We would like to emphasize that these are the opinions of the TestYourPoker.com team on these sites. The list is not necessarily in order, as different sites have different strengths and weaknesses.

1. Advanced Poker Training – This site provides an online poker training software program that enables users to play up to 500 hands an hour against intelligent computerized opponents, receiving advice at each play.  It also features in-depth training reports and a weekly poker training plan that shows you exactly where you should be targeting your efforts. Their unique “Beat the Pro” Challenges pit you against big-name pros – Jonathan Little, Scott Clements, Ed Miller, and more. There is an active member forum, a variety of training games and materials, and a series of challenging Combat Trainers to help you master tricky poker situations. It’s truly the most fun of all the poker training sites because you are actually playing poker instead of watching videos.

2. Omaha Poker Training – Omaha Poker Training (OPT) is brought to you by the same team that created Advanced Poker Training. Like APT, OPT provides an online poker training software program that enables users to play several hundred hands an hour against intelligent computerized opponents, receiving advice on each hand. The wide range of OPT game options allows you to customize training to target your home game, local card room, or even a $10,000 championship event at the World Series of Poker. Opponents can be selected from easy, moderate, or expert play in order to model training at a level that is right for the individual’s typical circumstances. You can even set starting hand ranges that are particularly troublesome so as to focus and improve on the exact situations currently causing you difficulty at the tables. Even better, the Expert OPT bots have been programmed for Game Theory Optimal (GTO) play. If you can beat them, you can play any OPT table anywhere.

3. Tournament Poker Edge – This site is known for the depth of its Multi-Table Tournament (MTT) training content. The focus is on watching videos of successful players (over 800 videos), but they also have podcasts and a forum, and a “TPE University” feature with multiple courses.

4. Heads Up Sit-n-Go (HUSNG)– This training site is specifically for people wanting to win at sit-n-go and spin-n-go tourneys, and it is probably the best site for this area. In 2018 they acquired Sit-N-Go Grinders, another sit-n-go training site, so they aren’t just for Heads-Up SNGs any more. It’s a little tough to navigate the site, but they sell video packs for $40 to over $200.

5. Red Chip Poker – This site has been rapidly evolving and has recently focused on their “CORE” – a series of guided poker lessons, videos and quizzes. In addition to their CORE offering, they sell a “PRO” upgrade with more advanced material and monthly coaching sessions.  At the other end of the spectrum, Red Chip offers free content, including strategy guides, a podcast, and a member forum. Red Chip Poker has several wonderful coaches: Ed Miller, author of 8 poker books; James “SplitSuit” Sweeney, who has done private coaching for nearly 500 students; and Doug Hull, author of the unique tactical playbook “Poker Plays you can Use”.

6. PokerNerve– This MTT training site run by Kelvin “Acesup” Beattie offers three series of training videos. There is a free MTT training option, Basic MTT training, and Premium MTT training. The premium “Road to Success Course” is a comprehensive video series which takes you all the way from beginning MTT concepts to advanced topics such as donk betting and check raising. The premium course covers over 90 hours of video training. PokerNerve also offers a paid YouTube channel and private coaching.

7. Jonathan Little Poker – Jonathan Little has become increasingly prominent in the poker world across the past few years. He has written multiple strategy books, produces a weekly poker strategy podcast, has become a poker commentator for a number of live tournaments, coaches, and writes a blog. His site features a wide array of training videos ranging from $47 to $997. His PokerCoaching program offers over 650 interactive quizzes, 130 video classes, and 45 coaching webinars. PokerCoaching Premium offers additional classes and webinars, along with access to Johathan’s Cash Game MasterClass.

8. Run It Once (RIO) – Run It Once (RIO) was created by Phil Galfond, and describes itself as “the world’s leading poker strategy community.” Run It Once offers an enormous and constantly expanding library of video content geared toward a wide variety of players. An impressive line-up of professionals have contributed videos to RIO, including Fedor Holz, Jason Koon, Stephen Chidwick, and Sam Greenwood. As with the other poker training sites listed here, Run It Once offers a healthy set of user forums to help students further their training.

