At CrushLivePoker, Bart Hanson and company are focused on bringing you the tools to do just that. In their full-length Crushing Live NL Hold’em (2023 and Beyond) course, green and experienced players both are provided the fundamentals of attacking the felt exploitatively and with a foundation of game theory optimal fundamentals. Let’s dive into what this expansive course has to offer.

Crushing Live NL Hold’Em Overview

Make no mistake, this course will keep you busy. Clocking in at over 50 hours of content, this course is split into six modules with nearly 80 lessons in all. Modules available include Basic Concepts, Definitive Guide to Small Stakes Exploits, Winning at the Low Stakes, Continuation Betting, Winning at the High and Upper Mid Stakes, and Intermediate Concepts. While the range of materials targets a wide range of live players, the entire course has merit no matter your experience level. Whether you are a grizzled veteran or not, each module offers over 6.5 hours of content to explore.

No matter the module, this course is built around getting value and making exploits. There are areas that focus on the game theory optimal (GTO) fundamentals, but Crush Live Poker’s NLH course is uniquely focused on using that base of knowledge to identify your opponent’s playing style and extract the most value possible.

The course is split between video and audio presentations. There is a slight lean toward audio, and those lessons typically come equipped with PDFs that summarize the discussion from lesson to lesson. These PDFs are more of a reference than intended for taking in the information initially. I would recommend consuming the content as intended first throughout. As a primarily visual learner, I found the audio lessons to still be helpful and consumable. Anyone familiar with CrushLivePoker’s YouTube content will feel right at home as a listener here.

If you are a live poker player, or are looking to start, I can make it simple upfront: you are going to like this course. Online players will find live exploits that are far different than their typical expectations online. CLP’s course does a great job of bridging that gap and explaining when and why the deviations from GTO play are necessary. There is no doubt that the course provides plenty of value in making the transition to the live realm.

Best of all, Cardplayer Lifestyle can offer you an exclusive discount on purchasing the course, as you’ll get 20% off the price (i.e., a savings of up to $10 off/month or $100 off/year) by registering through any of the links in this review article.

Let’s dive into the individual sections for a deeper look at what is being offered.

Basic Concepts (13 Lessons, 9 hours)

This course wastes no time throwing users right into the action, beginning with basic concepts for beating live poker. Clocking in at just over 9 hours, you can watch this section and feel familiar with old wisdom and adages in the live poker environment.

The Basic Concepts section does focus on common truths, you will need prior experience playing poker in order to absorb the information. Bart and the Crush Live Poker team start with situations that any player will recognize. But the lessons are told through the lens of hand histories and veteran poker lingo that will require some level of  experience to understand.

Instead of teaching you how to play poker, this section focuses on teaching you to play good exploitative poker. Sections on equity, preflop theory, and common leaks in live poker aim to open an experienced player’s eyes to ways the best players are evaluating their opponents and taking advantage of them. This culminates in the Epic Guide to Preflop, a four part audio lesson series that ties everything together through the last three hours or so of this section.

Audio lessons are available in the CrushLivePoker dashboard, accompanied by Lesson Overview documents for review.

Preflop play is so essential in any form of poker, and I love that this course emphasizes its importance. The lessons work to teach solid fundamentals like playing tight and aggressive against early position opens, linear 3-betting against players that never fold, etc. while also finding opportunities to exploit them. Given that preflop is the most solved, scientific street of poker, Bart and company have done an excellent job of breaking down the textbook fundamentals and teaching players to recognize when it is time to color outside the lines.

Lessons include:

• Why So Much (Old School Still True) (22:44 Audio)
• Betting Volume; Why So Much Revisited (41:58 Video)
• Revisited New School Preflop Thoughts (53:17 Audio)
• Common Leaks in Live Poker (50:03 Video)
• 5th Street Chicken Revisited (51:38 Audio)
• Depolarization Revisited (44:38 Audio)
• Why Suited Hands Are Better (35:24 Audio)
• Equity Math (45:56 Audio)
• A Simple Way to Look at the Math of Draws and Implied Odds (34:45 Audio)
• Epic Guide to Preflop Part 1 (48:43 Audio)
• Epic Guide to Preflop Part 2 (38:03 Audio)
• Epic Guide to Preflop Part 3 (36:04 Audio)
• Epic Guide to Preflop Part 4 (38:16 Audio)

Definitive Guide to Small Stakes Exploits (10 Lessons, 6.5 hours)

For many users, I imagine this section of the course will be your bread and butter. Have you ever played low-stakes live cash in a casino, looked around the table and asked, “How am I not up piles right now?” Then this is the section for you. Crush Live Poker’s Guide to Small Stakes Exploits is a crash course in taking the most recognizable low-stakes characters to Value Town.

This is your guide to getting paid by the player that can’t fold the top pair, that is ready to go home, etc. Making bets that are meant to look bluffy, catering to the type of player that just has to see. It’s the foundation that Bart Hanson’s live call-in show is built on, and he proves his expertise all throughout this section.

Some of my favorite exploits include double barrelling vs. weak calling ranges, overfolding later streets to raises, and isolating players for heads up pots. I won’t share all of the exploits here, but this is an area where I feel the course excels. My one nitpick is that I do wish that this section had video elements. Physical live tells come up often at low stakes, and I think it would be beneficial to point out key visual elements during these hands as well.

Lessons include:

• Intro to Small Stakes Exploits Guide (28:44 Audio)
• Exploits 1-3 (39:58 Audio)
• Exploits 4-6 (45:05 Audio)
• Exploits 7-9 (47:20 Audio)
• Exploits 10-12 (44:49 Audio)
• Exploit 13 (56:08 Audio)
• Exploit 14 (21:23 Audio)
• Exploits 15-16 (40:52 Audio)
• Exploits 17-19 (31:13 Audio)
• Exploits 20-22 (43:20 Audio)

WINNING at the Low Stakes (11 Lessons, 11.75 hours)

It’s like the Crush Live Poker team could read my mind. In this section, the course takes a full turn into video analysis.

With nearly 12 hours of video content, the course is dead set on showing you exactly what they meant with their previous exploits section. It’s nice to take a turn to real live stakes action that we can watch and see play out for ourselves. While I would have loved to see more video content spliced into the previous section, it makes sense to have these situations learned through audio first. Learning to recognize the broad situations and mechanics, before you read a specific player, is almost a solver-like approach to learning to exploit in poker.

This section does a wonderful job of demonstrating common low stakes player mindsets. In this example, Bart Hanson examines the dynamics at play when your opponent is check-raising your river bet with far from the nuts

This section’s focus on a play and explain video style will be a welcome sight to many users that need a break from concepts and textbook learning. Watching Bart and others play at low stakes will provide a relatable element that can draw anyone in whose poker mind may have begun to wander. Covering many common spots like loose tables, bet sizing, and 3-bet pots, these situations will be familiar to any avid player watching.

