Who have you been getting poker advice from lately?

For the past year or so, I’ve been getting emails from a poker pro site that wants me to pay them for advice on how to play my hands. Every few days, they throw me teasers like “How to play X-Y off-suit profitably.” I admit I’m tempted, but I’m also cheap, and the amounts these guys are asking is out of proportion to any game I’m likely to be willing to play in (even in live cash play, I’m unlikely to invest more than $100.at a time).

I’m thinking that with as many players as RP has, at least of few of you must have tried these “services.” How did you like your results? Was it much of a change for you? Did those results justify your expense?

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It can only justify the expense if you play enough for real money at the right stakes level and improve enough to more than cover the cost of the learning. There’s an awful lot of free stuff out there, but but not all of it is good. Then again, neither is the paid stuff all good.

How much you get out of it varies depending on how good you were before you took the training, how well the training was suited to your specific interest in the type of game you wish to play, your specific weaknesses, etc.

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It’s ridiculous that someone from a poker site would try to charge someone to improve their poker skills knowing they play a free poker site. Totally understandable if player said I’m really serious about improving my skills or played a significant amount real cash poker.

I know some on RP do play cash, so it would be interesting to hear their thoughts

I like Johnathan Littles content the most. There is heaps of free videos to watch on his YouTube channel. He also has an interactive training poker site & offers 30 days cash back for players that are not satisfied. As great as I’m sure it all is I doubt its worth it unless a players is looking to invest a lot of time & money playing poker for cash.

Recently I saw a video on Finding Equilibrium poker channel about GTOx Solver. This is a web based app system that uses servers online to crunch the numbers give answers for hand analysis. Interesting but of ZERO interest to 99% free poker players.

The channel does have a decent amount of videos on hand analysis which are all very good.

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I joined Upswing Poker. Judging by your brief description, it could be the one you’re talking about. I’d say it’s very good.

Firstly, it has a coherent course which actually takes you through the concepts in a logical order. Not just a random bunch of articles.

There is also a lot of content. I’m guessing, but a couple of hundred hours worth of videos and written courses, along with hundreds of range diagrams etc.

The content is high quality (in poker terms, if not always in the presentation and production values). Whatever level you’re at you will learn something. It totally changed the whole way I look at the game, and vastly improved my play. And I thought I was a fairly decent player before I joined.

Whether there is better and/or cheaper out there I can’t say as I’ve not joined any other sites, but I would say for me it was worth it and it has paid back the fee in game earnings. And I’m not a massive player for real money.

Whether it’s worth it for you is a difficult question. Obviously if you’re mainly playing for fun you’re not really going earn the money back. But I’d even say it was worth it just for the educational value and the interest of the content. That might be stretching it a bit for some though.

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@Alan25main - are you playing mostly cash games or tournaments? Are you generally winning at the stakes you play? Are you looking to move up in stakes or just increase your profitability in your current environment? I’ve consumed more content and training programs in the past few years than I care to admit. If I can give you some direction on where to spend your time and money most efficiently, I’d be happy to.

ADDED: If anyone else has questions about training sites, courses or programs, I can field questions about most of them as well.

1Warlock, I’ll send you a PM in a day or two. Good comment, too, thanks.

I get my poker advice from The School of Bad Beats. Classes are completely free.

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Poker ain’t chess, but it is like everything else in the world.
Those that can do, and those that can’t sell books and videos telling you how to.
There’s a human element that no book, or video or person can teach you. Oh, they can give you some good advice overall in general statistically, but you either get it or you don’t.
And you will NEVER learn how to play poker on a make-believe poker site with nothing to lose, and 90% of the players calling every pre-flop bet, and seeing 50% of all rivers even they didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell.