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Where is the 'training' at Advanced Poker Training?
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Thanks for the question.
I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of our site and you also (similar to many people) do not understand how people learn to get better at a skill-based activity. The ability to receive a weekly training plan based off of the identified weaknesses in your game, with specific scenarios to practice, is absolutely poker training. The process of active learning is absolutely training. In fact, we have extensive research to show that this approach works extremely well (https://www.advancedpokertraining.com/poker/research.php). I don't have any idea why you think you can completely separate practice and training as if they aren't closely related, but in poker, you train (learn the skills you need) through practice. The great Doyle Brunson said the same thing in Super System - the only way to train to get better at poker is to play a lot of hands, and usually lose a lot of money in the process. We give you the ability to play a lot of hands, but without actually losing money.
Second, there is no other game anywhere where you can select the hands you play, select the difficulty level of your opponents, the game type, and play at such a fast speed. What we offer is unique and in my opinion the only way to really get better at poker without losing a ton of money at the table.
The purpose of our site is not to provide videos to watch or things to read, although Steve's No-Bull Poker Course (which is a full course only available to members, it is not just a series of short youtube videos) is outstanding and gets rave reviews from our members. As far as watching other people and videos or reading books, there is tons of that already available on the internet and from Amazon. There's just no reason for us to recreate the wheel. Our entire purpose is to provide an AI game where you can get personalized training plans based on identified weaknesses in your games, and the ability to practice to improve at them. Active learning absolutely works well, and much, much better than watching videos of other people playing. Our research shows that in poker, and there is research in almost every field showing the exact same thing. I encourage you to put in the time on the site, and you will definitely see an improvement in your game - much more than you could possibly get from watching videos of other people playing.
Allen
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Slightly patronising there Allen. I do understand practice is essential to learning a skill. Surely there is a theoretical side to a skill as well as a practical side. Both equally important.
Who said anything about separating training and practice? Ideally you need to combine both. Labelling one as the other isn't an adequate substitute. APT has practice in abundance, training not so much.
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Imagine being a driving instructor and deciding not to train people to drive the traditional way since all driving instructors do that. Rather than recreate the wheel I will skip the training, put them in the driving seat and let them practice until they get the hang of it and stop bumping into things. It is the combination of training and practice that accelerates progress.
The benefit of a video or written article is that it can explain and demostrate a theory or technique. The learner gets to see examples in action which gives them a base to work from, thus accelerating progress when they practice.
Steve's No Bull Poker Course are on YouTube, and they are quite short. I didn't say there was anything wrong with them. I agree they are good, Steve does a great job of explaining the topics he covers.
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You do not get a training plan, you get practice drills for particular scenarios.
Admittedly, I haven't put as much time into this site as I intended to. Despite that I have saw an improvement in my game as a result of the sessions I have had. I intend to utilise this site more.
Something I have noticed from this post and a query I submitted recently, is that if you ask about something other than practicing, then APT takes it as if you are against practising completely and only want read or watch a video. No, I want both, there is a greater benefit from both than there is from just one or the other.
To not provide training since it is available elsewhere is the wrong approach. Imagine closing your cleaning company (for example) only because there are other cleaning companies out there that do the same thing. Instead you compete with the other cleaning companies by offering more than what they offer and doing what they do but you do it better.
Don't get me wrong, I like APT and what it does provide. I expected more from a training point of view when I signed up.
Thanks for the followup. I see what you are saying, but I personally think if you try to do everything you become mediocre.
My philosophy is that I would rather be great at one thing than pretty good at two. If we spent time making a bunch of videos, we'd have less time developing better tools to go along with our training game. If Alex Fitzgerald, Splitsuit, Jonathan Little, etc. spent time developing an AI game and all the supporting tools to go with it, their videos and businesses would suffer. I know that Alex, James, Jonathan, etc. are better at what they do than what we could do. So we specialize in being the best at a method that I know scientifically works, and I send my customers to Alex, Red Chip, etc. if they want to watch videos. There just isn't any way we could make a huge quantity of videos that are as good as what Alex Fitzgerald does, and if we paid Alex, Splitsuit, or anyone else to make videos for us full time, there isn't any way we could continue to charge what we do. So we end up having two separate business models of training - ours is active learning, theirs is passive learning, and like you say, both have benefits. There are lots of people who just watch videos and don't want to play our game and lots of people who just use our game and have no desire to watch videos. Some people want both and pay for both.
One other thing is that I'm not sure what type of videos I would want to make even if we did them. The video courses Alex Fitzgerald makes teach an entirely different method of playing poker (playing the player and developing your own style) compared with say Doug Polk (GTO). Both are wildly popular among their students, and I don't think there's much overlap between students. Our game works well for both, but if we had videos, we'd either have to do both or pick a direction, and that wouldn't work for half the people out there. Our students need to be able to choose what types of videos work best for them
I hope you continue to use our site and I appreciate your comments. I always like to think about what we do and how we can do things better. I don't expect we'll ever try to be a video site, but if you have suggestions for things that can make our game better for you, I'm always happy to hear suggestions.
Allen
I have just joined and am very impressed by what you offer, and Allen Blay's genuine and generous explanation of what they are trying to do, which I strongly endorse. But you cant please everyone all the time, keep up the good work Allen & co, it is excellent.