Run It Once offers two tiers of membership: “Essential” (low stakes) and “Elite” (high stakes). “Essential” costs $24.99/month and gives users access to five new “Essential” videos per week and the 1,500-plus video Essential Library. “Elite” members get all of that, plus nine more “Elite” videos each week, and the nearly 2,400-video Elite library at a cost of $99.99/month. Galfond describes “Essential” as geared toward games with stakes under 500NL, with “Elite” directed toward 500NL and up.

9. Test Your Poker – A shameless plug, but our method is different from any other poker training site. Through our huge database of member hands and the ability to get hand by hand feedback, you can improve your full ring cash game using our unique professional replays. We are one of the few non-video poker training sites, and more than 300,000 players have taken our test.

10. Poker Tracker – So this isn’t technically a training site, but as an online poker player it’s one you can’t live without. Every online poker pro has PokerTracker 4, and you should too. It tracks every hand of poker you play, and lets you look at your win rates with various hands, and every other statistic under the sun. Plus, using the “Heads Up Display” (HUD) plug-in lets you get information on your opponents, while you’re playing against them.

This list is by no means exhaustive, and there are some decent training sites left off the list. However, the sites above are a great place to start your training!

The post Top 10 Poker Training Sites for 2020 appeared first on Test Your Poker.

OPT has all of the resources, videos, and articles you need to get up to speed with Pot Limit Omaha. Based on the same learning principles of learning through deep practice employed by APT, OPT offers 6 max, 9 max and Multi-Table Tournaments. Expert Advisors help you identify optimal play for any in-game situation. Finally, OPT offers live daily tournaments with other students as well. So you can learn and engage with your poker community at the same time.

If you’re new to the game, OPT has all the resources necessary to learn the game and practice as you learn. Select from five different game levels to test your skills against a range of opponents. If you are uncertain about what action to take pre-flop, click the Advice button and you’ll see into which category your hand falls, what your situation is, and what action is advised.  Expert players can examine their entire hand range, and their opponent’s ranges, with details on how every hand should be played.

Every hand you play is automatically saved to your own online database for you to review any time you want.  You can even RETRY a hand if you want to test out a different strategy.  OPT’s in-depth reports provide feedback on your strongest and weakest positions … and your play from pre-flop all the way through the river.

Cardplayer Magazine published a great interview about the development of OPT in its March issue. In it, founder Steve Blay talks about the development of PLO bots. Bot development was a real challenge for a game in which you are dealt four cards, but must play exactly two. With OPT, Steve also took on the task of developing GTO bots for the first time, in consultation with PLO experts such as Scott Clements and John Beauprez. If you’re interested in the article, you can read it here.

So let Omaha Poker Training become your next obsession. Whether you are learning PLO for the first time or just looking to brush up on your game. Read their articles, watch some instructional videos, and start training. You won’t regret it.

The post Omaha Poker Training: Your Next Challenge appeared first on Test Your Poker.

The 2019 WSOP will run from May 28th to July 16th at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. This will be the 50th running of the WSOP, and there will be plenty of events to recognize this fact, including a $50,000 buy in event (get it?) at the start of festivities on May 31st. There will also be an anniversary gala, and an awards evening on June 29th.

The $10,000 NLH Main Event will start on July 3rd this year and crown a champion on the 16th. There have been a couple of changes to the Main Event this year, including a slight increase in chips from the usual 50,000 to 60,000. The 2019 WSOP Main Event will feature the now standard Big Blind Ante. Also, players will have longer to buy in this year. They have all the way to the beginning of Day 2 to lay their money down for the big game.