Lessons include:

• Back to Basics in a Small Stakes Cash Game (1:04:53 Video)
• Bart Plays a Loose Live Game Part 1 (1:10:36 Video)
• Bart Plays a Loose Live Game Part 2 (1:04:05 Video)
• Bet Sizing Errors at Low Stakes (1:00:08 Video)
• Run Don’t Walk to Jacksonville (1:09:18 Video)
• Low Stakes Bet Sizing Shotgun (57:01 Video)
• Post Flop Play in 3 Bet Pots (Low Stakes) (56:29 Video)
• Post Flop Play in 3 Bet Pots (Low Stakes) Part 2 (58:24 Video)
• Jacksonville Small Stakes Series Part 1 (1:03:52 Video)
• Jacksonville Small Stakes Series Part 2 (1:08:23 Video)
• Jacksonville Small Stakes Series Part 3 (1:13:55 Video)

Continuation Betting (9 Lessons, 7.5 hours)

Now halfway through the course, things begin to take a turn toward the more advanced concepts. As stated earlier, the preflop street is a bit more scientific. It’s a street that is intricate but able to be mastered given the time and practice. Combine those skills with exploitative adjustments and you can become quite a menace before the flop. But continuation betting adds layers of complexity that the Crush Live Poker team unravels across this 7.5 hour section.

This section is built on a situational foundation that all NL players can recognize: going multiway to the flop as the initial raiser and missing. One of the common things any solid player learns early on is that attacking postflop, even without connecting, is key to earning chips. It’s too hard to make a hand, so you cannot depend on running pure. But here, Hanson lays out what he refers to as his Cbet Bluff Matrix of guiding principles to decide if a c-bet is well-timed. These seven considerations range from the number of players in the pot, their skill level, board textures and more, all of which is broken down in detail across two audio episodes. This is followed up by a video of examples from Hustler Casino Live that shows the thinking in action.

Hanson weighs his options out of position as the preflop raiser with two disconnected overcards, offering his thinking and commentary for course users.]

The later lessons in this section are audio heavy but extremely detailed, covering a variety of flops and situations. I would highly recommend following along with the lesson guides to visualize the situation easily. With that in mind, this section is among the best content in the course. Preflop is the foundation of any good poker play, but building your ability as a postflop player will take you far ahead of your competition in most poker rooms. This course’s dedication to the importance of c-betting is a highlight that should not be missed.

This section gets a bit more advanced. I feel like finding preflop 3bets for value and as bluffs, and c-betting certain flops lay the groundwork for good experienced players. Finding your barrels is a skill that separates good players from great players. Here, the course dives deep on this concept from a variety of angles. This is one of the most impressive sections of the course to this point and I would highly recommend it for any players that feel uncomfortable bluffing on later streets.

Lessons include:

• Cbet Bluff Matrix (50:07 Audio)
• Cbet Bluffing Matrix Revisited (54:59 Audio)
• Bart’s Cbet Cusps Hands (1:02:05 Video)
• Cbetting Ultra Multiway (44:50 Audio)
• Cbetting 3 Bet Pots (27:08 Audio)
• Cbet Structuring in Single Raised Pots Part 1 (39:48 Audio)
• Cbet Structuring in Single Raised Pots Part 2 (51:01 Audio)
• Cbet Structuring in Single Raised Pots Part 3 (1:07:36 Audio)
• Cbetting the Unclear Hands and Finding Your Bluffs (58:34 Video)

WINNING at the High and Upper Stakes (9 Lessons, 8.25 hours)

Now is the time to start reaching for every player’s dreams: playing at the high stakes and raking in massive pots against stiff competition. While the highs may be alluring, it is a different playing field than low stakes players will be used to. This section prepares those that have mastered the low stakes fundamentals for the challenges ahead.

Here is where the course really starts to come full circle. In a poker landscape still caught up in debate over GTO vs Feel Play, CrushLivePoker recognizes that the answer is always situational. Having a solver baseline to default to is key. The best players in the world live and breathe this approach. But even intermediate players at your local cardroom will understand the basics. Having a strong counter to these opponents is essential. What the team does so well here is recognize that you will not be playing that player type consistently. Using solver based play to your advantage and exploiting it is a great way to get ahead of your toughest opponents while still crushing the fish at your tables.

Marc Goone offers solver analysis during his play-by-play recap of a 4-bet pot on Hustler Casino Live.]

With a variety of dense topics like 4-bet pots, changing playing style based on opponents, and firing that huge bluff, the course leans back into video lessons for this entire section. It’s a wise choice, as most users will begin watching as beginner to intermediate players. In earlier sections, audio lessons work because the subject matter is familiar enough to come across clearly in conversation. But here, the team understands that they are training players to go to war in battles they aren’t used to fighting. Getting detailed breakdowns of these situations with play-by-play video analysis is a much appreciated creative direction from this part of the course.

No matter your skill level, I believe any player has a lot to gain from this leg of the course.

Lessons include:

• Why GTO Wins Big Even in Soft Lineups (48:57 Video)
• How to Max Exploit Using a Solver (40:52 Video)
• How to Play 4bet Pots: A Primer (47:42 Video)
• Playing Disrespectfully vs a Fish (43:32 Video)
• Pulling the Trigger on Huge Bluffs (59:19 Video)
• Playing as Mariano on HCL (50:05 Video)
• Ki Shotgun 25-50 NL (1:09:49 Video)
• To GTO or Not GTO (49:59 Video)
• Bart’s 10-20-40 NL Leak Finder (1:27:37 Video)

Intermediate Concepts (8 Lessons, 7 hours)

It’s funny to talk about nearly seven hours of content as the quick outro, but in the final content section, we start to see CrushLivePoker tie up some loose ends.

The Intermediate Concepts section is a mixed bag of tools that need to be in competitive player’s arsenals. That is the closest connecting thread between these concepts, as each lesson examines a distinct area of play from the others. Here you will learn about challenging concepts like overbetting, recognizing scare cards, and compile a full checklist for recognizing opponent types.

Instructor Rob Farha examines key components to a hand that influence his decision to overbet a significant pot

Each lesson is thorough, typically closer to an hour in length. As we near the end of this course, it is hard not to see this as the taste of what is still to come for those hoping to advance their game further. Intermediate Concepts feels like a great sampler platter of poker lessons meant to tease out what may be available in a future advanced level course. These are great introductions to tougher concepts, and I would be interested to see how they expand on these areas should they choose to in the future.

Lessons include:

• Big Blind vs PFR Single Raised Pot (57:11 Video)
• Hand Composition (59:53 Video)
• A Look at Overbetting (56:59 Video)
• What is a Scare Card? (40:54 Audio)
• Pot Odds in Practice (1:08:24 Video)
• Noticing Opponents: A Checklist (16:10 Audio)
• Power of Next to Act (57:33 Video)
• On Continuing (56:15 Video)

Conclusion

Over 50 hours of content later, was it all worth it?

