Professional poker player Kelvin “Acesup” Beattie runs a poker website by the name of PokerNerve which specializes in the teaching of tournament poker. Kelvin, who has been a professional poker player for over 15 years, has amassed over $4 million in online winnings and was formerly the number 1 player in Australia.

Some of you may or may not have heard of PokerNerve, but their popularity is on the rise, and there is a lot you can learn from their content. So here are 7 different ways that PokerNerve can help improve your game, many of which are entirely for free.

Take their free 5-day email course

PokerNerve provides a free 5-day email course that features 1.5 hours of free video training designed to help you improve your tournament poker game. The course focuses on the “underused” skills and tactics that will help you hone in on some of the most common leaks of your average opponent.

These three skills include lead betting, overbetting, and check raising. Just to recap:

• Lead betting is when you take the lead on the next street after your opponent has taken the previous aggressive action.
• Overbetting is when you bet more than the more “standard” maximum of a full pot-size bet.
• Check-raising – well I hope you know what a check raise is.

These are some plays that you will not see used nearly enough at the poker table. If you do see them used, they are in many cases being used incorrectly or in the wrong situations, particularly the lead bet and the overbet. Check the email course out to make sure that you aren’t using them in the same way as the bad regs!

Join their email list and browse their blog

PokerNerve publishes and sends out 1-2 emails per month to their email list on the various topics from the world of tournament poker. Topics vary from the “niche” of using GTO poker solvers to an extensive list of everything you need to know to take on the game of poker.

Their most recent blog posts cover bounty poker tournaments, which will give you an excellent grounding in this game type if you want to add them into your schedule.

Other recent posts include mastering the big blind position (advanced) and poker hand combinations (basics), so there is something for everyone to glean from it.

Click here to join their email list.

Check out their YouTube channel

PokerNerve’s YouTube channel is full of videos on the topic of MTTs. A good one to check out would be the heads up battle with Acesup and Aki (another professional poker player from Japan), which includes over 30 minutes of “cards exposed” play.

There is tons to learn in this video, including how you might go about changing your strategy in subtle ways to exploit your opponent. The video fittingly ends in true PokerNerve style with a royal flush to boot.

Alternatively, you can find some recent content about how to factor in poker bounty rewards or how to effectively use the squeeze play. Again, there’s tons of great, informative content to learn from on their YouTube channel, so it’s worth subscribing to.

Join their Facebook group

PokerNerve’s Facebook group is also is an excellent place to post hand histories, share your wins, and get replies from Acesup himself. There’s also a chance for members to win free giveaways. Just last week a free Bounty Hunter course and some PokerStars tournament tickets were given away to three lucky people.

Join the Road To Success course

PokerNerve has an in-depth poker course on tournament poker called the Road To Success. This course will take you the full length of the poker journey, from learning the fundamentals of tournament poker all the way understanding and being able to use advanced multi-table tournament plays. The course is organized similar to that of a university course taking you from the basics to up to the most up-to-date skills with over 80 hours of video content. Here is a summary of what’s included in the course:

Many of PokerNerve’s students have seen great success since completing the course, including 2018 WSOP Europe Main Event winner Jack Sinclair, who has over $4 million in tournament winnings since taking the course. Here is what he had to say about the course:

Two years ago, I was struggling to beat the low stakes. Getting on the Road to Success was the best decision I ever made. It taught me the skills I needed, not just to beat the low stakes, but to go on to crush the mid- & even the highest stakes available.

Jack Sinclair

The course currently comes with a 7-day trial, and therefore you can test out the tournament training with unrestricted access before you pay. The Road To Success course is particularly suitable for players who are playing low to mid-stakes either online or live and want to take their game to a higher level.

You can pick up the starter course for $104 or go for the full premium course for $517. Both of these prices include a 25% discount which you can get by using code CPL at checkout. If you’re still not convinced, check out our full review of PokerNerve’s Road to Success course.

Take the Bounty Hunter Course

Progressive knockout (PKO) tournaments have become crazy popular across all online poker sites and continue to grow. They now make up a considerable percentage of the average poker players volume, so having the right skill set for them is crucial for your success as a poker player. Yet, amazingly players don’t dedicate the proper amount of time to studying this tournament format. Have you?

PokerNerve’s Bounty Hunter course is a new addition to what’s on offer in the online poker course world. This course transitions you from a “standard” MTT game plan to one specialized for progressive knockout tournaments created in a similar style to the Road To Success course with a professional yet fun style.

After completing the course, you’ll be ready for PKO action! Feeling confident with all manner of PKO decisions and quickly accounting for varying bounties in play. Thanks to easy, fast and accurate calculation methods taught, factoring in bounties is a breeze.

