Poker Articles

Should top players take time out of their day to offer up their secrets to the general public? No matter what they charge, are they giving up expected value by training their present and future competition? Pocketfives just released a new promotion that offers the community the chance to earn up to a year in free membership at a training site simply by signing up for a new poker room through our links. It seems like a good idea to consider these questions carefully before we introduce a whole new class of poker students to the tools the trainings sites have to offer.

In the interest of full disclosure, it is true that the poker training sites make up the second largest advertising group on Pocketfives after the poker rooms themselves. We do have an interest in promoting these sites, but we are just as discriminating in promoting training sites as we are for poker sites. We strive to put only the best options in front of the Pocketfives community. You won’t see Pocketfives endorse flybynightpoker.com or teachpokergood.net.

I don’t think anyone really questions whether Cardrunners or RealPokerTraining produce a quality product, so let’s return to the original question: are poker training sites good for the industry? Most poker pros will be the first to tell you not to “tap the glass” when it comes to educating the fish at the poker table, so what makes a training site any different? An important difference between berating a player at the table and offering the same player advice away from the table is one makes the player feel unwelcome, while the other keeps the player coming back for more. 

The poker economy depends on constant fresh injections of new money to survive. It is the nature of the game that most of this money comes from losing players, since the winners are usually cashing out rather than depositing. Online poker in particular is fed by millions of small deposits that trickle up the food chain. Of course there is the occasional big money player who contributes large sums on a regular basis, but that money is already at the top of the pyramid and often ends up quickly in the bank account of some poker pro. It is every cardshark’s dream to land one of these “whales”, but without a steady diet of minnows, even the best player will starve.

So, what keeps losing players coming back? First of all, poker is fun. It is a game that can get your heart racing and offers a rush that can be all too addictive for some, but the reality of people playing poker with money they shouldn’t be is a problem for another article. Let’s assume that all new money is good money. Online poker provides millions of people who otherwise may never have stepped into a casino the chance to play. The major difference between online and the live game is that most people go to the casino with money they intend to lose.

Let’s think about that for a minute. When the average Joe steps into the casino, he is looking to have a good time and whether he is packing $200 or $2,000 he is prepared to walk out with just enough to get home. For the most part this money ends up in the belly of a slot machine or in the Casino’s hands from table games. For the poker pro, nothing is better than when that average Joe sits down at a poker table. Why? Because he just sat down with money he INTENDS to lose! There is no more +EV situation, and most tables in a live poker room are filled with players exactly like that. That’s what makes live poker so profitable.

Online poker is a different beast altogether. In order to play online for real money a player must go through several steps. They must verify their identity, deposit a fixed sum straight from their bank account and they usually have to do all of these things without a single drink in their system. Televised poker draws in millions who see someone make a big bluff on TV and think to themselves, “I can do that!” These players make deposits online because they think they can beat the game. However, most will very likely give up after one or two deposits if they think it’s just a crapshoot.

Those who do keep coming back do so for the same reason they sat down in the first place, because they think they can beat the game. Poker is a game of skill and it thrives on the bravado that any game of skill engenders. The more people who buy into the skill-game aspect the healthier the poker economy becomes. The occasional recreational player who donates a chunk of change is a nice boost, but the steady stream of deposits coming from those who think they are the next Phil Ivey or Gus Hansen are what really makes the machine turn. So, why do these players think they can beat the game? Because they can!

The beauty of poker is that anyone with enough patience, dedication and discipline can become a winning player. The somewhat hidden truth however is that the vast majority of people don’t possess the patience, the dedication and certainly not the discipline to do so. The few who do are very likely to buy poker books, sign up for poker lessons, study the play of others, use diagnostic tools like poker tracker, participate in poker discussion on online forums and with their friends, basically take every opportunity to learn the game and improve their play. The fact of the matter is, for every one player like that, there are a thousand who think they can figure it all out on their own, and continue to donate. 

Online poker training sites are a very new development, but poker educational tools have been around for decades. When Doyle Brunson released supersytem, there was an outcry from the rounders and grinders that he was “giving away the store” by putting his and other top player’s strategies into print. They should have been thanking him and singing his praises, because the success of Supersytem and other poker books probably brought more new money into the game than any number of wealthy tourists could.

In the world of online poker PokerXfactor doesn’t necessarily bring in new money, but it does advance the perception that poker is a game of skill and that is good for the game and good for your bottom line if you are a winning player. Sure, if every player who played online signed up for a training site it would probably hurt the top players in the short run since the average poker IQ would jump quite a bit over a short period of time, but the best players would still come out on top.

I think the main complaint from some poker pros who learned the game on their own is that training sites and other tools shorten the learning curve to the point where a talented and dedicated player can go from a micro-donk to competing at mid and high stakes in a matter of months. The game is constantly changing and evolving and no one strategy will ever last long enough to cause the upward flow of money to stop and the poker economy to become stagnant. As apestyles told me in a recent interview, “At least three or four times a day I will send a friend of mine a hand history where I am gifted a huge pot and I joke, ‘yeah the game is getting so much tougher’. The game is totally beatable.”

I am reminded of a conversation I had with Annie Duke last year in Aruba after she finished a seminar. I complemented her on her clarity of thought and the level of advice she had given out so freely. Her response was that education is the winning poker player’s best friend because it brings more people to the game. More people equals more money in circulation and that means more cash up for grabs for those with a positive expectation. True at any given table, or in any given tournament you may face an opponent or opponents who are tougher because they learned from the best, but you will also face hundreds more who think they already are the best as they hand over their chips to you.

Online poker training sites have raised the bar in terms of poker education, and they have undoubtedly raised the standard of play, but they are no threat to the profitability of poker for the top players. Poker training sites are great tools for the player who aspires to raise his or her game and now even the smallest stakes player has the opportunity to cash in on the opportunity for free. Just sign up for a new poker room through the links provided and you can be on your way to becoming a winning player, or to taking your game to the next level.

Good luck!