Poker is a complex game, but it does not require players to practice or study. People can freely play at their own risk, gamble it up and win or lose. Ultimately, it is the players who put a lot of time and work into their play that win consistently.

If you are a player that prefers live poker, you likely are familiar with a lot of things discussed here. The typical cast of player types. Bet sizings that should sound alarms. Multiway action on many flops. But if you want to take this game seriously, whether as a hobby or profession, this is a great place to begin to hone your skills. Plus, by clicking through our exclusive discount links anywhere in this article, 20% off will automatically be applied at checkout for a savings of up to $10 off/month or $100 off/year.

As someone that admires the highest level of poker play and has aimed to study like those pros in the past, I really appreciate this course’s focus on getting value at a variety of attainable stakes for the common player. We can all learn a lot trying to play like the best. But your time is almost certainly put to better use learning how to exploit the everyman. Crushing Live No Limit Hold’Em has made this idea its namesake, and this course lives up to the task.

Completing this course felt like a journey from interested hobbyist to fully capable opponent. The content is delivered in a way that players with any level of experience can relate to and learn from quickly. As long as you are looking to play in casinos, or in person with your friends, I think this course is a perfect place for you to start your journey learning the ins and outs of live poker.

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.

His brand of educational poker content takes complex ideas in poker and breaks them down into something actionable and sensible. Sweeney really takes into consideration the budget that most low-stakes players may have by making most of his content free or very affordable. It’s clear where you should start when using his materials and his latest poker workbook does not disappoint.

The Advanced Poker Workbook is intended for more seasoned poker players. The exercises inside of its pages are meant to help with improving on already studied concepts by fine-tuning your skills and building on them. However, the way this workbook is laid out and the tools provided to help you with the calculations, almost any player at any level can work through the book and still learn some important concepts in poker. If you are a beginner, I would not suggest you start here, but rather look to take his free poker math course and then purchase his Math & Preflop workbook and Postflop Poker Workbook. (our reviews of which you can read here and here, respectively).

Warming Up

The first few chapters of Sweeney’s Advanced Poker Workbook focus on warming up with what should be some simple mental exercises. These are concepts that as a poker player we should be familiar with and thinking about in a hand. A player should always think about all available actions in a hand. This question is brought to us by asking us to focus on the river to determine which option has the highest EV.

Pot geometry is the next lesson, something that I personally think is often overlooked. We are asked to determine how much our bets will be and how much should be in the pot. Doing this forces the player to pay attention to effective stacks, pot odds, and the size of the bets made. This is followed by a chapter full of expected value calculations. These exercises force you to slow down and think about these seemingly common spots where you might discover something you didn’t realize before.

Topics covered in chapters 1-4:

• How to study
• Expected Value (EV)
• Pot Geometry

Building Blocks

The next set of chapters continues to build on the warmups by looking at specific formations and betting. These chapters will get you to think critically about your ranges. As a player you will be forced to question if you are defending or betting enough. If you find yourself in these spots often, then this is a good time to reflect on your strategy and see what you can do to change them based on the advice received from this workbook. Knowing when to raise is an important skill to have for your pre-flop strategy. Understanding the frequency at which your raises will be called and the type of combinations you will be playing against is critical to fine-tuning your strategy. By the time you complete this section of the Advanced Poker Workbook you will have a better understanding of how your range functions; you should understand why you are raising and when you can raise.

Topics covered in chapters 5-8:

• Preflop
• Stealing
• 3-betting
• 4-betting
• All-in

Staying Aware

This next section of the Advanced Poker Workbook focuses on awareness. While it may seem that this is something that has been worked on in the previous chapters, one thing that has not been focused on yet is your opponent. Here we start to look at a couple of concepts in poker that make us aware of what is happening in the hand. Board runouts are important because when we are aware of what cards help us then we can adjust when that card doesn’t come out. In addition to understanding card runouts, our strategy is also affected by Stack to Pot Ratio or SPR. Knowing how much money is left behind and who the effective stack is can assist you in deciding how to proceed with the hand.

Topics covered in chapters 9-10:

• Board Runouts
• Stack to Pot Ratio (SPR)

Analysis — How to

I think this is the point where the Advanced Poker Workbook really starts to get into more advanced play. You start by getting into hand analysis for the flop, turn, and river. Each chapter breaks down a given range for your opponent and guides you on how you can dissect what sort of hands they can have and what parts of their range interact with this board. This kind of analysis also allows you to identify possible bluffs that your opponent will have but is mostly focused on the value parts of their range. On each street you are asked to consider how your opponent’s range interacts with the board in certain formations. Each scenario is unique to the problem given and challenges you to think through the hand.

Floating and Auto-Profit go hand in hand. These concepts go over how you can determine when it might be profitable to continue when you don’t have a made hand. This is also a perfect example of how Sweeney builds on what has been covered in previous chapters in the workbook. Understanding how often certain types of cards can come on the turn is a big factor in deciding whether you want to float. Knowing that your opponent will not continue with certain types of hands is how you can auto-profit. Working through these exercises will train your brain to recognize these spots when they appear. You can confidently make the decision to play a hand that may appear to be sub-optimal but in reality, the hand has huge implied odds giving you the chance to win a big pot.

Topics covered in chapters 11-15:

• Hand Analysis
• Hand Reading
• Floating
• Auto-Profit

Advanced Poker Workbook — Highly Recommended Reading

Towards the end of his Advanced Poker Workbook, Sweeney offers some final advice on how you can continue to improve. We see how everything that was covered in the workbook ties together and how it can be applied to your everyday study regiment. There are discount codes included for downloadable products that will continue to assist you in your poker journey.

Overall, the book itself is great value but with all the discounts given, it practically pays for itself. Once you start to crush on the felt this book will pay for itself many times over. The important thing is that you just don’t go through this workbook once. Take the time to do it multiple times and think of different scenarios. The more often you do something the easier it becomes when you need it.

Working on Your CORE

We’ve already broken down the recently updated Core 2.0 A-Z poker course and to get to the heart of the matter, we spoke to James “Splitsuit” Sweeney, the man behind its creation. The CORE course on Red Chip Poker has an incredible 200 poker training lessons, each of which is tailored to players’ needs.

“The original goal with CORE was to deliver on a request we’d gotten for years: a clear syllabus for learning poker,” says James. The team spent weeks crafting a syllabus and meticulously creating a linear structure for teaching poker knowledge. We essentially threw every concept we could think of at a board, ranked them by difficulty and importance, and got to work building out each lesson.”

The result is that players who benefit the most from CORE are new to intermediate players, because the material is designed to both build and backfill poker strategy.

“Advanced players will get the most from PRO – which does include full access to CORE – but if a player is newer to the game or looking to fix leaks, we highly suggest CORE.”

PRO is definitely the product of choice if you are serious about upgrading your poker game, and to that point you can read our Top 10 Reasons Why Red Chip Poker PRO Membership is worth it.