This course has over 40 lessons and 100 hand examples, allowing you to see all the skills in action with clear, concise demonstrations. These examples help to get players correctly implementing the skills in their games, quickly.

Acesup is one of the few players to win titles in the PokerStars $109 Bounty Builder, $215 Bounty Builder, and $530 Bounty Builder. A full analysis of the $530 Bounty Builder win is included in the course so you can see exactly how a poker pro tackles this tournament type from start to finish.

You can pick up this course for $375 using discount code CPL (which gets you 25% off). This course doesn’t include a free trial but there is a 30-day money-back guarantee if for any reason you are not happy with the course. You can also see our full review of this course here.

Private coaching

If you are interested in going a level deeper than an online course allows, you can get private coaching from Kelvin “Acesup” Beattie himself. Acesup has helped dozens of MTT players achieve better results over the course of his 15-year poker career.

In private coaching sessions, Acesup examines some of your play you’d like reviewed and finds leaks in your game. He helps players eradicate leaks by getting to the root of their poker problems and correcting any bad habits they may have picked up. Along with his experience, Acesup provides cutting-edge strategy advice by using tools such as PIOSolver and Simple GTO Trainer. This provides GTO and exploitative strategies so an accurate winning solution can be found for any situation.

Click here to find out more about private coaching.

What makes these tournaments different from traditional knockout tournaments (KOs) is the fact the players’ bounties increase with every opponent they eliminate, so bounties aren’t static. You probably don’t need a poker expert to tell you that this will influence how you act in certain scenarios. Naturally, however, having an expert (or two) explain what these scenarios are and what adjustments you need to make is very helpful. That’s exactly what the latest PokerNerve course, aptly named Bounty Hunter, is all about.

Over the course of several hours’ worth of video lessons (almost 20 hours altogether), Kelvin ‘Acesup’ Beattie and Ben Hayles break down every single aspect of Progressive Knockout tournaments (PKOs), using mathematical calculations and actual hand examples to create an excellent guide for this particular format.

Special for Cardplayer Lifestyle readers! Use promo code CPL to save 25%!

PokerNerve Bounty Hunter Course: Understanding What PKOs Are All About

The introductory video is a must-watch for anyone interested in improving their play in Progressive Knockouts. In it, “Acesup” explains the fundamental differences between PKOs and regular MTTs and how you can use a fairly simple formula to adjust your equities to account for the bounties.

The video offers a really good overview of how PKOs work and how the bounty pool changes as players bust. This is an essential introduction to everything that comes after in the course and it’s an excellent resource even if you’re completely new to bounty hunter tournaments. It really explains the format well and what you need to pay most attention to when playing.

Breakdown By Tournament Stages

Several segments of the PokerNerve Bounty Hunter course offer an excellent overview of game play at the three main stages of every tournament, namely:

• Early
• Middle
• Late

These videos are best watched in order. Every segment contains several lessons on particular subtopics, and videos are usually about 15 minutes long, so they’re easy to keep up with. Worth noting, both Beattie and Hayles do a good job of keeping things light and entertaining as much as possible, which definitely helps you maintain your focus while learning.

In the early stage videos, you’ll find a wealth of resources on how to approach bounty hunters during the period of play where the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is almost irrelevant. The segment is broken down by the stack depth, explaining necessary adjustments you’ll need to make vs. short, medium, and large stacks during early levels of a PKO.

The course utilizes Hold’em Resources Calculator (HRC) to come up with adjusted ranges for specific KO situations. The poker software does a pretty good job of this and you’ll be able to see in real time how adding or removing bounties changes calling and shoving ranges in particular scenarios.

Importantly, the course creators do account for the fact that HRC isn’t perfect as it doesn’t have the ability to account for new possibilities that open up once you have accumulated a really big stack in a PKO. Having a big stack in these tournaments is often of much bigger significance than having a big stack in a regular MTT where there isn’t the additional prize money to worry about.

After looking at early stage play, the PokerNerve Bounty Hunter Course moves on to middle stage play. In this phase, the ICM does start to have some influence but it’s still not a huge factor. Thus, you can still put a lot of focus on winning bounties.

In this section, “Acesup” explains how things start to change as players accumulate more bounties and how you can adjust your stealing and re-stealing ranges to account for these changing dynamics. He also explains the Bounty Factor (BF), a number that helps you make decisions on the spot and understand how equity requirements change.

Finally, the course talks about late stage and final table play. This is where ICM begins to really have an impact. To demonstrate the impact of ICM, “Acesup” compares bubble play in a regular $109 tournament on PokerStars and optimal play in a $109 bounty hunter tournament.

