjoy it, while not doing so for the players who don’t, is a concept that I believe has the potential to do a lot of good for online poker.

Phil Galfond

As usual, Phil doesn’t just stop at announcing the new feature but gives first-hand insight into a lot of the reasoning that went into the new innovation and how all the decisions assure an exciting, but simultaneously fair and beatable poker experience. Curious to find out what Run It Once’s approach to one of the all-time favorite forms of poker will look like? Check out Phil’s post.

One of the things that the Run It Once Poker team is most excited about is bringing on board the players who wanted to support Run It Once’s vision but couldn’t, at that point in time, find their main game on the site.

With this new offering, Phil Galfond and his team will welcome all of the Sit & Go players who have wanted to support them but haven’t had the option to move their volume over to Run It Once Poker yet.

Be sure to check out SNG Select for all of the latest updates so that you’ll know the moment that this new game mode goes live.

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That’s all for now. This column will be back once again come winter, where we’ll continue updating you with the latest news, updates, and product releases that Run It Once Training has to offer.

The Elite Calls were launched as a way for members to get in touch and communicate directly with some of the most successful poker players in the world. The interactive video sessions are approximately one hour in length and allow members to ask both poker-related and non-poker-related questions to each featured coach.

Questions can be submitted in advance or be asked live during the call. Thus, discussions can range from getting specific strategic tips in tough spots to discovering how pros climbed and worked their way to the top of the poker food chain to learning a coach’s pizza topping preferences, and more. Interesting discussions are assured!

The first Elite Q&A session was held with Sam Greenwood in mid-July. Examples of questions asked and answered include:

• What were some of the biggest adjustments you had to make when starting to play in Super High Roller events?
• Do you play cash games? If so how often? Do you feel it’s bad to mix cash and tournament play in the same day/week?
• What was your biggest leak or flaw on your rise to the top? Did anything surprise you or casue you more trouble than you would have imagined?
• How in the world did you come up with Str8$$$Homey as a screen name?

For those who may have missed the live video call, the Greenwood Q&A session is still available on-demand to Elite members on a brand new section of Run It Once.

Next Up: Daniel Dvoress

The next Monthly Q&A Elite Call will feature another high stakes crusher, Daniel Dvoress. Dvoress’ play over the years has earned him a spot in the top 50 all-time tournament earners, with over $15 million in live winnings. He scored his biggest cash ($4,080,000) by winning the 2019 Super High Roller Bowl.

Dvoress has been a Run It Once instructor since 2014 and is celebrating the release of his 100th video with the poker training site.

For a taste of the type of coaching Dvoress has to offer, you can check out one of his latest videos in which he battles at the felt in $25,000 and $5,000 High Roller evens while sharing his thoughts and hand analysis in real time

To get to know Dvoress on a somewhat more personal level, you can check out his recent appearance on The Rake podcast, hosted by Jamie Kerstetter and Marle Cordeiro.

The Q&A Elite Call with Daniel Dvoress will take place next Monday, August 10, at 12PM Eastern, and Elite members are welcome to send in any questions they have in advance.

As mentioned throughout this bulletin, the video call is only available to Run It Once Training Elite members but if you upgrade your account now you can hop on the call on Monday (or on-demand, thereafter) through your personal invitation link and, of course, get access to over 5,500 high level poker training videos, and everything else on offer!

Without further ado:

Special Free Video Offer for Cardplayer Lifestyle Readers

You may already know that Run It Once offers access to three videos of their highest tier (Elite level) on an alternating basis to give everyone a free taste how it feels to learn from some of the best players on the planet. For a limited time only, exclusively for Cardplayer Lifestyle readers, you can NOW access a brand-new Essential video for free on top of that! The video features hall of fame Essential crusher Owen Shiels revealing the top strategy secrets for beating MTT micro stakes. Be sure to act fast though; the video will only be free for the next seven days. 