Helping Poker Players Interact with Learning

The CORE Course is highly interactive and encourages players to put the lessons they learn into immediate practice. Making the course hands-on was an inspiration throughout the design process.

“This was something we were adamant on adding to CORE from the beginning,” James tells us. “One of the most complex aspects of poker is that playing one or two sessions doesn’t offer a great feedback mechanism for specific spots/knowledge. Quizzes acted as a great way to offer players a chance to prove their knowledge of a concept without risking money.”

Red Chip Poker can call on some big hitters to back up their training, with Ed Miller and WSOP bracelet winner Chris ‘Fox’ Wallace both guiding players through lessons in both cash and MTTs. Does James think players will end up choosing one or the other or does the course help players balance both?

“Given that CORE is meant more for new to intermediate players, we tend to suggest they focus on one: either cash games or tournaments. Both formats are quite different, and trying to learn both at the same time isn’t a great idea. That said, quite a few skills and concepts will transfer between the two formats flawlessly, especially the underlying math.”

Overall, it’s best to pick one format and really dive deep on that, instead of bouncing back and forth between the two, James explains, having himself always adored cash games.

“I prefer the additional stack depth that cash games offer as I think the dynamics are far more interesting,” he says. “I also love the flexibility that cash games offer. With a tournament, you might play 20 minutes before busting, or multiple days if you run deep. My schedule between work and family just doesn’t allow for that, so cash games just check all of my boxes.”

Visualizing Improvement

The Red Chip Poker CORE training package isn’t just great value with so much included for the price, but the user interface is really clean. With 95% of poker players being male. We wondered whether Red Chip Poker catered for the adage that men prefer visual stimuli when putting CORE together.

“That’s interesting, as I’ve never thought about the visual component from a male vs. female point of view,” James admits. I just think clear and clean graphics are important for helping someone be able to follow content more easily. We spent a lot of time working on the art style and UI/UX and we are still making tweaks to flatten as many barriers to access for students.”

Hand analysis is easy to do once anyone actually starts, but many players leave this until last. The CORE course specifically helps those who struggle to dive into this area of self-improvement.

“Most players struggle with hand analysis for a variety of reasons. Just a few of them are:

• They don’t have the prerequisite knowledge to analyze a specific spot yet.
• They didn’t write their original hand down very well. (GIGO)
• They don’t have a community to bounce with and get lost in their own head.

With CORE, we put the HH deep dives later in the structure to ensure the student had enough prerequisite knowledge to analyze a hand well. And the HH lessons also have links to related concepts for additional study or review.”

CORE also caters to anyone who wants to improve how they write down the poker lessons they learn, how they save them for later analysis, and this is especially important for any player not having tracking software to do this work for them. They also have a very busy group where students can interact with each other.

“Our Discord is quite active with over 4,000 members and players analyzing hands regularly. So even if you get stuck while reviewing a hand, or just want a wider range of opinions on a spot, the Discord group is the perfect place to do that.”

Looking to the Future of Poker

Adapting to each new poker era, such as GTO play, is vital to any poker training business. Push/fold and range charts are nothing new, but with the recent changes to poker, has this meant a full overview change or just weeks to this side of the CORE content of the course?

“Over the last few years, we’ve spent a lot of effort making updates to CORE, especially as it relates to both ranges and also GTO content.” Describes James. “For instance, we added a totally new level to the beginning of CORE to help players develop solid preflop ranges. And we’ve also created our GTO Ranges App as a by-product of this work.”

READ MORE: Red Chip Poker GTO Ranges App Review

Red Chip Poker are currently conducting their own annual review, which will allow them to revamp, update, and upgrade content focused on GTO findings. CORE was built from the beginning in such a way that they could continuously update the material to ensure it doesn’t become outdated. It’s a plan that is helping so many players improve, which James tells us is still the biggest plus of all.

“I’m most proud of the team for launching CORE as it was a huge undertaking, in both time and money. But I’m also quite proud of the students that we consistently hear from that have directly leveraged things they learned in CORE into actual success at the tables. Hearing that players who have struggled for so long have quickly turned the corner and are now more confident in their good decision making – that always puts a smile on my face!”

You can purchase CORE now, or if you’ve completed the CORE Course via Red Chip Poker, then maybe it’s time to go PRO.

The Galfond Challenge So Far

The Galfond Challenge has, of course, been the greatest advocate of Galfond’s skill in the four-card game. Some of the world’s best players have taken on Galfond, only for luminaries such as Chance Kornuth, VeniVidi1993, Bill Perkins, ActionFreak and Brandon Adams to come up short. Galfond’s current opponent is Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates.

“I love any action I can get,” said Galfond “and Jungleman is as fun of an opponent as I can hope for. The perfect combination of toughness and excitement.”

That’s for sure. Cates is not only known for his off-the-felt antics but also his propensity to crush in mixed games, including PLO. He is the back-to-back winner of the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, after all.

It’s time to see if the falcon can survive the jungle

My #GalfondChallenge vs. @junglemandan finally begins!

We’ll play this Thurs-Sat from (roughly) 8am-Noon PT.

You’ll be able to catch me streaming on: https://t.co/95rCI2yhQt

Sub so you get alerted when we go live! pic.twitter.com/lUGQN6RvSj

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) January 30, 2023

Welp, I started out down $115,000 to @junglemandan today, feeling good about my play the whole time! (Sorry, @Farah_Galfond )

Managed to turn it around to finish down “only” $35,000.

Totals:
-$77,500
~2,250 hands

~5,250 hands left to play in this #GalfondChallenge.

— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) February 4, 2023

Play PLO Within Your Means

Galfond’s knowledge of PLO is so vast, and he’s been playing the game so long. A lot of the mistakes players make can be eradicated by Galfond’s course but the variance is bigger in PLO, so a huge part of how someone moves from profitable to professional is how they can cope with those swings.

“I think it’s extremely important to play within your means,” Galfond says. “People try to do this, but I think they often fail to realize just how small they need to be playing to maximize their EV while minimizing their risk of ruin.”

Part of the This is PLO course teaches players to think like a solver rather than act on the basis of solver answers. But what does that mean in real terms for an intermediate player who is looking to become a crusher in Pot Limit Omaha? Humans aren’t computers.

“It’s impossible to memorize solver strategies. The only way to truly succeed in learning from solvers is to figure out how to transpose the solver outputs into human logic that they can digest and then draw on in any situation they find themselves in at the table.”

READ MORE: Bracelet Winner Nathan Gamble Reviews Galfond’s This is PLO

Heads-Up and Multi-Way Pots

Heads-up PLO hands vary hugely from multi-way, of course. Some of the easiest lessons to learn about the changes to make between hands boil down to a simple formula that Galfond is happy to crystallise. He goes into it in a lot more detail in his Run It Once Training course.

