Get Beyond The Limits Of Passive Learning With Advanced Poker Training

Think about the last time you read a book chapter. Imagine the next day you were asked to recall as many of details as you could. What percentage of important elements do you think you would have forgotten? 10 percent? 30 percent? 50 percent? Now how about the last movie you watched? If a week later you were quizzed on character names, locations, and other aspects of the movie, how many would times do you think your response would be “I don’t know,” or “I’m not sure?”

When the developers of Advanced Poker Training created their training tools, they were aware of the limitations of passive learning. Reading poker books, watching training videos, and taking quizzes all have their place in enhancing a poker player’s learning curve, but they also have marked limitations. Research across many disciplines shows that the retention rate from passively reading or viewing material is quite low long-term. In fact, these methods do not even ensure that the initial learning was encoded correctly.

Poker is a complex game and deep practice of new knowledge is necessary in order to see improvement. Subtle differences among hand situations significantly impact decision-making. How you should play A-K offsuit when you missed the flop differs vastly in different situations.

For example, whether you are 1) in position against a single, tight player versus 2) out-of-position in a multi-way pot with loose aggressive players. If you have not trained specifically on these nuances, and solidly ensconced the baseline correct play in your repertoire, you are going to make a lot of costly mistakes.

APT’s unique technology offers a variety of tools that allow for the kind of active engagement which facilitates maximal learning. The site’s game simulator allows you not only to play your preferred no-limit hold’em game (9-Max, 6-Max, Sit-n-Go, Heads Up, and Multi-Table Tournament) but also to adjust the settings for different stakes, game strength, and the level of aggressiveness of other players. Most critically, you can play up to 500 hands per hour in the simulator, providing the kind of high volume practice not found elsewhere.

While playing on APT, you can explore hand strategy by using advisor feedback. Not only will advisors give you their take on what actions you should take, the specific factors they consider in offering that advice can be found by selecting the Brain button. Here you will see information about other hands of similar categorization (and thus played similarly), pot odds, stack-to-pot ratio, the mix of players yet to act, and the player type of the last player to raise in front of you (if there was one). Rather that reading about how all these factors affect your decision in the abstract, you can see these laid out as you play the hand on each street.

Advanced Poker Training tools underscore why good poker training goes well beyond how individual hands should be played. Your poker game is composed of many elements (e.g. what you opening range is, how three-bets are dealt with, continuation-bet ratios, multi-street bluffs, betting for value on the river, etc.) When you encounter a specific hand situation in live play, you must have a strong set of ingrained approaches to correctly play the hand. APT provides this type of detailed training.

You can set the simulator to practice specific hands, or hand types, from specific positions and against a range of player types. APT’s Combat Trainer has pre-programmed scenarios for preflop, flop, turn, and river action in both cash and tournament play. The Combat Trainer also offers specific scenarios such as facing a three-bet in six-handed cash game from an aggressive player on the button to getting maximum value from flopping a set in full ring game to how to play short stacked when on the tournament bubble.

Beat the Pro Challenges allow for both access to professional insight and active learning. You can choose from over 30 scenarios created by twelve different poker pros including Alex Fitzgerald, David Williams, and Jonathan Little. First watch a brief video of the poker pro laying out the critical aspects of the challenge and providing a framework for your approach. Then play 20 hands in that scenario.

At the completion of those hands, you learn your profit vs. the pro and other APT members. Next, watch each hand as it was played by the pro with commentary on why he took the actions he did. Finally, you can retake the challenge as many times as you wish, refining your approach and seeing where the greatest opportunity for profits are.

In addition to all these tools, Advanced Poker Training provides reports on your overall performance across time and for all hands and critical skills. You can see specifically your profitability compared with average and strong players, and thus focus on the hands, positions, or situations that are your greatest leaks. Weekly Training Plans arrive to you with specific areas of weakness revealed in the past week of play, and programmed exercises that allow you to focus on those weaknesses.

APT understands that passive learning is not the way to train for poker. Instead, it enables you to be an active participant in your poker evolution.

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