In case the Main Event is too traditional for you, the 2019 WSOP will also feature a $10,000 NLH short deck event. In addition to short deck, there will be plenty of other poker variants offered. There are omaha, heads up, 7 card stud, HORSE, 2-7 lowball, Razz, crazy 8s and other events for those who scorn the dominant NLH game.

The cheapest bracelet event offered at this summer’s WSOP will be the $400 Colossus. The Colossus begins June 26th. For your $400, you will receive 40,000 chips to play across 40 minute blind levels.

The Big 50 will be another relatively low cost event. In honor of the 50th running of the WSOP, the Big 50 offers 50,000 chips and 50 minute blinds for a mere $500 buy in. This event starts May 28th and features a rake-free first buy in. The Big 50 also comes with a $5 Million Guaranteed prize pool and a $1 Million guaranteed to the winner.

If, on the other hand,  you’re looking to drop some serious cash this summer, there will be twenty events priced at $10,000 or higher. These include a $10,000 Dealers Choice, a $25,000 PLO event, and the $50,000 poker players championship.

Whether you are planning a trip to Vegas this summer, or just gearing up to spend a lot of time watching PokerGo, the 2019 WSOP has plenty to offer.

The post The 2019 WSOP is Coming Soon appeared first on Test Your Poker.

We would like to emphasize that these are the honest opinions of the TestYourPoker.com team on these sites. The list is not necessarily in order, as different sites have different strengths.

1. Advanced Poker Training – This site is completely different from the others; it provides an online poker training software program that enables users to play up to 500 hands an hour against intelligent computerized opponents, receiving advice at each play.  It also features in-depth training reports and a weekly poker training plan that shows you exactly where you should be targeting your efforts. Their unique “Beat the Pro” Challenges pit you against big-name pros – Mike Caro, Jonathan Little, Scott Clements, Ed Miller, and more. There is an active member forum, a variety of training games and materials, a new podcast (Steamin’ Steve’s Hand Review), and instructional material from Scott Blumstein and Qui Nguyen, the last two WSOP Main Event Champions. It’s truly the most fun of all the poker training sites because you are actually playing poker instead of watching videos.  Also, their rates are lower than most other sites.

2. Deuces Cracked – This is an online training site that has a group or “community” training feel to it – like a poker education. Another long-established site with over 3000 videos, podcasts, blogs, and regular updates.  Tons of 6-max videos, but plenty of 9-max and MTT videos as well. They also have a forum, and have videos that can be played anywhere with no DRM (digital rights) issues.

3. Poker Tracker – So this isn’t technically a training site, but as an online poker player it’s one you can’t live without. Every online poker pro has PokerTracker 4, and you should too. It tracks every hand of poker you play, and lets you look at your win rates with various hands, and every other statistic under the sun. Plus, using the “Heads Up Display” (HUD) plug-in lets you get information on your opponents, while you’re playing against them.

4. Tournament Poker Edge – This site is known for the depth of its Multi-Table Tournament (MTT) training content. The focus is on watching videos of successful players (over 800 videos), but they also have podcasts and a forum, and a “TPE University” feature with multiple courses.

5. Heads Up Sit-n-Go (HUSNG)– This training site is specifically for people wanting to win at sit-n-go tourneys, and it is probably the best site for this area. They recently acquired Sit-N-Go Grinders, another sit-n-go training site, so they aren’t just for Heads-Up SNGs any more. It’s a little tough to navigate the site, but they sell video packs for $40 to over $200.

6. Red Chip Poker – This site has been rapidly evolving over the past two years and has recently launched “CORE” a series of guided poker lessons, videos and quizzes. Red Chip Poker have several wonderful coaches: Ed Miller, author of 8 poker books; James “SplitSuit” Sweeney, who has done private coaching for nearly 500 students; and Doug Hull, author of the unique tactical playbook “Poker Plays you can Use”.