“In short, multiway pots create more incentives for small betting, including to clear up equity for pretty good hands.” He says. “In heads up pots, it’s more about getting the amount of money into the pot that your hand wants.”

Making a consistent profit in PLO is tough and this course really gets to the heart of this exciting variant of the game of poker – the ‘four card’ game so named because you receive four hole cards rather than two. What makes it so fascinating for Galfond is how a poker variant develops.

An Event Horizon for PLO

Galfond can see that PLO is approaching a kind of event horizon, a place where it cannot be improved further. So, what’s next for PLO?

“I think we’re already close to our final point of understanding in PLO, much like we are with cash game No Limit Hold’em,” says Galfond. “Solvers can tell us so much already, but the most successful people will be the ones who can extrapolate from what the solvers are telling us.”

Remembering His WSOP Bracelet Victory

Galfond has enjoyed a stellar career at the felt, winning three WSOP bracelets to date, two of them in Pot Limit Omaha. The first time he won a WSOP bracelet was in 2008, when he took down the $5,000 PLO event for over $817,000 – still Galfond’s biggest tournament cash. It’s not surprise that this is still his fondest memory playing the game live.

“It has to be the 2008 WSOP $5k PLO rebuy bracelet event that I won,” he agrees. “The table was star-studded, and it was my first big live poker score. And obviously, the bracelet meant a lot to me.”

Galfond is dead right when he says the final table was packed with stars. Players who made the final nine include Brian Rast, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, Johnny Chan and David Benyamine. It’s a huge honor to have put the hard work he’s put into PLO over the years into practice, and is closing in on $3 million at the live felt, let alone the millions he’s won online playing PLO.

This summer, Galfond will be heading back to Las Vegas in effort to put the nuggets of gold he teaches via his This is PLO course back into practice at the felt at the World Series of Poker.

“I’m not sure what this summer has in store for me yet, but I think I’ll likely play quite a bit!”

We can’t wait to see Phil Galfond back at the felt, online battling in the Galfond Challenge, and at the WSOP competing for gold again.

Enter the Advanced Tournament Course, the latest massive multi-lesson endeavor from Jonathan Little and his outstanding team of coaches. With over 35 hours of content, it would appear to be a huge stand-alone course, and while it sort of is, it’s almost more like a huge expansion pack to your favorite video game, with exciting new weapons and items to crush your opponents.

What’s New in This Poker Course – The BFGs in the ATC

The Advanced Tournament Course takes the lessons taught in the Tournament MasterClass and expands on them in a huge way (I mean it is 35+ hours long). One of the most notable additions is the expansion of bet sizing strategies. Whereas the Tournament MasterClass primarily dealt with situations for “small” or “large” bet sizes, (mostly 1/3 or 2/3 pot-sized bets), the Advanced Tournament Course moves from the preset buttons to the slider with lessons on how and when to implement tiny bet sizes (ranging from 1 BB to 25% pot) and various overbet sizings on each street. Each section comes with multiple examples and comparisons using a variety of board textures.

The elements to consider within a hand are refreshed and expanded throughout the course. While range advantage and connectivity, nut advantage, position, stack size, and such are obviously discussed, it felt to me like there was an added emphasis on board dynamics when it comes to bet sizing and frequency. All of these factors are obviously important on any given hand and are discussed in each bet sizing concept lesson in the course.

Lessons are primarily taught with the onus on 40 BB strategy, which obviously has some wiggle room around that stack size, but there is a section specifically on 75+ BB play and the impact on frequency and sizing of bets (primarily based on the importance of nut advantage and SPR size). Short stack play isn’t really revisited from the Tournament Masterclass as the lessons there still hold up.

Plenty of new tools are also included in the course, including updated preflop GTO charts, new ICM and heads-up charts, a ton of post-flop GTO betting frequency charts, and for users of PIOsolver, a ton of presets to load into the program.

The PokerCoaching.com staple of a short quiz at the completion of each lesson to test yourself on what you’ve just learned returns, along with a 40-question final exam at the end to test everything you’ve learned collectively.

Advanced Tournament Course Content

Before we get into a few specifics of some of the lessons, here’s a quick breakdown of all the content you’ll find in the Advanced Tournament Course.

Advanced Bet Sizing Concepts (with Jonathan Little)

• 8 sections, with most videos 5-20 min long, a couple longer (3:13 total)
• When to bet small, large, adjusting raise size vs. a bet, playing turn, playing river

Deep stacked adjustments (with Jonathan Little)

• 4 sections (:43 min total)
• Postflop adjustments, positional effects, the value of being able to make (or block) the nuts

Multiway Postflop Play (with Jonathan Little)

• 7 sections (1:31 total)
• Advanced concepts, C-betting, large betting spots, strategies when facing aggression, as the in-position preflop caller, when to lead multiway

Advanced Exploits and Adjustments (with Jonathan Little)

• 8 sections (2:05 total)
• How to exploit opponents that C-Bet too much in single-raised pots, that C-bet too much in 3-bet pots, that ‘cap’ their bet size on the turn, that ‘cap’ their bet size on the river, adjusting against tight players preflop and postflop

Advanced ICM and Final Table Strategies (with Brock Wilson & Justin Saliba, Ethan “RampagePoker” Yau)

• 3 sections (1 instructional – 1:57, 1 Final Table Review – 3:58, 1 Live Stream – 4:00)
• Instructional section ‘Mastering Preflop ICM’ includes understanding preflop ICM variables, Raise first in (RFI) strategies, vs RFI strategies, vs 3-bet strategies, blind vs blind strategies
• Final table reviews of Rampage’s PokerGO win for $200k, Saliba’s WSOP online bracelet win + Saliba reviewing hands using solver software
• Live stream is Saliba’s bracelet win in full

Mastering Heads-Up Preflop Charts (with Jonathan Little)

• 2 sections (2:15 total)
• Online strategies (with 12.5% ante) for 10-75 BB, Live strategies (with big blind ante) 10-75 BB

Heads-up MTT strategy (with Jonathan Jaffe & Justin Saliba)

• 4 sections (14:42 total)
• Jaffe and Saliba play 1- and 2-table HU sessions and review each (both online ante, live ante)
• Saliba 30-min breakdown using software
• Live stream of the sessions

How to Optimally Use Poker Tools (with Matt Affleck)

• 4 sections (2:34 total)
• ICMizer, PokerTracker 4, Simple 3-Way, PIOsolver

A Few Specifics of the Advanced Tournament Course

Little and his team worked on the Advanced Tournament Course for about a year, and the effort is evident, but as is the case with almost all of Little’s teachings, it is very digestible. Most videos clock in at around 10-20 minutes, which presents players the ability to study a precise subsection of a topic, or just plow right through the 90 min+ section on multiway play should they choose. That said, I would strongly recommend focusing on the smaller chunks and really learning the concepts as opposed to just zipping through video after video.

