The Upswing Lab stands as the main course on the Upswing menu. The Lab offers hundreds of hours of courses on No-Limit Hold’em, from beginning strategy to advanced, solver-based techniques.

Upswing Poker also offers standalone courses on Pot-Limit Omaha, heads-up poker, mixed games, Short Deck Poker, and multi-table tournaments. The training site truly offers everything a player could need to find success at the poker table.

In this article, we’ll be taking a closer look at the 15 coaches on Upswing’s roster, the standalone courses and course modules they instruct, and the poker skills they’ll help you master.

Doug Polk

Study focus: No-Limit Hold’em, Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em, mental approach and mindset

Upswing Lab Modules: Most of the 29 modules included in the Lab Core Strategy section of the Upswing Lab. Topics include: Ranges, Raise First In (RFI), RFI vs. 3-Bet, Playing vs. a Raise First In, The Value of Position, Micro Stakes Bankroll Building, Lab Member Online Cash Review, and several others.

Standalone courses: Advanced Heads-Up Mastery

One of the co-founders of Upswing Poker, Doug Polk established a reputation as one of the world’s best No-Limit Hold’em players before announcing his retirement from the game in 2019. Polk and fellow Upswing co-founder Ryan Fee launched their poker training site in 2016, and since then Upswing Poker has grown into one of the most comprehensive collections of training materials in the world of poker. The Lab Core Strategy section offers hours of video training courses from Polk himself.

READ MORE: Our review of Upswing Poker’s Advanced Heads-Up Mastery

Ryan Fee

Study Focus: No-Limit Hold’em cash games, database management

Upswing Lab Modules: Ryan Fee and Doug Polk are your guides through the Lab Core Strategy portion of the Upswing Poker Lab. This section contains 29 different modules, designed to build a solid fundamental No-Limit Hold’em strategy from the ground up.

Fee, a cash-game specialist, also appears in several courses from Beyond Core Strategy, the advanced courses from the Upswing Lab. Fee’s modules in the Beyond Core Strategy section include Mastering Database Software, which is a must-watch for online players.

READ MORE: Our review of the Upswing Poker Lab

Fried Meulders

Study Focus: 6-max NLHE online cash games, advanced solver-based poker strategies

Upswing Lab Modules: Graduating to the Beyond Core Strategy section of the Lab introduces you to online cash-game specialist Fried Meulders. Known as “mynameiskarl” on PokerStars, Meulders has a well-forged reputation as one of the best regulars in the PokerStars Zoom 500NL pool.

Those games are some of the world’s toughest, and the training materials produced by Meulders break down the solver-based approach that’s put him in the top echelon of cash game players. Modules include Intro to Solver-Based Strategy, Advanced Pre-flop Strategy, Single Raised Pots Button vs. Big Blind, Single Raised Pots Blind vs. Blind, and four different modules covering 3-Betting strategy.

Upswing Poker could easily offer any of Meulder’s modules as standalone courses, and they’d be well worth the price. An Upswing Lab subscription is all it takes, however, to access eight modules and more than 60 Play & Explains from Meulders.

Nick Petrangelo

Study Focus: Multi-table tournaments

Standalone courses: Winning Poker Tournaments

Watch any high-stakes poker tournament show from the modern era and you’ll see Nick Petrangelo as a ubiquitous presence. Petrangelo’s live tournament earnings stand at $17.5 million as of August 2020, and that’s not counting his equally impressive online tournament resume.

Petrangelo’s standalone course, Winning Poker Tournaments, offers advanced training for players looking to achieve success in the realm of poker tournaments. Petrangelo teaches you how to use solvers and apply the outputs to build a winning tournament strategy.

Winning Poker Tournaments also comes with pre-flop range charts for six different stack sizes and multiple different strategies.