In this section, you’ll find a lot of good advice on how to make certain adjustments in the final stages of the tournament and take advantage of those players who fail to make such adjustments. With bounties in play, calling ranges become wider, which calls for tightening up and adjusting your shoving ranges.

A particularly interesting video in this section is the one on deal making. “Acesup” explains what things you should think about when making a deal and how different live and online poker rooms have different rules when it comes to bounties once a deal is struck. To put yourself in the best possible spot, you need to know these rules and account for them when making your decision.

Special for Cardplayer Lifestyle readers! Use promo code CPL to save 25%!

Isolating

After going through stage by stageplay, the PokerNerve Bounty Hunter course moves to a topic that’s important in MTTs in general but is especially significant in PKOs: isolating. With the added money from bounties, there is an additional incentive to play heads-up pots against shorter stacks and bust them. But, what’s the correct strategy here?

Focusing on four important factors, Beattie explains everything you need to know about potential isolation opportunities:

• Bounty Factor
• Equity
• Players yet to act (and do we cover them)
• ICM

In this section, you’ll also find out about some strategies specific to PKOs in light of isolation opportunities. For example, limping in becomes a much more viable approach in certain scenarios whereas this strategy is almost never used in regular MTTs. Added bounty dynamics make limping with the threat of isolation shoving a good option in certain scenarios.

Covering vs. Non-covering and Multi-way Pots

The final two sections of the PokerNerve Bounty Hunter course discuss how to adjust your play in situations depending on whether you cover or don’t cover your opponent and how to approach multi-way pots in PKO tournaments.

In terms of covering vs. not covering, you’ll pretty much be able to make many correct assumptions yourself by this point in the course. When you have a covering stack in pre-flop situations, you’ll be able to play looser, whether you’re the first in the pot or are calling or defending from the blinds.

In post-flop scenarios, when you have a player covered, you’ll want to build pots faster and not slow-play too much. Of course, you’ll find out what this means via concrete examples and what strategies to apply to achieve these results.

It’s worth mentioning that once you’re done with all the lessons, there is an in-depth review of a $530 online bounty builder tournament as played by “Acesup”. This provides a great summary of everything that’s been discussed as you can see many concepts as applied in actual play.

Summary: How Good is the PokerNerve Bounty Hunter Course?

PokerNerve’s Bounty Hunter course is definitely an interesting and rather unique product. They took a special niche within the MTT world and gave it an excellent, in-depth treatment. As some would say, the course “does what it says on the tin” and delivers on the promise to teach you about intricacies of playing progressive KOs.

Although you’ll find a fair bit of theory, formulas, and calculations (which are hardly ever too interesting to go through), Beattie and Hayles have really done a great job of keeping things light and easy to follow throughout. While the course is focused on a particular type of MTTs, you’ll also find a lot of general advice in there in terms of ranges and adjustments, so watching the videos is definitely worth your while even if PKOs aren’t your main focus.

In sum, if you want to develop a deeper understanding of bounty hunters and improve your ROI in these tournaments, this product will help you get there, and with a $374 price tag (a 25% discount from the regular price of $499) it’s a worthwhile investment to make in your poker game.

Special for Cardplayer Lifestyle readers! Use promo code CPL to save 25%!

I liked it enough to get the “Road to Success” Premium package, which offers more than 90 lessons and supplements. For those who don’t have the bankroll to splurge, PokerNerve also offers a payment plan (three payments of $249) or a “Basic Package” for $139. The latter is a scaled back version of the course with just 20 lessons and supplements.

Special for Cardplayer Lifestyle readers! Use promo code CPL to save 25%!

You’ll be taught by Kelvin “Acesup” Beattie, who has amassed more than $4 million playing online over 14 years. During that time, he has also won 10 triple crowns. Not surprisingly, he was at one time the No. 1 ranked online poker player in all of Australia according to PokerStake.

PokerNerve MTT Training: Disclaimers

Before going any further, let me be clear – I am not an online player. I’m based in the United States and I won’t play on unregulated sites. As such, the only opportunity I have to play poker online is when I’m in Las Vegas for the WSOP each summer. Even so, I find that a lot of online MTT strategy can be tailored to fit live play. At the very least, it helps me understand online players better when I encounter them across the table in live tournaments, like World Series of Poker events.

Also, note that the MTT Training course must be accessed via a web browser, as there’s currently no mobile app for PokerNerve. That said, the functionality of the site is solid, due in no small part to its simplicity.

PokerNerve MTT Training: Course Breakdown — What Do You Get?

Here’s a look at what you get from PokerNerve’s MTT Training course:

• 40+ Premium Theory Videos
• 50+ Supplemental Learning Videos
• Guided Learning from Beginner to Expert
• Plus, access to an ever-evolving video library

The videos average 40 minutes in length, so getting the most from the course is certainly a time commitment. It’s worth noting, however, that they’re not frivolous videos. By that, I mean that you don’t have to watch tons of footage before getting a tidbit of wisdom. Instead, Beattie gets to the point quickly. The videos are focused and reliable.

As for the lesson plan, it’s laid out in a linear path. You simply start with Module 1, Lesson 1, and work your way through in sequential order. As many training sites I’ve tried lack organization, the simplicity of that sequential order can’t be understated.

PokerNerve MTT Training: Modular Breakdown

PokerNerve’s MTT Training course is comprised of six Modules, with two each devoted to basic lessons, intermediate lessons, and more advanced strategies.

Module 1 includes a basic introduction, ranging from topics like hand values to board texture to post-flop strategies to positional awareness. Module 2 then moves into stack sizes, implied odds, and play based on your stack size (short, medium, and deep). If you’re an experienced tournament player, you’re likely familiar with most of this information. Still, it never hurts to review the basics.

Module 3 kicks things up a notch by introducing semi-bluffing, playing from the blinds, and profiting from aggression. Module 4 piggybacks off this by discussing bluffing, hand planning, bet sizing, and isolating. It’s also here that you’ll learn about using a heads-up display (HUD), which, as mentioned above, wasn’t really applicable to me. That said, it was nice to get a sense of what sort of tools are available to online poker players.

In the advanced strategies portion of the course, Module 5 takes a look at the different stages of a tournament, from the early levels and then progressing on through final table and heads-up play. You’ll also learn about bubble play and the Independent Chip Model (ICM). For me, mastery of the information presented here is really what separates serious players from recreational ones.

To give you a personal example, I recently played a $200 buy-in tournament at my local casino. Six players remained but only five would get paid. I had a meager 5bb stack, but, amazingly, two other players had stacks of just 2bb. The blinds were going to hit them before me, so – long story short – I ended up folding Big Slick to a raise. They thought I was crazy, and then I mentioned there were too many ICM implications.

“What’s ICM?” a lady at the table asked.

“It means making it into the money,” another player responded. Neither had a clue, and I wasn’t about to educate them (why should I give away the lessons I pay to learn?!). Anyway, there are few things more important late in a poker tournament than understanding ICM, so if you don’t, find a way to learn. As mentioned, PokerNerve’s MTT Poker Training course can teach you.

Back to Module 6, it’s here that concepts like advanced opening ranges, continuation betting and over betting are examined. This is the dessert after digesting the meal. If you’re good, the lessons here will make you really good.

I thoroughly enjoyed working my way through PokerNerve’s MTT Poker Training course and came away feeling I got my money’s worth. But don’t just take my word for it; take it from the UK’s Jack Sinclair, who was one of 2017’s hottest players.

He’s best known for finishing eighth in the 2017 World Series of Poker Main Event for $1.2 million. A month later he took down the partypoker German Poker Championships €25,000 Super High Roller for $294,735.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today without the Road to Success,” said Sinclair, who saw a 100,000% return on his initial $690 investment for the course. “Two years ago, I was struggling to beat the low stakes. Getting on the Road to Success was the best decision I ever made. It taught me the skills I needed, not just to beat the low stakes, but to go on to crush the mid- and even the highest stakes available.”

PokerNerve MTT Training Bonus Module — 2 Months 50K Challenge

If there is one thing that poker players know how to appreciate, that’s putting your money where your mouth is. That’s exactly what Kelvin does in the bonus module, entitled “2 months 50K.” As you could guess from the title, the module features Beattie as he straps in to do some serious grinding and try to reach the $50,000 profit mark within two months.

The module contains 14 videos in total with recordings of real-time tournament play. You get to see every step of the journey, which makes these videos not just very educational (as Beattie explains his thought process in all important spots), but also quite entertaining.

So, does he get there in the end? No spoilers in this review. You’ll just have to watch it for yourself to see how this challenge ends.

PokerNerve MTT Training: Worth the Price?

There are a lot of training sites out there, but few have the intimate and personalized feel of PokerNerve. Perhaps more importantly, they give you the opportunity to experience it for free with the aforementioned 7-day trial, so there’s really nothing to lose and no excuse for not checking them out if you’re serious about improving your game.

Special for Cardplayer Lifestyle readers! Use promo code CPL to save 25%!