Of note, while the majority of the lessons as I mentioned are of the shorter — but tightly packed with information — variety, the “Advanced ICM and Final Table Strategies” is where we first see sections consisting of significantly longer videos containing analysis of the play by the teachers of those sections. Get ready; the solver talk will be out in full force, but don’t let it scare you off. Hearing the players/teachers discuss their thought processes in the moment, then explaining what the correct decisions are with the solver and chart backup is really effective. In particular, fans of Ethan “Rampage Poker” Yau will really enjoy the breakdown of his Poker Masters win against Brock Wilson.

The “Heads-Up MTT Strategy” section is by far the largest of PokerCoaching.com’s Advanced Tournament Course with multiple hour-long videos of Jonathan Jaffe and Justin Saliba breaking down heads-up matches they played against each other online with 12.5% antes and a simulated ‘live’ session with a big blind ante to show the difference in strategies.

For those who want to study heads-up and learn from two of the best, this is an outstanding series of lessons discussing many, many spots they encountered in their matches with each other. Their interaction with each other as they discuss their matches is fun, too. With two players who weren’t as personable and comfortable with each other, this section could have become a slog, but that isn’t the case at all. To be fair, as lengthy and deep as this section is, it’s the one I was able to spend the least time on relative to the rest of the course. While heads-up play isn’t my primary area of desired study, the way Jaffe and Saliba go through their matches made it both entertaining and educational. I fully intend on revisiting this section and working more on my heads-up game.

A pair of sections I found very helpful were those on “Multiway Postflop Play” and “Advanced Exploits and Adjustments”. As a player who primarily plays in smaller to mid-stakes buy-in tournaments, diving deeper into spots with multiple opponents was a critical part to this course. The two sections go hand in hand, as one of the key topics of the multiway section is how much more checking is necessary because of the lack of nut and range advantage you have the more players are in the pot. This comes up in the exploits section when discussing how to take advantage of those players who just endlessly continuation-bet without taking those factors into consideration.

In another very cool and useful section for students to add supplemental learning, Matt Affleck provides some great tutorials and suggestions for PokerTracker 4, ICMizer, PIOSolver, and Simple 3-Way, all of which are key programs when some study outside of PokerCoaching.com is desired.

Conclusion

One of my favorite gigs with Cardplayer Lifestyle, besides being sent to South Florida to party and hang out on a beach (er, sorry, cover a poker tournament in South Florida), is writing PokerCoaching reviews because basically I get paid to study! I spend a huge amount of time immersing myself in the content and working on improving my game while also sharing what makes the course so worthwhile for anyone looking to improve their game.

As Little suggests, if you’re new to PokerCoaching.com or thinking of signing up for the site, the Advanced Tournament Course may not be the first module you want to tackle. It does hold up well on its own for experienced players, but with an added foundation built from the Tournament MasterClass you’ll appreciate and be able to apply even more of the lessons taught in the Advanced Tournament Course.

That said, for those with a solid foundation or PokerCoaching members who have made their way through the Tournament MasterClass, I can highly recommend the Advanced Tournament Course. Along with the 20+ hours of MTT content, the nearly 15 hours of heads-up training is outstanding. It truly is a complete course to take your tournament game to the next level.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to terrorize some opponents with 4x pot-sized river bets.

Pokercode Charity Event to Stream Live on Twitch

Pokercode’s exclusive Charity Event will take place at 6pm Central European Time (5pm GMT) so the world will be able to watch, join in and donate, too. With a livestream throughout via

Pokercode’s official Twitch page anyone who tunes in and donates will be delighted to know that Pokercode will match donations (via PayPal) to a total of €2,000.

Alongside the charity donations is an exclusive freeroll Home Game tournament. Every poker player loves something for nothing and the free-to-play event takes place on ClubGG, which is available in almost every territory out there.

With special guests appearing throughout the live stream, Fedor Holz’s hosting skills will be on show as the site he co-owns with Austrian high roller Matthias Eibinger explains what they’ll be up to in 2023 and beyond.

Join Fedor Holz for a special charity home game and play against the High Stakes boss himself

Don’t miss out!

– https://t.co/iCG0oufXpf pic.twitter.com/gsm8mo3L2B

— Pokercode (@_pokercode) December 19, 2022

How to Play the Pokercode Freeroll Home Game

Anyone who has already downloaded the ClubbGG software can register for the tournament right now within the lobby. Pokercode, who offer advice and tips such as their bankroll advice on their website are not only a site for great players to become elite. They help any regular Joe or Jane improve their game and the Home Game this Monday is a great opportunity to make it count.

If you’ve not downloaded ClubGG yet, you can do so via the GGPoker website, by joining the Pokercode Club by using the ID: 970951. When you’ve done that, register for the Freeroll Home Game and join in the Pokercode Discord group. Simply post the name you play under on ClubGG in the Nickname thread and you’ll be ready to play. You can also use the password ‘Charity’ to register for the Freeroll too.

ClubGG is a play money poker client, and therefore since you can’t lose any money, it should be available virtually anywhere. You can register an account via the ClubGG website at any time. The Discord regiatration is vital for anyone who wins, because that’s where Pokercode will head in order to pay you your winnings!

Meet Fedor and Chat Poker

Even if you don’t feel like playing the game but still want to take part, that’s cool too. If you’re a poker fan who wants to be in the known without having to sit down at the live or virtual felt, you’re just as important to Pokercode and ClubGG. You can simply pull up the Twitch stream, introduce yourself to Fedor and his special guests throughout the evening and watch what happens at the table when the action kicks off!

December is a really busy month on Pokercode, with a packed schedule of lessons, coaching and of course this special Charity Event night which will see the livestream and chat action go into the night. Since 2019, Pokercode was formed as a way to help poker players improve their games, but it has since turned into something way bigger, with the Pokercode Stream Team starting in 2020 during the pandemic.

Since live poker returned in a big way in 2021, Pokercode has been at the forefront of some key developments in the post-GTO landscape of the game. As Holz himself has said, “We believe people who are passionate about the game in the format of tournaments should be in one pool,” we believe people who are passionate about the game in the format of tournaments should be in one pool.”

Tonight’s Charity stream and tournament both represent a different way new players are both being welcomed and listened to by one of the most progressive brands out there.

So, whenever I sink my teeth into a new course, I start with the question: what is it that makes this course different from the rest? And that’s exactly how I approached Gareth James‘ Train & Play Like the Pros.

One thing that immediately caught my attention as I watched the introductory video was that Gareth seems to understand the biggest struggles that most recreational players have when signing up for a training program. Having access to a bunch of content is cool and all, but how useful is that content to someone who’s not already on a fairly high level?

So, instead of just producing a few dozen coaching videos and calling it a day, Gareth lays out a structured path adjusted to your personal needs. Train & Play Like the Pros aims to give you the tools to improve the areas of your game in which you’re lacking, taking a very focused approach.