7. PokerNerve– This MTT training site run by Kelvin “Acesup” Beattie offers three series of training videos. There is a free MTT training option, Basic MTT training, and Premium MTT training. The premium “Road to Success Course” is a comprehensive video series which takes you all the way from beginning MTT concepts to advanced topics such as donk betting and check raising. The premium course covers over 90 hours of video training.

8. Jonathan Little Poker – Jonathan Little has become increasingly prominent in the poker world across the past few years. He has written multiple strategy books, produces a weekly poker strategy podcast, has become a poker commentator for a number of live tournaments, coaches, and writes a blog. His site features a wide array of training videos ranging from $47 to $997.

9. Ivey League – Yet another video training site, but with names like Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius behind it, they set themselves apart from the others. Ivey also purchased Leggo Poker which had a lot of poker training content already, so they are quite the behemoth now.

10. Test Your Poker – A shameless plug, but our method is different from any other poker training site. Through our huge database of member hands and the ability to get hand by hand feedback, you can improve your full ring cash game using our unique professional replays. We are one of the few non-video poker training sites, and more than 300,000 players have taken our test.

This list is by no means exhaustive, and there are some decent training sites left off the list. Instead of wasting your time checking out the many training sites out there, take a look at the above list, and get ready to win big!

The post Top 10 Poker Training Sites for 2018 appeared first on Test Your Poker.

1. Two Plus Two Forums – The granddaddy of them all, the best forums on the Internet, by far the most active and most authoritative of online poker forums.
2. Advanced Poker Training – Advanced Poker Training has recently added a fabulous forum where community members discuss poker strategy and talk about play. These forums also host strategy videos by Steamin’ Steve Stokely and by WSOP Main Event Champion Scott Blumstein. These videos are very popular and often serve as jumping off points for community discussions.
3. PocketFives – Another extremely active, outstanding poker forum. Pocket Fives is also home to the Pocket Five rankings of online poker players, a very popular feature.
4. CardPlayer Forums – The forums for one of the largest poker print magazines. Very active forums.
5. PokerStrategy.com Forums – The forums at a good strategy site, filled with tons of players looking for and giving advice.
6. Poker Atlas Forum – Unlike most of the other forums on this list, this one focuses on where to play rather than how.
7. Reddit/r/poker – This forum is extremely active and wide ranging. With threads on strategy, hand analysis, home games, and Lon McEachern, you can find pretty much anything here that you’d like to discuss about poker.
8. Liquid Poker Forums – Another very active forum, backed by a website with a substantial amount of poker content.
9. CardsChat Forums – Active forum with over 100,000 members and 2 million posts. Worth getting involved in.
10. Full Contact Poker Forums – This is Daniel Negreanu’s site, and it is fantastic. Plenty of information to be had by interested players.

This list is by no means comprehensive, and there are some really good forums left out of this list. But you could spend you life reading forums, and there are plenty of other ways to spend your poker training time!

The post Top 10 Poker Forums for 2018 appeared first on Test Your Poker.

1. Commerce Casino (Commerce, CA) – Commerce is home to two cavernous poker rooms — a sprawling low-limit area and a high-limit room that hosts some of the biggest games on the west coast. They also host the L.A. poker classic.

2. Bellagio (Las Vegas, NV) – Probably one of the most well-known poker rooms, it’s a sort of “home base” to many notable pros, with high-limit games in the famous Bobby’s Room. It’s not huge with 40 tables, but the daily tournament at 5 pm is still a must-play.

3. BestBet (Jacksonville, FL) – We’ve all taken a vote, and pound for pound, you just can’t beat BestBet. They have several major events each year (WPT, CardPlayer poker tour, etc). The tournament directors and dealers are great, and founder Jesse “The Boss” Hollander is often seen out in the poker room interacting with customers. The food is great. They have over 70 tables – no long waits. And a big parking area right out front means you don’t have to spend half an hour just parking your car and walking to the poker room! We can’t say enough about how much we love BestBet.