READ MORE: Our review of Upswing Poker’s Winning Poker Tournaments

Mike “Piano Mike” Finstein

Study Focus: Live No-Limit Hold’em Cash Games

Upswing Lab Modules: Mike “Piano Mike” Finstein offers content geared specifically to live poker cash games. The Live Poker section of the Upswing Lab features five modules by Finstein.

Ryan Fee joins Finstein for modules like The Upswing Poker Live Approach, A Deep Dive Into Live Dynamics, and Bayesian Adjustments Live. Members of the Upswing Poker Engage group on Facebook frequently reference Finstein’s modules as some of the most popular in the Upswing Lab.

Alex Millar

Study Focus: 6-max NLHE online cash games, advanced solver-based poker strategies

Standalone courses: Advanced Cash Game Strategy

Alex “Kanu7” Millar shows a profit of more than $4.5 million in tracked high-stakes cash games on PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. Millar’s Advanced Cash Game Strategy course aims to lift your cash game strategy to the next level, using the same techniques Millar used before retiring from the high-stakes scene.

Millar covers topics like GTO vs. Exploitative Strategies, How Hard Should You Exploit?, Theory of Betting, and Frequencies & Sizings in his can’t-miss standalone course.

Image credit: Jayne Furman for PokerNews

Jason McConnon

Study Focus: 6-max NLHE online cash games, advanced solver-based poker strategies

Upswing Lab Modules: Single Raised Pots OOP (out-of-position), Check-Raising From The Big Blind, Probe and vs. Delayed C-Bet On the Turn

One of the online cash game specialists on the Upswing coaching team, Jason McConnon crushes the games at stakes up to $100/$200. McConnon’s modules are based on his extensive experience with solvers, and his detailed insights into his own study habits and thought process are a must for players who want to take their game to the next level.

McConnon specializes in breaking down common but complex spots, including big blind check-raising strategy.

Daniel Merrilees

Study Focus: 6-max NLHE online cash games, advanced solver-based poker strategies

Upswing Lab Modules: Reintroduction to Multi-way Pots, Raising on the River

Daniel “DANMERRRR” Merrilees is yet another online cash-game specialist, and Upswing Lab members get access to the mind of this highly successful mid- and high-stakes player.

Merrilees’ debut module for the Lab, titled Reintroduction to Multi-way Pots, takes a deep look at a button vs. small blind vs. big blind spot, using detailed analysis derived from Monker Solver outputs.

Image credit: Alin Ivanov for PokerNews

Moritz “Mo” Dietrich

Study Focus: Multi-table tournaments

Upswing Lab Modules: MTT Advanced Pre-flop Guide, Betting on the Flop, Probing from the Big Blind, Check-Calling on the River Out of Position, Check-Raising Flops as the Pre-flop Raiser, How ICM Impacts Your Flop Strategy.

Moritz “Mo” Dietrich joined the Upswing Team in 2018, bringing with him a multi-table tournament resume that includes more than $2 million in cashes.

The addition of Dietrich allowed the Upswing Lab to update the Multi-Table Tournaments section with six new modules, with Dietrich breaking down his tournament strategies over hours of content.

Daniel McAulay

Study Focus: Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em, 6-max NLHE online cash games, multi-table tournaments

Upswing Lab Modules: Heads-Up 101

Much like Upswing founder Doug Polk, Daniel “dougiedan678” McAulay represents the rare kind of poker player that seems to be good at every format.

McAulay grinded out a well-earned name as one of the world’s best heads-up players throughout the 2010s. McAulay’s heads-up prowess is so impressive that he was called on to take on artificial intelligence supercomputer Libratus in a 2017 humans vs. AI heads-up poker challenge.

McAulay has recently taken to studying and playing six-max cash games a multi-table tournaments as well.

David Yan

Study Focus: 6-max NLHE online cash games

Upswing Lab Modules: The Art of Simplification

The Upswing Lab’s newest coach debuted with a module titled “The Art of Simplification”. The material in Yan’s first Upswing module focuses on taking complex solver-based concepts and refining them into simplified strategies.