Getting Your Ducks in a Row

One thing that James is very honest about right from the start is that the value you’ll get from this course will depend largely on how much time and effort you put into it. As you’ll quickly realize when you start taking the lessons, the whole idea is to get you engaged and excited about becoming a better player.

But before embarking on that journey, Train & Play Like the Pros outlines some of the biggest challenges that most recreational players face. Namely:

• Feeling overwhelmed – i.e., not knowing where to start or how to go about improving their game, which often leads to giving up on the idea completely.
• Poor or no study habits – knowing how to learn effectively is a big deal, and this course provides some great advice in that area.
• Weak fundamentals – recreational players often find themselves in spots where they are not sure what to do, despite having played a ton of hands.

These three areas serve as the backbone of the course. Gareth aims to address each of them, not on a general level, but rather for every individual player that signs up. While the overall problems may be the same, different players struggle with different parts of these large areas.

In accordance with this, Train & Play Like the Pros is divided into a number of main areas designed to first help you identify your own leaks and shortcomings, then provide you with the help you need to fix those leaks, and finally offer tools and advice to make your study routines much more effective.

Identifying the Leaks

Once you go through the first video lessons and other materials, the initial proactive sections of the course are designed to help you find the leaks in your game. You’ll get access to a simple worksheet where you’ll need to input your stats from Poker Tracker 4 (or a similar tracking program like Hold’em Manager) to compare them with optimal values.

So, yes, to be able to use this course, you’ll need to have some hands in your database and tracking software to go along. In this day and age, it is hardly a big expectation, and if you’re at least a bit serious about getting better at poker, this is a must-have.

A couple of videos available in this section will explain the key preflop and postflop stats that you need to pay attention to, their meaning, and why the numbers are what they are. Even if you are new to poker stats, Gareth has done a great job of explaining things, so you won’t feel lost.

Once you do the work and fill in the worksheets, you’ll have a good idea of what areas of your game need the most attention, and you can move on to the next section.

Fixing the Leaks

This section of Train & Play Like the Pros is similar to a traditional poker course, as it contains several videos addressing specific topics related to those areas identified in the earlier section. Your task here is to watch those videos that apply to your particular leaks.

For example, if you discover that your flop c-bet numbers are off, there is a video addressing that specific area of the game which contains a number of actual hands selected from the database. Gareth goes through these hands and explains various strategic aspects that should help you bring your numbers more in line with the optimal approach.

You will also learn how to use filters in PT4 so that you can go through your own database and filter all sorts of situations in the future. This is very helpful, as you’ll want to go back to your hands every now and again for another round of analysis.

Developing Effective Study Habits

Completing a single course will not be enough to make you a winner in poker in the long run. To achieve that goal you will need to constantly work on your game, looking for new leaks and making sure your game stays up to par.

This is another major area that most recreational players struggle with, which is why the course contains a fairly extensive section on developing effective study habits. The goal here is to help make you an active learner, i.e., someone who actively engages with the learning process and consumes the offered knowledge in the right way.

This section teaches you good study habits and also shows you how to properly use some poker software solutions to review your hands. If you are interested to see how poker studying is done at the highest level, Train & Play Like the Pros will teach you.

Optimal Strategies – Building Strong Fundamentals

The final section of Train & Play Like the Pros is different from the rest of the course. It contains a few dozen long videos focusing on poker strategy. These are webinars from Gareth’s earlier course MTT Game Changer and they cover a wide array of topics, such as:

• Blind vs. blind play
• Flop and turn strategies (in and out of position)
• River strategies
• ICM

Since these are very long videos, James suggests (and I would agree) that you shouldn’t try to consume a bunch of content all at once. Take your time going through these, as they offer a lot of valuable information, but it will only be useful to you if it sticks.

Summary: Does Train & Play Like the Pros Deliver on Its Promise?

Gareth has done an excellent job of doing exactly what he set out to do: creating a poker training course aimed at recreational players looking to get better. It offers the kind of structure and guidance that I feel is lacking in many other courses out there.

If you’re someone with a passion for poker but simply don’t know how to go about improving your skills, Train & Play Like the Pros will give you the tools you need, both right now and for the future. It will show you how to recognize your mistakes, give you the tools to fix them, and help you set up a structure where you’ll be able to identify any future leaks on your own.

To top it all off, you also get access to a very active Discord group and weekly seminars where you’ll be able to ask any questions and discuss poker topics with fellow players and coaches alike. Being a part of a living and breathing poker community is certain to help you reach your goals faster while staying in touch with the game.

Use code CPL50 to get a £50 discount on Train & Play Like the Pros

All in all, Train & Play Like the Pros is a quality course that offers a unique approach. It will require you to put in time and effort, but it will also provide you with very specific and targeted knowledge that more general courses don’t give you. The ultimate choice is yours, but as far as value for money goes, you won’t go wrong with this course if you’re ready to follow the path laid out for you.

Anyone who is serious about playing the game and wants to improve would be wise in learning from one of the best teachers around – Alex Fitzgerald. Alex is a professional poker player with over $650,000 in live winnings, but it’s coaching where he really excels. Alex has written several books about poker strategy and has been a long-term coach.

Alex’s Poker Without Fear course, created alongside his collaborator Steve Blay – who founded AdvancedPokerTraining.com and coached Qui Nguyen to his $8 million Main Event win at the 2016 WSOP – provides the solutions to several of poker players’ most common worries. We spoke to Alex about seven of those problems, and his replies made us want to sign up immediately!

1. If I play aggressively will everyone stop folding to me?

Alex: No. There are specific situations where people consistently fold too much. You do not want to be unaware of those situations.

This makes a lot of sense to us. If we know the situations, then we’re more prepared when they occur. If we know when to be aggressive, we avoid losing and win more when we have the best hand. Now we just need to know the situations.

2. No one ever folds in my games. How can I ever win?

Alex: I guarantee you that your game is beatable. There is a system that can be used. It’s consistent and it works. Sometimes, DREAM games will feature players who never fold. They’re the loose/passive whales. We want them! We just need to know how to tame them.

This is what we always suspected. But this is such a common problem that many players who have started to get good at the game face. It can be funny when variance sucks at the start, but that joke isn’t funny after a while. We want to win. We’re looking forward to looking at the best ways to take advantage of these people.

3. I don’t know how to win big pots without getting dealt a huge hand. How will I ever be able to win?

Alex: You need to expand the situations where you’ll enter a pot and make a hand. You will also need to learn how to play mediocre hands for serious value. Both can be done!

This is why we keep hearing the word ‘range’. Making money from bad hands definitely takes a lot more than we have going for us, so we’re going to need to go into a lot of detail about where and when to make moves with low hands. We’re dropping that favorite hand and adapting our thoughts to only loving one set of hole cards – the eventual winning hand.