4. The Borgata (Atlantic City, NJ) – The 85-table Borgata poker room is arguably one of the best on the east coast. Atlantic City is having a rough time of it lately, but don’t give up on the Borgata just yet! Always full with tons of players and limits, you’re sure to have a good time. They host multiple $10k and $20k guarantees each week, along with black chip bounty tournaments.

5. Rio (Las Vegas, NV) – The famous home of the World Series of Poker, no list would be complete without it. The exotic Rio is great any time of the year. During the summer, either play the World Series or smaller satellite tournaments.

6. Seminole Hard Rock (Hollywood, FL) – If you’re looking for big money on the East Coast, look no farther than the Hard Rock. William Mason, Director of Poker, has done amazing things for poker in Florida; the last two years they have had $5 and $10 million dollar prize pool guaranteed tournaments. With countless low-buyin satellites, there’s no good reason not to take a shot!

7. The Wynn Las Vegas (Las Vegas, NV) – The Wynn offers a twenty-six poker table room with a variety of games and limits to suite all levels of play. Game limits generally range from $4/$8 up to $100/$200. They have $125 daily tournaments, as well as two $10k and one $25k guarantee each week. Plus their blind structures are about as good as they get.

8. Bicycle Casino (Los Angeles, CA) – The Bicycle Casino ranks as one of the world’s largest cardrooms, and is renowned for its World Class Poker Tournaments. They have 3 tournaments most days, and it is packed with players from all over. If you’ve never played at The Bike, you owe yourself a trip.

9. Maryland Live! (Hanover, MD) – Maryland Live! has become a premiere destination away from Vegas, with daily tournaments ranging in stakes, as well as special events. They’re even hosting a $1 million poker classic event.

10. Peppermill Casino (Reno, NV) – The Peppermill features Reno’s most comfortable and exciting poker room. Their dealers are trained to assist new players, in addition to offering private and group lessons upon request. They host several tournaments a day, with a wide range of stakes.

This list is by no means comprehensive, and there are some really good live poker tournaments out there that we haven’t listed, especially in Europe (which hopefully, we’ll cover separately some day). But, the above casinos are offering some of the best tournaments in 2015. Why not check them out and report back to us!

The post Top 10 Cardrooms for Live Poker Tournaments – 2016 appeared first on Test Your Poker.

1. Full Contact Poker – This is Daniel Negreanu’s blog. He keeps his fans informed about how he’s doing, and also gives a bunch of insight into the way he thinks. Posts are made 4-5 a week, so there is always something to comment about. This is an absolute must for fans of Daniel’s.
   

2. Hard Boiled Poker – This blog deals with a serious nuts and bolts discussion of poker. The blog posts a discussion daily, so this is a great blog to bookmark and check out to learn the ins and outs poker. This is the place to go if you want to read a serious blog for serious players.
   

3. Pokerati – This is another great blog that deals with the social aspects of poker, as well as the tournament scene. Posts are daily, so you are never left without something to read. This is one that will keep you entertained, as well as informed.
   

4. PokerStars Blog – PokerStars is still a major player in the online poker scene, and their blog won’t let you down. They keep up with daily happenings in the poker world, both live and online.
   

5. PokerNews – Poker News is considered by most the leader of providing quality content, and they do so daily. The podcasts, videos, and interviews are just a bonus.

This list is by no means comprehensive, and there are some really good blogs left off of this list. But you could spend your life reading through blogs only to waste precious time you could be spending training or playing. Instead, this list will provide you something to do when you are waiting for opponents to join you at the online poker table.

The post Top 5 Poker Blogs for 2016 appeared first on Test Your Poker.

Most importantly, work on improving your poker game.  

