I shoved on every single c/r semi-bluff during my run through that challenge. And having to 3-bet preflop without an A or PP was usually a huge overbet too. Some stuff I've done for the challenges are kind of embarrasing.

Finished the "5 common holdem leaks" one in a single 500 hands session today .
One strange thing i noticed, the now finished challenge shows this:

Available Credits: 300 Tasks Completed: 5 of 5
Credits Earned: 191 Credits Remaining: 109

Seems like it takes some time before the final points are credited?

As the kids say... QFT.

I advise most of you to just let these things happen organically. Don't do this. ...but I'm guilty of the same. If the challenge calls for me to check-raise insta-win, it's going to be the overbet of the century
This is common. Generally it's another 5-10 minutes after your status looks like that -- sometimes longer -- and rarely it'll get stuck there. If it's there for more than an hour, be sad. If it's there for a day, start emailing.

PRAISE JEBUS, the Hold'em shutout is over!

Bluffing in PLO (and just "play" some PLO challenges)

• Play 5 real money pot limit Omaha (PLO) cash game sessions each 40 minutes or more.
• Win two 9-player PLO single-table S&Gs.
• Cash in a PLO MTT or MT S&G that started with 18 players or more.
• Cash twice in a row in single-table PLO S&Gs.
• The Pro Play - Earn a profit in a two PLO session where the session lasts 90 minutes or more.

Finally one I'm going to actually ENJOY playing.

Edited to add: Of course that means 10 more to play, so...

I dug this challenge except for the 3rd task. It's not that it's hard to do, there just aren't enough PLO 18 players SnG's running to get it done fast. In most of the challenges involving SnG's, I could open up 5 or 6 and go nuts to get it all done. Can't really do that with this one. It used to be 27+ players needed for the 3rd task. I'm so glad they changed it. I begged a few times for that. Aside from MTT's, only the super turbos have that many people. And I bubbled in 4 of them. The rest was great. I was up 9 buyins in less then 500 hands the first time through.

I'm at 37,401 points now and am hoping to be at 40k by the end of next week. I haven't decided if I'm going to snag 8 $26 tokens or wait till I hit 50k and get then 10 I wanted to get originally. Getting that last 10k is going to be harsh. I'd have to finish the last 5 Lindgen's and last 3 Hansen's and I don't really want to put myself through that torture right now.

I'm going to hoard my points (which you're ahead of me on, as I'm still (a) going slowly, and (b) avoiding Lindgens)

Of course, we get ANOTHER new challenge today:

Game Selection:

• Play 5 real money Sit & Go or Multi-table scheduled tournaments.
• Play 3 real money, fixed limit Hold'em ring game sessions where your total bankroll is at least 500 times the big blind. You must be dealt into 40 hands or more for a session to qualify.
• In a 7- to 9-handed NL Hold’em cash game, fold A-J, A-10, K-J or a pocket pair 8-8 or lower from early position (at least 4 spots right of the button). Repeat twice.
• In a 5- or 6-handed NL Hold’em ring game, raise with A-J, A-10, K-J, 8-8, 7-7, or 6-6 from early position (at least 2 spots right of the button). Repeat twice.
• The Pro Play - Complete the poker trifecta by making the money in both a SnG and a scheduled MTT as well as leaving a NL Hold'em ring game with a profit after 75 hands of play - all within 24 hours.

The "strategy" for the Pro Play, of course, is to cash in an MTT, and then set about doing the other two "easy" items.

And, FIXED LIMIT ISN'T DEAD!

Thanks this is really helpful

Great Thread Parlimax - I hope to get started on a few Academy Challenges soon. However, asI am a cash game player, I would prefer to do the cash based challenges first. When I select the Cash Game Challenges link, though, I get a lot of challenges which are for SNG or MTT.

For example, Gus Hanson's session was a NL100 cash game, but his challenge is SNG and MTT focused - this comes up as a cash game challenge, which it obviously isn't.

Are there any purely cash challenges as the selector/filter doesn't seem to work?