The resulting strategies present a simple yet effective way to approach cash game poker in 2020. Yan is a PokerStars Zoom 500NL winner, and brings that resume to the table for Upswing Lab members.

Dylan Weisman

Study Focus: Pot-Limit Omaha, mental approach, and mindset

Standalone courses: Advanced PLO Mastery

Upswing Poker extensive strategy materials include extensive coverage of games outside of No-Limit Hold’em. Dylan “iheartco0kie” Weisman teaches as one of two Pot-Limit Omaha experts heading up the Advanced PLO Mastery standalone course.

Weisman’s materials include not only in-game strategy, but also a multitude of lessons on healthy mindset and mental approach needed to play poker at the highest level.

READ MORE: Our review of Upswing Poker’s Advanced PLO Mastery

Chris Wehner

Study Focus: Pot-Limit Omaha

Standalone courses: Advanced PLO Mastery

Chris “bluffmast” Wehner joins Dylan Weisman as one of the masterminds behind the Advanced PLO Mastery standalone course. Wehner’s study approach comes from his firm status as a cash-game grinder.

Wehner started on the bottom rung on the stakes ladder, but in his career has climbed from $0.01/$0.02 all the way up to his current stakes of $10/$20 and $20/50.

Jake Abdalla

Study Focus: Mixed Games

Standalone courses: Mixed Games Mastery

Jake ““JLlama” Abdalla presents two things on his official Upswing page that pretty much say it all about his poker acumen. One is a PokerStars graph displaying more than $1.4 million in high-stakes cash game earnings. The other is an account of playing Phil Ivey heads-up, and winning.

Abdalla takes his place among the Upswing coaches as the teacher behind the Mixed Games Mastery standalone course. His course prepares you for success at the highest of stakes in the world of mixed games.

READ MORE: Our review of Upswing Poker’s Mixed Games Mastery

Kane Kalas

Study Focus: Short Deck Hold’em

Standalone courses: Master Short Deck Hold’em

Kane Kalas’ Short Deck course offers the opportunity to learn poker’s newest popular game variant from one of the best.

Kalas’ standalone course breaks down nine-handed, six-max, and heads-up Short Deck strategy, with a focus on the unique ante-based betting structure used in many Short Deck games.

READ MORE: Our review of Upswing Poker’s Master Short Deck Hold’em

That is why when Upswing Poker – one of the most reputable online training sites in the world – announced a class by Petrangelo, it didn’t take much convincing for me to sign up. I’d been looking for a way to take my tournament game to the next level, and his “Winning Poker Tournaments” course seemed like just the right place to do it.

The approximately 27-hour long course is a solver-based high-level look inside one of poker’s elite minds. As a live player, I had reservations that the course might be online-focused, as many training courses are. I was pleased to find this wasn’t the case. Like Petrangelo, who has had success both online (he has shipped both the Sunday Million on PokerStars and the WCOOP $25k High Roller) and live (more than $16 million in tournament earnings including two World Series of Poker bracelets), the course is a hybrid incorporating lessons applicable to both the virtual and brick-and-mortar poker worlds.

While 27 hours of video content is a lot to take in, the course makes it palatable by breaking it into four parts – Intro, Pre-flop, Post-flop, and Play & Explains. While you’re free to explore the videos as you see fit, I encourage you to go through them in order to maximize what you get out of the material.

Upswing Poker’s Winning Poker Tournaments: Solvers

Prior to the course, I’d heard a lot regarding “solvers” in poker. Almost all I knew about them were that they were highly-advanced computer programs that used ranges and mathematics to help players refine their game. I’d never used one and, truth be told, I didn’t know how to go about doing so even if I wanted to.

Given that the Winning Poker Tournaments course is solver-based, it made sense for Petrangelo to start by introducing viewers to the various solvers out there. He touches base on several, but focuses on Pio Solver, which seems to be the preferred program among professional poker players.