Some players hire coaches (that can get expensive), others practice playing up against stronger competition (that can also get expensive), but there are plenty of resources available on and off line that can help improve your game:

1. AdvancedPokerTraining.com – This poker training site offers a comprehensive method of training for all types of poker, including multi-table tournaments, and the price is a bargain with a single low price for access to all features.  The basic idea is that you play a bunch of hands very quickly against artificially intelligent computerized opponents and you receive a complete analysis of your game through detailed reports and a weekly training plan.  You also can take part in a series of Beat the Pro Challenges that pits you up head-to-head against the best while receiving detailed feedback on your play.  You can think of AdvancedPokerTraining.com as targeted training that adapts to your game and helps you improve very quickly.

2. RedChipPoker.com – Red Chip Poker is a poker video and educational site that offers many options for improving your tournament play.  The site has some great video resources from noted poker authority Ed Miller on game-theory optimal poker.  Miller also has an excellent blog post on the topic.

3. Tournament Poker Edge – this is a video training site that is dedicated exclusively to improving tournament players.  As with many poker training sites, it is primarily videos. Unlike many sites, it is divided into structured classes and focuses on theory and self-diagnosis.

4. Read the classic Harrington on Hold’em series – There has never been a more theoretical series of books written on winning tournament hold’em – and this is written by a player with a long history of making final tables.  If you’ve never read this, get these books.

Stay Healthy

Outside of your game, nothing is more important to winning the WSOP Main Event than your health.  It all starts with eating right and getting enough sleep.  2008 WSOP Main Event Champ Peter Eastgate attributed his success to his healthy habits during and before the tournament: “It is quite simple — in order to optimize your performance you need to think of how you eat, drink, sleep, and exercise to improve your physical and mental balance.”

So how else can you get your body and mind ready?  Some pros recommend meditation and relaxation exercises .  But almost everyone recognizes that sleep is a big part of it.  Get yourself on a set sleep schedule and stick with it.  All medical research recognizes that sleep replenishes your brain power. Yet when you go to the WSOP, what you see are people staying up late and sometimes not sleeping at all.  Be realistic, it’s going to be exciting and you might have trouble getting to sleep.  But recognize that perhaps getting used to a new sleep pattern (maybe 1am-10am) may be your best option for maintaining a healthy amount of sleep.  And you definitely need the sleep – don’t tell yourself that you are different.

Finally, eat and drink right.  Let’s face it, you want to spend as much time playing poker as possible.  That often leads to a lot of fast food, sodas, and unhealthy behavior.  Water is your friend – drink plenty of it.  Alcohol is your enemy.  Nothing can trash your play as fast as alcohol, and it will be all around you in Las Vegas.  Avoid it completely and your will be up a few brain cells on most of your competition.

Conclusion

There’s no one method of improving your tournament game that works for everyone.  With the suggestions above, find what works best for you and get ready to come back home a winner from the WSOP Main Event or whatever live tournament you are training to win.

The post How to Train for the WSOP Main Event or Other Live Tournaments appeared first on Test Your Poker.

The first step in devising an appropriate poker training plan is doing a Big-Picture Analysis of your long-term goals and the steps that it will take to reach them. The bigger your goal, the more time it will take. The farther along you are to accomplishing your goal, the less time it will take. The program I am going to suggest today is directed primarily at beginning and intermediate poker players, but many aspects of it are useful for advanced players also.

Step 1: Get an Accurate Assessment of your Current Poker Game

I have two primary suggestions for getting an accurate assessment of your game. One involves using a database of your actual online play, the other involves using our poker IQ test that analyzes different aspects of your game based on objective criteria and a standardized set of hands.

1. Test Your Poker – The original Poker IQ test on our site is a great way to get an accurate assessment of your current skills, broken into a dozen different categories. By seeing which areas, such as knowing the odds, reading opponents, pre-flop, etc., that you are weak in, you can appropriately train in those specific areas using the tools I discuss in Part 2 below. Our membership fee is only $19.97/mo, and that gives you access to unlimited tests including overall analysis, hand-by-hand feedback, replays of a pro playing the same hands you played, and many others. We have tests in full ring, six-max, sit-n-go tourneys, multi-table tourneys, as well as limit holdem. For the purposes of this post, I am primarily discussing tools that can be used for either online or live cash games, not tournaments. But a membership at testyourpoker.com not only gets you the cash game training and assessment, you also get the tournament tests and assessments, which makes it a great opportunity to get an accurate assessment of your game cheaply. This method is the best for reassessment (see Step 3), and also for all players who do not have a big existing database of online poker hands for Hold’em Manager. It’s also a great supplemental assessment method for players who do use HEM because it is based on an objective and varied set of hands and situations.