Phil Galfond Goes 2-0 in the Galfond Challenge Thus Far

Unless you’ve had your head in the sand for the last six months, you’ve likely heard about the results from the Galfond Challenge. What began as an idea from Phil to prove he still has some gas left in the PLO tank turned into a roller coaster of emotions across multiple weeks and thousands of hands. Back in April, we chronicled the top 10 takeaways from Phil’s mind-blowing comeback versus his first challenger, VeniVidi1993.

Phil overcame a deficit of nearly €1,000,000 to claim the victory within the last 75 hands of the 25,000-hand marathon match. The comeback heard round the world was even featured on ESPN and reinvigorated the poker community in ways that were reminiscent of the online poker boom after Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP victory.

What may have slid under the radar, however, was Phil’s victory against an even stronger high-stakes, heads-up PLO lobby holder: ActionFreak. Phil clinched the win in this match on May 27, walking away with a $114,803 lead along with the $150,000 side bet. Combined with the first match and his current $90,144 lead against third challenger Bill Perkins, Phil is currently up over $456,580 in total. With the challenges not even halfway completed, Galfond still has well over $2 million at risk in side bets alone against Perkins and upcoming challengers Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates, Brandon Adams, and Chance Kornuth. 

The Most Intuitive GTO Study Tool on the Market: PLO Vision

One of the tools Phil used to prepare for his challenges was the interactive, intuitive study tool PLO Vision. Run It Once Training released this proprietary PLO solver software in February and anyone willing to commit to their game can get access to this unique study tool. Two of the most recent updates include the addition of Pre-flop Training and the analysis of 4-Bet Pots both in the Practice and Learn modes of the Trainer.

So, if you want to engage in a whole new, innovative, unique study experience, head over to the Vision section on Run It Once to learn more or check out the easy-to-digest tutorial videos.

If you’d like to see the PLO Vision software in action and gauge whether it’s right for you to try yourself, you can check out the brand new twitch show ‘2020 Vision’ where Elite Pro Richard Gayler and poker commentator Henry Kilbane review hands with the Vision GTO Trainer live with the Run It Once community. You can check out a recent episode of 2020 Vision right here.

If you like watching free poker training content on Twitch but prefer two-card poker to four-card poker, you can check out the Elite Pro Kevin Rabichow’s streaming show, in which he shares his thoughts on hands that made Run It Once community members struggle. To submit a hand for the upcoming episode, check out the Run It Once Poker Discord Server.

The Run It Once Coaching Roster: Stronger Than Ever

Run It Once Training is packed with an exciting assortment of some of the highest-achieving players on the Elite plan as well as a selection of the freshest poker talent when it comes to the Essential plan. There are an astonishing 135 coaches on the roster, but that number doesn’t tell the full story.

Since our last Spring article the coaching team on the Essential roster was strengthened by plenty of fresh talent: The PLO, MTT, and NLHE teams have all seen strong additions recently:

• Greek tournament talent Kyriakos Papadopoulos made his premier with a review of a $530 MTT where he made a deep run.
• The newest PLO coach Thomas Emter launched his Run It Once career with a series on how to Break Through the Barriers of Low Stakes.
• The NL cash team saw longtime favorite Steve Paul return with his theory video on Getting Back in Shape after taking a break from poker.
• Live play expert Akshar ‘cosmos1994’ Patel also joined the team.

If you’re still starting out and aren’t yet ready to commit to an Elite membership don’t shy away.

Order Your Very Own Run It Once Training Books

Are you more of a classic studier of the game and prefer poker books to training videos? Be sure to check out Run it Once’s two offerings including Peter Clarke’s Poker Therapy, which shows you how to rewire your mind for poker, and Leszek Badurowicz’s Mental Edge, which dives into the mistakes we seek to avoid when playing our A-game. Both books offer a free chapter to give you a taste of what to expect.

Finally, as we all know, there’s no harm in looking good while grinding away at the felt. Run It Once offers a selection of some of the most stylish poker apparel worn today. You can check it out in their apparel shop, and even wear your favorite branded apparel at home while on the online grind at Run It Once Poker.

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That’s all for now. This column will be back once again come autumn, where we’ll continue updating you with the latest news, updates, and product releases that Run It Once Training has to offer.