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Poker Training Sites: Which One is Right For You?

Poker training sites have exploded over the last few years. What started as a niche market populated by a couple of sites with a handful of screen-capture videos featuring (usually) poorly recorded audio has quickly matured into an increasingly professional industry, with several major sites competing against one another and new sites appearing seemingly by the day.

Caught in the middle of this explosion: your average poker player, who is now left with a somewhat bewildering array of choices and (presumably) a limited budget. Enter this article. While we offer in-depth reviews of almost all the major training sites (viewable here), enough people asked for a summary that we thought we’d put one together. So, what follows is a quick capsule review of the reasons why you might want to subscribe to a training site and the sites that are most appropriate given those reasons.

You are primarily a nl holdem cash game player at low to high stakes
In this case, you’re probably going to want to go with CardRunners, BlueFirePoker, PokerSavvy+, LeggoPoker or DeucesCracked. Those sites specialize in cash game play, and offer a wide array of limits, formats, and so on. CardRunners has the largest archive of videos online and a star-studded roster of cash pros like Cole South, Taylor Caby, David Benefield and more. DeucesCracked also boasts a very impressive instructor roster (Krantz, Whitelime) and takes more of a sequential approach to instruction, so videos are often connected to one another by a larger concept or theme, as opposed to the CardRunners model of (mostly) one-shot videos.

Bluefire is a newer site, and has a smaller archive, but boasts Phil Galfond as their lead instructor and has solid instructors dedicated to covering most buy in levels. PokerSavvy Plus has Ansky and Foucault and a a fairly deep cash archive with a nice mix of one-shot videos and more concept-based videos. LeggoPoker has aeJones and a nice mix of midstakes winning regulars, but focuses mostly on session reviews.

All sites have extensive coverage of heads up and six max play; CardRunners has an edge when it comes to full-ring play.

Price-wise, there’s not a ton of difference; the range is about $24-$32 a month, with DeucesCracked, PokerSavvy and Leggo coming in at the cheapest end of the scale and DC and BlueFire and CardRunners looking pretty similar at the $30ish end of the scale. However, CardRunners has a deal with Full Tilt Poker – you can earn free months of CardRunners memberships by hitting certain Full Tilt Point goals, so if you’re playing a bunch at Full Tilt, CardRunners is the cheapest.

Get full details on earning free memberships at CardRunners with FTP play here.

If you had an unlimited budget, I’d suggest all three. Assuming you don’t, it’s a tough call between the four. I’d grind a bit on FTP to earn the free membership at CardRunners and then pony up for a BlueFire subscription if I was already an advanced player and opt for PokerSavvy if I was looking to work more on fundamentals.

You can also purchase a subscription to BlueFirePoker using PartTimePoker Rakeback points.

You are primarily a nl holdem cash game player at micro stakes
In this case, the decision comes down to CardRunners and GrinderSchool. CardRunners has fairly good coverage of micro-stakes, and GrinderSchool is basically devoted primarily to micro to low stakes. Play at micro limits tends to be much different, so it’s important that you’re getting advice from instructors who are familiar with the norms at those levels, and both sites provide that.

Grinder School has payment plans that allow you access to their micro-stakes videos for $10 a month; CardRunners has the option of earning free months via FTP. If you’re already playing at FTP at a volume that can earn you free months, CardRunners is probably the way to go. If not, it’s a close call between CardRunners and GrinderSchool and likely comes down to whether or not you a) have a couple extra bucks a month to spend and b) are interested in the rest of the CardRunners archive (well over a thousand videos versus a bit over 200 for GS).

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