Cardrunners Review

February 17, 2009 by Nick Wealthall

I can remember when the way you learnt how to play poker is you spent a lot of money. It was aversion therapy. I was like everyone else – I made plays at the poker table and lost money because I didn’t know what I was doing. Slowly – because I like money and losing it sucked – I learnt what the right moves were. Since then I’ve used all of the training methods on the market but the biggest leap forward I’ve seen is the advent of online training videos made by top players. Cardrunners is the biggest online poker training site on the internet – but is it for you and how will it help your game?

How does the site work?
The back bone of the site are training videos where you watch some of the biggest winners in the world commentate and analyse their own play. The first time I saw these videos I was sceptical that these players would explain their play in such a detailed way. However, they tell you exactly how they beat the games and how you can too. Next to having one of them in the room, watching their videos is the best level of teaching you’re likely to get. The big difference is where a strategy book can say something like ‘you should play back at an aggressive player’ an online training site will show you a top player actually doing this in real time and explaining their thinking. I’ve found actually seeing lessons in action rather than dry theory on the page far easier to take in.

How will it make me a better player?
Can I shock you for a second – I’m a bit lazy. Often I’m a lot lazy. Sometimes I like to bury my head in a poker book or plough through my playing statistics and analyse them. However a lot of the time I don’t, because of the lazy thing. Cardrunners and the training videos they provide are a far easier and for most people, far better way to learn to play. After all they just need you to watch videos and think about the instructors’ lesson then apply it to your game. You’re getting access to some of the best poker brains on the planet sharing the stuff that makes them big winners so it’s hard to find a video without something new, or a lot new, that you can add to your game. And on top of all that you can get better sitting in a comfy chair and staring at your monitor.

What are the downsides of joining?
This quality of training does come with a cost. I was resistant to joining for a while for this reason. However when I thought about the money I wanted to make in poker I realised the cost was relatively low. Also the cost of one lesson from one of their great line up of pros would be hundreds of dollars. Since I joined I’ve never had any doubt that it was worth the money. It’s also the case that Cardrunners isn’t aimed at very low stakes players and the site assumes some knowledge of the game. However watching the videos will be a jump in your understanding if you are playing at these stakes or even just starting the game.

What do I get?
There’s a huge variety of videos, playing different games at different stakes. It covers tournaments, sit and gos and cash games however I’ve found it strongest for cash game advice. In addition to getting at least one new addition to the huge training video library every day there is a very active forum. You can use this as I do to post hands and get feedback from some of the biggest winners in online poker on your personal hands. You can also follow the activities of the Cardrunners community, use hand history tools to analyse your play and read the blogs of some of the world’s best players and share in their telephone number sized gambling debauchery.

To sum up….
Online training sites are the cutting edge of poker tuition and Cardrunners is a great poker training site. Online poker is made up of two groups of people those that have learnt from online training sites like Cardrunners and those that haven’t. The first group are winning all the money, as someone that plays online poker I can’t help but be really keen that you don’t join them!

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