Thanks

I don't think the filter works, but there are quite a few cash game challenges. There are 7 active right now that are actual challenges, and 1 that's a "Guide To".

Yeah, they seem to be fiddling with the website every day. Just add every challenge and then pick and toggle between the ones you want.

I'm doing the "Pre Flop Play" challenge. One of the tasks says to raise a pot to 2.5 times the BB with certain hands...The problem is: I typically play .10/.25 NL. Is there any way to raise to 2.5x...

.25 x 2.5 = 62.5...Can you raise to .63 prefop and have it count? Anyone have any idea? Obviously, I can change limits to address this issue...but...I'm wondering if I can stay at the .10/.25 and complete this part of the task...

Any suggestions?

Search the FT forums, you are allowed a range--I think it is 2.3-2.7x so something close will work.

So far for the medium stack play I've found the 0.50 rebuy gives you lots of time in the proper range with plenty of aggros before you.

Those rebuys were the key reason I was able to knock out a lot of the MTT challenges that involved any all ins or needing bad plays. Didn't start doing them till about 1/2 way through, but it went really well after that.

Where do I find the freerolls that you qualify for by doing the sit-n-learns?

I qualified for (I think) 4 last month, but I never saw them or where to register or anything? Where was I supposed to find them?

this is tilting me, it happens every time i take this challenge

this is the eziest chalange of em all

Hi all,

The nice folks at the Full Tilt Poker Academy asked me to find some people who have expressed interest in the Academy and ask them a few questions. They're thinking of offering more material for more advanced players, and they'd like to include your opinions in the process.

So, if you're interested, please post here with your feedback, thoughts and opinions in the following areas:

1. Challenges are a big part of the experience we offer at the Full Tilt Academy. What improvements would you like to see to the challenges?

2. Do you find the Academy Challenges to be too easy or too difficult?

3. If you could pick 3 pros from the Full Tilt roster to hear more from, who would it be?

4. What topics should the Academy cover in the future? What areas of poker education do you feel the Academy is lacking in?

5. What are your thoughts on the Academy website? Do you find it easy to get to the content you want? If not, how do you think it could be improved?

Thanks!

Hi Doug

Please find my responses to your questions:

1) Could you separate the challenges for cash games and tournaments and both? Some people are pure cash gamers, some are purely SnG and MTT focused and some like both formats, so I think it would be good to separate these.

For example, Gus Hansens challenge was focused on Gus playing a cash game - however, when you load up the challenge it focuses on SnG and MMT. So I think it would be good to have the tutorial videos, in most cases, in line with the challenge format.

2) Haven't attempted enough yet to really comment. However, from my perspective, the challenges seem well balanced - some are very hard, others are simple enough and the points scores reflect this.

3) Antonius, Hansen and, now that you have Tom Dwan on the Team, it would be good to see him demonstrate his Loose Aggressive style.

4) Once again, haven't really attempted enough challenges yet to really comment.

5) I like the website, seems intuitive and easy to navigate. There is a slight issue with the filters where if you filter by cash game challenges some SnG and MTT challenges are shown.

Thanks

James

Hi Doug,
Some of my thoughts:

1. More of them, I guess, on a wider range of topics. Look at COTW in the microNL forum for topics, though I really don't want to educate too many fish .

Yes. For me, the challenges were mostly either way too easy or way too difficult (Play 40 hands? No prob. Fold AJ UTG? Easy. Increase bankroll by 25%? Yow! If I could do this quickly, I wouldn't need the Academy) I multi-table, so I think that makes it easier in general to complete them, of course.

This is a personal choice, I don't really follow the pros that closely to care.


The website is really nice-looking, but I have a hard time figuring out what's going on. So a lesson is, uh... and a session is?...hmmm. And then there are challenges. And they are connected how? Now how many times have I completed this challenge? Oh, and here's a sit-n-learn, is it part of a lesson or a session or a challenge, or what?
I've watched several videos and thought I'd completed several lessons, but my transcript says I haven't even completed one yet.
The video sit-n-learns are way too easy. Too many people get them all right. Maybe a couple more questions per topic?