Nick Petrangelo on Pio Solver

Petrangelo’s aim is to teach viewers how to learn from and think about poker solvers so they are prepared for later sections, which are heavily focused on solver findings. This was a bit intimidating to me at first as I hadn’t used solvers before, and the way that the information was presented seemed extremely technical and high level. Honestly, there was a lot I didn’t understand, but the more I watched, the more I learned. Eventually, I became comfortable with how solvers work and how to best utilize them.

Upswing Poker’s Winning Poker Tournaments: Pre-flop Play

The Pre-flop Play section was seemingly the simplest to understand yet had the greatest immediate impact on my game. Nick’s Mastersheet – think poker flash cards – breaks down Raising First In (RFI) at six different stack depths, and covers almost every imaginable pre-flop situation with high-level analysis.

Nick Petrangelo’s RFI MasterSheet

Some of the most interesting spots covered in this section, at least for me, were:

• Raising First In (RFI)
• Alternative RFI Strategies for 15bb and 20bb (these include a tough open-limping range)
• Big Blind Defense
• Blind vs Blind
• vs. RFI
• vs. 3-Bet for 30bb+
• Squeezing for 30bb

While I’ve always felt confident about my pre-flop game, this section really polished it by teaching me new tricks and helping me understand “the science” behind pre-flop play.

Upswing Poker’s Winning Poker Tournaments: Post-flop Play

If there was one area of my game I knew needed work it was post-flop play. In this section, Petrangelo takes the very best of what he has learned from a variety of solvers to play as Game Theory Optimal (GTO) as possible in the most widely seen and important post-flop scenarios.

Nick Petrangelo’s C-Bet chart

Among the numerous situations covered are continuation-betting ace-high boards (three parts), dynamic boards, wet boards, monotone boards, and paired boards. It’s a lot, but that’s only for the flop.

He also talks about continuation-betting the turn and playing against a C-bet. Toss in videos devoted to check-raising from the big blind, probing the turn, blind-versus-blind tactics, and both single-raised and three-bet pots, and Petrangelo not only covers all the bases but hits a grand slam in imparting poker knowledge.

The post-flop segment has been updated with a fresh video offering useful tips on how to identify and categorize different board textures. In this lesson, which is about 20 minutes long, Petrangelo explains how to think about different board layouts in terms of figuring out who is likely to have an advantage (the raiser or the defender) and how to go about figuring out correct bet sizes based on the texture, stack sizes, etc.

Nick Petrangelo on identifying & categorizing board textures

Upswing Poker’s Winning Poker Tournaments: Play & Explain

I’m not going to lie – this was my favorite part of the course. It was the dessert after a heavy three-course meal. In this section, which consists of 20 videos, Petrangelo takes a look at hands he’s played in tournaments such as his $25,000 WCOOP victory, $10,000 SCOOP, $5,000 SCOOP, and live hand breakdowns against Brian Rast and Dan Smith.

Nick playing and explaining

This is the part where everything you’ve learned in the previous sections is applied to real-life play, the place where the theories and concepts come alive. It’s also the most laid back portion of the course (Petrangelo likes to sip on his iced coffee a lot), and personally I watched a lot of it on the treadmill at the gym.

Getting a glimpse into the thinking mind of such a poker hero was in itself worth the price of admission. Reading about doing something because a solver says its right is one thing, but for me, being able to see the ideas put into action was much more helpful.

Upswing Poker’s Winning Poker Tournaments: Conclusion

Upswing’s Winning Poker Tournaments is a world-class course. The concepts covered may be too advanced for those who play low buy-in tournaments, and they definitely wouldn’t do you much good in home games and small nightly tournaments at your local poker room. With that said, if you play $1,000+ buy-in events and are looking to compete at the highest levels, this is the course for you.

I highly recommend Winning Poker Tournaments to anyone looking to learn more about solvers or improve their tournament play live or online.