The Poker Academy Session 1: Preflop PlayA Session By Session Look At The Poker Academy's No-Limit Hold'em Tournament Course |
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Join us as we take a closer look at the 12-session course from the brilliant strategic minds at The Poker Academy. Every two weeks, Card Player will break down the curriculum from poker pro Rick Fuller and two-time WSOP bracelet winner Rep Porter, to detail the positive impact that The Poker Academy can have on your game.
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Session 1 — Preflop Play
Once you’ve made the commitment to bettering your no-limit hold’em tournament poker play, or simply sharpening your skills, you log into the user-friendly course site and begin with the first session, which consists of seven training videos and two question and answer videos.
The site starts you off with an introduction video that explains the methodology of the course and why it differs from other training sites.
“This isn’t going to be your typical no-limit hold’em tournament course where you see us play, and we tell you why we did what we did,” says Fuller. “This also isn’t a course that’s going to be filled with theory and opinions. And most importantly, this isn’t the kind of stylistic course, where you have to decide if the information we’re presenting first your style of play. Rather, we’re going to teach you mathematically based decision making skills, that you’ll be able to implement while you are playing at the table, regardless of your playing style and ability.”
Porter hammers the point home, reiterating that poker is all about making good decisions. If you make better decisions than your opponents, you’re going to have better results in the long run. By the end of the course, there are going to be situations that come up that you didn’t previously recognize as an opportunity for accumulating more chips.
The first strategy video not only thoroughly explains preflop hand ranges by position, stack size, image, action in front of you, but helps the user understand the objectives behind a preflop raise.
“The later you get to act on every street, the more information you have to make your decision, and information is king,” says Porter.
After learning why you raise preflop, the instructors will explain how much to raise and when, and also how to adjust your preflop play based on both your and your opponent’s effective stack size.
If the curriculum becomes overwhelming to a beginning player, Fuller and Porter take care of that with the first of two question and answer videos of the session featuring Dana Workman.
One of the keys to this video is Fuller’s clarification that nothing is absolute. While you have to know that your hand ranges will change over time, the object is trying to add consistency to your game.
Then the session moves onto three-betting ranges and the introduction of the gap concept. The course also teaches you how to combat a three-bet when you’ve raised, how this affects your overall image, and how to adjust based on that perceived image.
“It comes down to two objectives with preflop action,” says Fuller. “We’re trying to win the pot right now, and we’re trying to put ourselves in a position of strength for post flop play. That’s what our raise is designed to do.”
Next time, we’ll take a look at Session 2, An Introduction To Pot Odds.
If you’d like to take your game to the next level, sign up for The Poker Academy today.
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