Just some quick thoughts.

Tiltn

The Academy has video lessons, challenges, and sit-n-learn quizzes, and it assumes that they all go together, when in fact some lessons don't have quizzes, and some lessons don't have challenges.

The first lesson I watched was (I think) Howard Lederer's intro to NL, which has a challenge, but not a quiz. And the video is simple enough it probably shouldn't have a quiz. However the page still has a quiz slot and if you click on it it gives you the quiz on Jennifer Harmon's guide to sizing up live opponents. Not exactly what I was expecting, and I wasn't able to take that quiz when I actually did watch her video.

There was text around the sit-n-learn that said something about Jennifer but I think it could have been more clear. Not to mention that if you do decide you need to have a quiz there, I'm not sure the Jennifer Harmon one would be my first (or second, or third...) choice. For that matter she does have a challenge and I'm not sure what it has to do with her video (or could have, for that matter since you can't see any of the things she talks about online).

It's not a big deal (I missed out on one freeroll that I may not have played anyway) but it annoyed me at the time, and it was my first exposure to the academy (I would guess most people start with the intro lessons).

---

I'm not sure I find the challenges too hard, but a few items seem a bit tedious. Maybe that's not the right word, since they just require me to play poker and that's why I'm at FT, but some of them require me to find relatively rare situations and have my opponents also act the right way at the right time. E.g. Phil Gordon's leaks challenge requires me to open-fold a suited ace-rag five times. First I have to get dealt the A2s-A9s hand not in the blinds (2%), and probably in the first few spots to avoid having my challenge point ruined by someone coming in ahead of me (depending on how loose the table is). I would guess that this happens about once every hundred hands, so on average it takes 500 hands to complete, which is less that the 500 non-blind hands required by Chris Ferguson's preflop challenge. However the Ferguson challenge is totally under my control, and I can measure my progress whereas the suited aces challenge finds me waiting and waiting to get dealt that A3s, and when it finally comes someone decides to limp under the gun with 22, and I have to wait again. It just gets frustrating waiting for something rare and out of my control, compared to something like the pro part of the same challenge which requires me to win over a session while avoiding big losses. Yes, that sometimes takes a long time, too, since every time I get allin with the lead and get sucked out on I need to start over. However, I have more control, and since I'm already frustrated in that situation by losing my stack, losing challenge credit isn't that big of an issue. (I guess if the challenge was really really really important to me I could just fold my aces preflop...) (On the other hand, the same challenge asks me to win a pot with a continuation bet just one time, something that usually happens in my first few hands at the table. Why can't I do that one five times instead...)

I realize the academy is giving out free stuff, and you don't want all the challenges to be over in a dozen hands, but some of the challenge entries seem very challenging, even requiring some poker skills-- and some just seem like playing bingo, waiting for my numbers to hit. Not sure what I would change, but maybe if the Pro item was always the hardest item to accomplish in a challenge it would feel more right.

---

And just noticing someone else's comment before posting, it would be nice if my academy transcript knew how many times I had completed each challenge. Also which sit-n-learns I have done before (maybe even with my score). If you complete a challenge 10 times, and try to do an 11th, the same window just keeps coming up. Yes, I can figure out what the problem is, but a more helpful message would be nice: "Congratulations on completing the Intro to NL challenge 10 times, now pick something else". Also if you try to take a sit-n-learn quiz a second time, it grades every answer as wrong. I realize you only want to allow someone to get on the leaderboard and qualify for a freeroll once, but it would be nice to give someone the option of taking the quiz a second time, warning you that you have already taken it before and your score won't count, but then giving an actual score with positive feedback on correct answers, just not putting you on the leaderboard. (I went back to take the Harmon quiz mentioned above after actually watching the video, and found this very confusing-- e.g. I pick A, and it says, "No, the correct answer was A".)

BTW, I hadn't played at FT for at least two years, and recently saw a mention of the academy and decided to check it out. I've been playing every day for the last month, so you must be doing something right for me at least.