2. Leak Buster – If you have a big database of real poker hands and use Hold’em Manager (and you should if you are a regular online player), then this is probably the ultimate tool for finding leaks in your game. It is far too complex a program for me to explain in a short article, but let me put it this way – if you have a specific leak in your game, Leak Buster will find it. The developers mined millions and millions of poker hands, analyzed them, and found ranges in a huge variety of statistics where win-rates drop off tremendously. If Leak Buster tells you that you have a leak, you do, and it’s backed up with years of real poker hands from thousands and thousands of poker players. It works as an add-on to Hold’em Manager, so you need to have Hold’em Manager to use it. In a nutshell, this program will identify an average of about 6-16 serious leaks in most player’s games, and by knowing these leaks, you will be able to train specifically to improve these areas. Almost everyone here at Test Your Poker uses Leak Buster personally, and we always recommend it to our students, especially micro-stakes, small-stakes and mid-stakes players. If you have a database of real poker hands, get this program. It will be the best $49-$149 you have ever spent depending on the version you purchase. Leak Buster supports No Limit, PLO, and Limit at all levels.

Step 2: Train in your Specific Areas of Weakness

This sounds obvious, but so few poker training sites do targeted training. If you look at the top several poker training sites, they all involve videos of outstanding players talking through their games. Now, this is fine, but how does it help a player who has known specific weaknesses? Even watching a specific video does not give you the practice you need to become a better player. The other problem is that there is no way to work on most weaknesses through just playing online or live poker. Sure, you’ll get better that way, but you might only encounter the situation that you need to practice once in ten hands at the most, and sometimes much less often than that. That just isn’t efficient. With that in mind, I have two tools that you can use to work on the specific weaknesses identified in Step 1.

1. Advanced Poker Training – This is possibly the most amazing poker software yet developed. It consists of a poker game with ten different levels of artificially intelligent opponents who learn your game and how to beat it. The more you play on it, the better the top level opponents get at beating you, so they push you to improve your game. The game requires no downloads, and you can play hundreds of hands in an hour. But the best part is that you have the ability to 1) pick the specific hands you want to play based on the weaknesses identified in Step 1, 2) receive play by play advice from one of over a dozen artificially intelligent advisors, choosing one that is programmed to play the style you prefer to play, 3) replay hands that the AI engine automatically saves when it detects you making an error. The combination of these features (along with countless other tools such as the ability to see odds and outs at any point in time) make this site the best deal on the web. At only $19.97/mo, this is cheaper than almost all of the other poker training sites out there, and none of the others offer anything like this for targeted poker training. The site has both full ring and six-max versions, and both are outstanding. I personally use this, recommend it to all my friends, and find it to be a very fun and very fast way to sharpen up my game.

2. Ace Poker Drills – This tool is an absolute bargain. For only $49.99 you get all three of the Ace Poker Drill packages, including an equity trainer, a pre-flop trainer, and an odds tool. Based on an extensive analysis of all players who have taken the poker IQ test at TestYourPoker.com, we know that knowing the odds is the single greatest weakness for beginning and intermediate players. The Ace Poker Drill software addresses this problem brilliantly. The interface is a very quick and easy download, and it installs two separate programs on your computer. The pre-flop trainer helps mostly beginning players learn the appropriate hand ranges that should be played. Through drills and practice, without having to wait for hands to finish, you can really get better quickly, and most importantly, start to recognize situations and patterns without having to think over the odds as much. The second program, the equity trainer, is my favorite. There is no question that knowing odds and equity is the number one weakness for most beginning and intermediate players. The Ace Poker Drills tool is simple to use, and enables you to start recognizing the odds and the equity in so many common poker situations without having to make the calculations. In my opinion, this is what separates a great player from a merely good one – knowing the odds without having to think about it, putting your opponent on ranges of hands and knowing what your approximate equity is. There really is no other software program out there that offers the value of Ace Poker Drills for the price – and I say this as a user of the software myself.