4. I have no idea when I’m supposed to re-raise someone without a premium hand. Is it bad for me to never do this?

Alex: Yes, it is. You become too predictable when you only re-raise with premiums. You’ll never get value from your hands! There are skillful situations in which to aggress without a hand. We’ll discuss what those situations are. 

We’ve lost count of the number of times that we’ve won next to nothing with aces or kings. Finding out how to make the most money from hands that have a much better chance of holding to the river is really appealing and would make playing poker so much easier for us.

5. I don’t understand GTO and never have. Will I ever be able to win in this game?

Alex: GTO can be tailored to help you find the best exploitative games. Poker without Fear explains exactly how to do this. 

This is a genuine relief. Everything is about GTO right now, so knowing how to either understand or exploit it – or both! – Is really important to us. We want to know about GTO so that we can make more informed choices about how to win. Understanding GTO within the framework of a more general course of improvement and removing fear from our game is the dream ticket.

6. How do I run a successful bluff when it seems like no one ever folds to me?

Alex: You need to target specific players. Then, you must wait for specific situations. Once you have those two ingredients a whole world of bluffing is unlocked.

This helps already – we’ve previously been thinking too much about what cards that player or those players are holding without considering the player(s) themselves. Thinking of situational poker strategy is scary, but if you’re matching it to players that we can meet, then it makes it more real and instantly translates. Excited to be studying this part.

7. How do I take over a table when nobody wants to fold EVER?

Alex: There is a way to do this! There are action players in every corner of the globe who know how to get players to yield to them. We’ll share their secrets with you.

This is like unlocking the biggest secret of all, making players fold. It’s so cool that one of the biggest action players in the world will reveal how they do it – this will help us win more. One of the first things we learned was that there are two ways to win a pot – winning it by getting to showdown or getting the other player to fold. We really need to do a lot more of the second one.

Buying Poker Without Fear would usually cost $497, but using the code Robbie397  will get you a $100 discount. Before you buy it for $397, be sure to read our full review of the training package and find out exactly what you can learn and how to do it.

One of the key faultlines that all poker players are balanced on is choosing between too much theory and how to spend time putting those ideas into practice. Rabichow believes that keeping that balance, while difficult, is essential for any poker player who aspires to a high level.

“I suspect most players don’t think about these as things that need to be balanced,” he says. “I’ve worked with many students who study theory intensely but end up playing quite differently from how they think. Similarly common are players who are intuitive and very skilled but can’t discuss theoretical topics with any confidence. Because it’s rare to balance both skill sets, I try to emphasize both in my coaching and push the people who are leaning one way closer to the middle.”

The very nature of poker is applying oneself to a number of different situations in increasingly better ways. Is the fact that there are so many variables what make structured coaching such as Kevin’s so valuable? The creator of The Game Plan himself says that understanding the value of what he provides didn’t become clear until he started committing all his time to coaching.

“Most players are lost in the chaos of the game, picking up tips here and there, and randomly focusing their attention on whatever seems important or exciting at the time,” says Rabichow. “The most valuable part in my experience is honestly evaluating where you’re at right now. Once players realize where their strengths and weaknesses lie, they become far more motivated to structure their learning to address those weaknesses.”

Enjoying His Students’ Success

Clearly, Rabichow has a deep love of teaching, and his coaching work allows him to explore that area of professional passion which has proved so popular. He has carved out a niche in an at-times crowded market and it’s obvious by speaking with him that the work is its own reward.

“When I engaged more with poker forums, I found myself in a position where others cared to hear what I had to say,” he tells us. “It’s a nice feeling to know that your opinion is respected, and after enough people had privately requested coaching, I started publicly advertising it. Poker coaching requires an entirely different skill set than poker playing, and I’ve really enjoyed working on improving mine.”

Rabichow’s experience has been positive that he admits the most pleasure he now takes from the game of poker is down to the success of others, namely his many students.

“Perhaps the best feeling I’ve experienced in poker is when a student shares their success, either a big tournament score or a record year in cash games. Coaching keeps me engaged with the poker community, and lately feels more gratifying than being a successful player.”

Rabichow’s passion for coaching is self-evident, but it’s worth pausing to qualify that statement in financial terms. Rabichow has cashed for $2.3 million in live tournaments alone in his career, and his biggest win is one of more than seven figures, the $1.2 million he won in the 2021 $100,000 NLHE High Roller tournament in Las Vegas which formed part of the World Series of Poker. Such an achievement – coming second to Michael Addamo in ‘The Year of Addamo’ – is no mean feat.

A Proven Poker Methodology

Rabichow’s work can be – and is – categorized into different strategy sections, with strategy evaluation, theory evaluation, study evaluation and skills evaluation guiding players through the process in a structure way that is designed to give them the most out of the experience.

“These categories came together quite naturally when I found the direction for this course, and it’s entirely possible that I over or under emphasized certain areas,” reveals Rabichow. The American, who hails from Chicago, Illinois, doesn’t believe that the order of the sections themselves is too important, but breaking it down into those areas is vital. Poker players often respond well to training or coaching coming in bitesize pieces that are easy for the brain to take in and process. How we process information cognitively is an important part of what makes the best poker coaching stand out from the competition – exactly what poker players hope to do themselves.

“There are unique areas of focus that go into becoming a great poker player. Theory vs practice is a major theme in the course, and here I’ve just broken it down further. Your individual skills come together to form a strategy, and your ability to study informs your understanding of theory.”

Processing what you’ve learned and then moving forward in the course with a greater understanding of why is key to how The Game Plan can benefit any player’s game.

“The evaluations are meant to highlight your strengths and weaknesses, but also help you realize how you ended up there and how to move forward.”

Coaching is all about identifying talent and nurturing it, to an extent. What key skills does Rabichow look for in his students and how is he able to identify those skills to nurture them? “The new players I’ve worked with have generally grown up on solvers, and they show varying degrees of theoretical mastery,” he says. “I’m most impressed when these same players have a sense for the limitations of this knowledge, showing a healthy amount of self-criticism and therefore a willingness to grow. There isn’t one ‘right’ way to approach the game, and the best players are always questioning whether they’ve missed some piece of information, or if their opponents are doing something worth investigating.”

Rabichow’s own experiences of receiving coaching as a player are sparse. He spent very little time doing so, having the fortune of being surrounded by great players, who were happy to share their knowledge. That isn’t always the case, however, so for players who feel on the outside looking in, poker coaching can be a vital bridge between knowing you have skills to develop and, crucially, making the most of them.

“I think this is why I’m such a strong proponent of study groups,” he admits. “Not everyone can be friends with a group of professional poker players, so it’s important to me to help provide that opportunity through my course and through my private coaching. Connecting with people who are working towards the same goals as you can easily be the difference between success and failure.”

The Game Plan is available for use and you can find out a lot more about it here. In an age where poker coaching can be the difference between winning and losing, having a game plan is more important than ever before. Kevin Rabichow’s course is a brilliant way to so that without breaking the bank, making profit more attainable than ever.