The only improvement I can think of is figuring out a way to add other games to challenges. I know the coding isn't capable of it yet, but there should be a rush on that. Right now, it can still track "X minute" sessions and "winning" sessions from other games, so start with that.

So far, I've done 126 challenges and have 6 that I've only got 1 or 2 tasks left to do. And I'm getting bored of these. I'm probably one of maybe 4 or 5 who have done this many, but at some point, others will obviously get this far.

Everything else in the Academy is fine. Everything is covered and there's enough to keep everyone busy.

quick question...

there's a challenge where u have to get your stack to 3x the maximum buyin in a ring game. Does this mean you have to get 600bb at a deep table since the max buyin is 200bb? Or does the code not account for this?

Is that Froelich's? I'm pretty sure thats the case with that one.

1. I'd like to be able to repeat challenges more than 10 times. I found that while completing some of them that I was playing a lot better and was getting into a groove. They were forcing me to make good plays I normally wouldn't even attempt. But once I'd completed the 10th run-through, I fell back into to my old habits. I don't think 10 revolutions is enough. Maybe 100 to make them second-nature. Also, when I was working on some of the challenges I was playing a lot more than I do now, so I think it was profitable for FTP as well.
2. Some of the challenges are very easy, as they should be because there's a lot of beginners playing them, but some are nearly impossible for players like me. "Increase your Full Tilt bankroll by 25 percent" is a good example. I'm a micro player, but have accumulated a four-figure bankroll over a long period of time. Since I rarely play tournaments -- I'm mostly a cash game and SNG player -- the only way I could accomplish this would be to withdraw most of my bankroll, which I don't want to do for the sake of this goal. Even a 10 percent jump would be very tough for me to do. I'm stuck on that challenge and probably always will be.
3. You have the best poker player in the world on your site -- Phil Ivey -- so please use him much, much more. I'd also like to see more from Alan Cunningham and Chris Ferguson, whose videos so far have been good for me as a micro player. They explain basic concepts in a very simple and understandable way and that's a big help for establishing the basics.
4. I enjoy, but rarely win at, pot-limit 08. With all due respect to Kristy Gazes, I would like to see a training session and challenge on this game that will help me understand it better. Her video was mostly, "Well, you shouldn't raise in this spot, but it's only a buck and I like to gamble, so I'll go and do it. It's fun!" Surely there's someone on your team that's strong enough to help out the PL08 novices and give them a challenge. These games seem to be dying lately and could use some new blood. Mike Matusow's name comes to mind.
5. I never remember which challenges are which, and it's a little clunky having to change my current challenge just to remind me what's in them. I've been a professional editor (newspapers, magazines and books) for many years and find the wording of some of the challenges are a little vague and confusing and often have to read them more than once to understand what I'm up against.
I also have trouble navigating the Academy site, especially trying to find which Sit and Learn sessions I've completed. I'd like to see that displayed on my home page a little more clearly.
Also, I occasionally click on a certain challenge or lesson and get taken to an altogether different one. That's a frustrating glitch.
Overall, I love the Academy and find that it makes me play more and play more different games. I might even give more tournaments a try if the challenges are a little easier, cleared and geared toward the beginner.
I think that last point is important. The beginner gains much more from the Academy than the veteran, in my opinion, so you should really keep that in mind.
When I've had time to play in the Academy freerolls I've really enjoyed them. Please keep them going.

BTW, if there is actually someone from FT reading this now, did the Academy freerolls for October qualifiers happen this month?

I qualified for a few, but never saw them in the tournament lobby, either to register or as completed. I did see completed ones from October, so I know they should show up.

Last month is the first time I tried these, so I don't know exactly how it's supposed to work, but it would be nice to have some kind of acknowledgement. Something like an email saying "Congratulations on placing in the top 1000 in Chris Ferguson's PreFlop Play Sit'n'Learn for October, be sure to sign up for the freeroll at 3:30 pm EST on Nov 17th". If I should have gotten something like this I never saw it. When I saw the completed freerolls from October in the lobby, it looked like they had only about 150 entrants, so perhaps a lot of other players also didn't know how to find the tournaments to sign up.