Step 3: Reassess your Skills

This is where our site, TestYourPoker.com can really come in handy. Our members have the ability to take an unlimited number of tests, so you can regularly reassess your game and see if you are improving in the areas that you have been improving. Using TestYourPoker, along with Advanced Poker Training and Ace Poker Drills has proven to be a great combination of training and re-assessment. Leak Buster is also very useful when you have large databases of hands, but sometimes it is difficult to play enough hands in a short period of time to truly reassess your game accurately.

In closing, take the strategic approach to your poker training. With a combination of the outstanding poker training tools listed above, you can improve your game faster than you ever dreamed possible.

The post The Best Poker Training Program – A Strategic Approach appeared first on Test Your Poker.

When Bovada says anonymous poker, what they mean is that you don’t have a screen name that shows up to other players.  So no one at the table knows who anyone else is.  This is a huge difference from most online poker, where many players at the table use HUDs and other software that tells them all the tendencies of everyone at the table.  Online poker at most sites has become a game of who knows the most about the other players at the table.  What anonymous poker does is simulate walking into a poker room and sitting down at a table of strangers.  This gives players who are willing to pay attention to the game a huge advantage.

Why did Bovada go to anonymous tables?  The main reason is that it enables less experienced players a better chance.  With more sophisticated players having software that very quickly shows tendencies, less experienced players are at a huge disadvantage in non-anonymous online poker.  They quickly lose their money and quit playing, and that isn’t good for the online poker room – they want more players, which leads to more rake for them.

However, anonymous poker can also be very good for dedicated players, because it favors players who are willing to spend the time to watch their opponents and the game closely.  Here are some tips for winning at Bovada Anonymous Poker:

1. Break out your paper and pencil!  In the early days of online poker, players didn’t have software to keep track of other players, so many players took notes about their opponents’ tendencies.  If you want to win at Bovada Anonymous poker, go back in time and start taking notes.  At the low stakes tables, there are some bad players who you can get great reads on very quickly.  Take your notes and gain that little advantage.  Bovada is also different from many other online sites in that there isn’t chat, and there isn’t online note taking.  So it really is similar to a live game, minus any social aspect.

2. Know the odds.  If you don’t have much information about your opponents, and they don’t know much about you, the player who knows the odds the best has a big advantage.  Study up on the odds of poker and make the right plays at the right time.  Poker training becomes very important in anonymous poker.

3. This is a very rare occurrence, and I’ve very rarely seen this on Bovada (especially in low-mid stakes), but If something doesn’t seem right, leave the table.  One concern with anonymous poker is that players have no way of identifying and avoiding “suspicious” opponents, such as colluding friends or suspected bots.  Bovada says that they actively enforce fair play, but in reality most cheating is caught by players, not sites.  Bots and cheaters usually make some very unusual plays.  If you notice an opponent doing something no fair-playing human would do, consider switching tables.  This is a very rare issue, and in no way outweighs the potential benefits of anonymous poker.

So overall, Bovada is an excellent site for U.S. players looking for a game where all players are on equal footing, and skill (as opposed to who has the most information or the best software) can lead to big wins.  They have both cash games and great tournaments.  Bovada offers a 100% bonus on 1st deposits for new players on their site – they double whatever amount you deposit.  So if you are in the U.S. and have never played at Bovada, you can download the software from this link, follow the recommendations I listed, and have a great poker experience.

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