In a press release distributed this week, poker training sites CardRunners and StoxPoker announced a merger. The move will allow members of each site to take advantage of discounts as well as view several of the other site’s training videos. Each site will retain its own brand and none of the big-name pros will be jumping ship. Perhaps the most significant news to come out of the merger is that StoxPoker will be dropping its $99 sign-up fee, allowing new members to join without any financial barrier to entry. In addition, StoxPoker will offer a 33% discount for twelve month memberships.

Going forward, StoxPoker will be focused on providing instruction on small- and mid-stakes games. CardRunners, meanwhile, will “continue to deliver premier training services for advanced poker players, highlighted by its all-star roster of high-stakes instructors,” according to a press release distributed by the site this week. In addition, CardRunners Gold members will be able to sign up for six months of StoxPoker training for $118 (a savings of 30%) or a full year of StoxPoker for $150 (a savings of 55%). Likewise, StoxPoker members can get 12 months of CardRunners at a significant savings.

CardRunners will release 10 of its videos to StoxPoker members and thirteen StoxPoker videos are now available to CardRunners Gold members. Nick Grudzien, Founder of StoxPoker, commented, “Our merger with CardRunners will deliver more value to our customers and allow our coaches to spend even more time on what they do best - produce well-communicated training content for small- and mid-stakes players in almost all games.” In addition, StoxPoker has signed 11 new coaches. They include Bob MicroBob Rotruck, Sasha Pokey Radisich, Patrick Bilbo-San Minton, Brian baleksa Aleksa, and Jason code 7654321 Ho.

CardRunners was founded by Caby and Andrew muddywater Wiggins. Its roster includes Brian sbrugby Townsend, Brian Stinger885 Hastings, and Eric p3achy_keen Liu. Guest pros include Aaron Been, Ryan Daut, Ian Johns, Isaac Baron, Jason Laso, and Randal Flowers. The company is based in Chicago and offers a $27.99 membership option (with a $99 sign-up fee) that allows you unrestricted access to videos produced by the fleet of CardRunners instructors. All Team CardRunners members are also part of Team Full Tilt, which the training site announced in March.

Caby and Wiggins both graduated from the University of Illinois. Created in 2005, CardRunners is the product of their successful poker careers and savvy business insight. In April, the poker training site hired Lee Jones, former Poker Room Manager at PokerStars, to serve as its Chief Operating Officer. In addition to ensuring the video production operation at CardRunners, Jones is also charged with overseeing its customer service arm. He commented in a press release distributed in April, “I will be looking after our customer support, which is a subject near and dear to my heart. If I learned one thing at PokerStars, it was that if you take good care of your customers and make them wildly happy, everything else will fall into place.”

Finally, a free 24 hour trial of CardRunners is now available for any players who haven’t experienced one of the premier poker training sites. Just text “cardrunners” to 32075. You’ll receive an entry code and instructions to redeem your free one day trial.

Visit the Free Poker Training section of PocketFives.com to learn how to get six months of StoxPoker at no cost. You can also check out the Training Sites Forum to read what others are saying about this breaking news.