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Poker Training Sites: Which One is Right For You?

You are primarily a MTT tournament player
MTT players are probably looking at a choice between PokerXFactor, CardRunners, PokerSavvy+ and PokerPwnage. PokerXFactor and PokerPwnage focus more or less exclusively on tournament play, and have assembled pro rosters that reflect that. PokerXFactor has a more impressive roster than the other sites (Bax, Sheets, Scott Clements, Rizen, AJKHoosier) and a pretty developed community that offers a lot of extras and tools.

PokerPwnage has a solid roster and a steadily growing archive from MTT players who are regular winners in the mid to high buy ins online. CardRunners snags some good MTT pros, but just doesn’t have the focus the other sites do. Savvy+ is apparently putting more and more focus on tournament play – Justin Rollo and Tony Dunst anchor a solid lineup peppered with guest pros like Shaun Deeb.

Price-wise, CardRunners wins the war if you can earn a membership via play on Full Tilt. PokerSavvy and PokerPwnage both hit the $25 per month mark, more or less. PokerXFactor has a hefty signup fee that inflates their monthly cost to a number closer to $30. I have to go with PokerXFactor here, with the caveat that PokerPwnage may well unseat them in the not-too-distant-future if the site continues to develop at its current, rapid rate.

You can earn free memberships at PokerPwnage with PartTimePoker rakeback points.

You are primarily a SNG player
CardRunners and PXF are your primary choices here. CardRunners gets you videos from SNG pro Jackal69 and (thanks to the merger with Stox) 2+2 author Colin Moshman. PXF offers up SNG specialist Sheets and videos from Inissint. Again, CardRunners gets the nod if you can earn a free membership through play at FTP; in fact, even if you compare the two straight-up, I think I’d have to go with CardRunners here.

Note – there are a few sites that specialize SNG play that we’re in the process of reviewing; we’ll update this article as those reviews are added.

You play non-holdem games
CardRunners is your choice if you’re looking for a wide mix (razz, PLO, etc). If you’re just looking for PLO, you have to consider BlueFirePoker, as Galfond is just a disgusting PLO talent. It’s also hard to ignore Deuces Cracked, as their PLO lineup is impressive as well.

I’m not a mixed-game specialist by any means, so I’m not the best judge, but my gut is that CardRunners gets the nod if you’re looking for wide coverage, and BlueFirePoker gets the nod if you’re looking to improve at PLO.

You play a variety of games and formats
If you dabble in cash and tournament play, fire up a SNG every now and again and have a hankering to get some basic PLO skills, you should be subscribing to CardRunners. They’re just much deeper and broader than any other site out there currently. PokerSavvy+ also gets a nod in the overall category, as their archive (which, pound for pound is arguably better than CardRunners for beginning to intermediate players) is gaining increasing depth by the day.

Remember, you can earn free memberships at CardRunners with your plat on FTP.

Hopefully that gives you a starting point for making your decision. Training sites are an invaluable tool for most players, and ignoring the resource simply because the decision involved in choosing one is complex would be a serious mistake. For additional resources related to training sites on PTP, see the links below:

Read all of our training site reviews.

View a comparison chart of major training sites.

Learn more about earning free CardRunners memberships.

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