Hi all,

I've been playing regularly for about a year and a half and have improved quite a bit in tournaments and cash games. But I feel like I am beginning to plateau.

Are Doug Polk's online courses a worthwhile investment considering cost and alternatives like coaches? I have read most of the poker books out there including The Grinders Manual.

Thanks,
DT

Well if you've read most poker books and still can't win, then Polk's material isn't going to help you.

I've not purchased any of Polk's material, but I can't imagine he offers any groundbreaking information that you can't get for free elsewhere.

I didn’t say I wasn’t winning. I said I’d reached a plateau. I win.

If you're already winning, that means you already have good solid preflop and postflop strategy.

Maybe you need to study the regs in your game and try to exploit their weaknesses.

Also, the reason you may have plateaud is you don't work on your weaknesses. Because it's impossible not to improve any part of your game.

I don't know if Doug Polk's courses or any other training materials is the solution, but maybe you can hire a solid winning coach.

buying Doug Polk courses? the same guy who resigned the 100 dollar bankroll challenge?

And the same guy who is notorius for donking off and playing bad at live at the bike???

Are you even seriouos??

Can we quit with the negative stuff and trolling in this thread, please? If you haven't seen/bought Doug's stuff, and can't answer OP's question, you probably should just keep quiet.

I doubt there are many people in BQ that have bought (expensive) courses from Doug, but their reviews would be welcome if they have.
FWIW, I got the "post flop engine" one ages ago when it was new and on special offer. I thought it was a decent introduction to pseudo GTO play. I can't speak about the bigger or more expensive courses as I've not tried them. Some have been reviewed in the books/publications sub-forum. I think the general consensus was that the Heads Up Mastery course is excellent, and Pratyush's tourney stuff was good, but the Educapoker one for high stakes 6-max didn't meet (the sky high) expectations, although I think the content of it is being tweaked.
Just personally speaking, I think it's possible to find much cheaper (or indeed free) content (including on Upswing itself) that makes more sense for low level players. Courses and coaches are more aimed at pros and semi-pros. Just subscribe to Upswing's email newsletter and read all the free articles they send you, imo.

Good advice. I concur.

The MTT is not, as a thought experiment I'd buck up and go to the full RYE course before I purchased the MTT course again because it's just so meh. Personally though I would get the RYE 699 course in a heartbeat over the Upswing one.

The lab wasn't great either.

Don't know about the other courses, but I def want the HU and libratus one myself.

It's amazing how well Doug has done. I'm really impressed by what he has been able to accomplish, getting his name 'known'. His name is ALL OVER this forum and all over all my social media (I voluntarily follow him, because, he's entertaining and pretty informative). He's definitely built an evil empire.

I think Doug Polk is a great player who is a good instructor but his you tube videos for his hand break downs are good but not worth paying for, there are better guys out there to spend your money on and not have to listen to all his result oriented dribble and his endless trolling everyone who ever beat his bluffs

I don't think anyone is paying to watch his hand breakdowns on youtube mate

You are right that no one pays to watch his youtube site, he uses that to advertise and sell his site and give you samples of what to expect.
I get tired of his consent trolling of other blogs. Like Alec Torelli who IMHO is a better hand reader and player. I know all the small minded people will say Doug won the One Drop last year and Alec has never won. Well using that philosophy then Jerry Yang and Jamie Gold are better then them both. Which we all know is not the case. I also think Doug is a bit to result oriented, He is great on Monday Morning telling everyone what the Patriots should have done. .

Alec Torelli is nowhere near as good a player (technically) as Doug. He might have some live stuff and mtt stuff Doug doesn't, but in terms of playing cash or online Doug far surpasses Alec.

As someone who's seen some of the (non-lab, expensive) private content...no, it's really not at all like his youtube hand breakdowns. Please stop spreading misinformation here.

Good to see you back on here Anglin Alec, try and be a bit more subtle next time though, i.e "Alec Torelli is underrated" and not something as blatantly ridiculous as Alec being better at anything but anglin.

I dunno, I watched Doug bet half pot into a rainbow flop with an over pair into a multiway. If this doesn’t immediate spell red flag that’s okay I’m sure you’ll eventually pickup on other more noticable things

The cheap upswing courses, probably worth it if you are playing micros/livepoker.

Educa course, **** no.

I watched him play a few hands during his bankroll challenge and during the course of it I saw him c-bet pocket jacks (overpair) on a rainbow dry board. But the thing is he bet half the pot into 4 players who were all pretty deep. I had to turn it off as soon as I saw that.

**** can you please elaborate anywhere? Why is educa course so bad?

EDIT: I know people complained about the accent, is it just that or actual content as well?

Lots of people have said the educa content just isn't at the level it should be. Haven't heard if they're actually following through on their promise to update and expand the course.

content is basically nonexistent, its not concrete enough for lowstakes player to learn anything and not advanced enough for good/medium player to learn anything. Most ppl were expecting some sort of exploit plays which is how he plays, but then the course is basically him saying ok pio does this so do this. And then he contradicts himselfs many times like saying, ok usually i use one betsize in a spot, but then we see him basically clicking the exact size for his hand in handreviews.

I signed up for an annual pass for the lab last Thanksgiving, when he was running a 25% off sale. I would recommend it, I had stopped playing ~5 years ago, and the lab helped me get back to where I was and probably even better than what i was around black Friday. However, some of the modules are laid out in a funky way (Which I think is probably mostly some of the older modules, and Doug and Ryan was still figuring out how to do things). For example, a module on Flush Draws, Ryan will just select all the flush draw hands from a user's hand histories and talk about how they played it. Making up rules on how to play flush draws as he goes. I learned a lot from it, but I think it could probably be organized better.

There's a thread about the Educapoker course here: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/3...views-1704804/

It's apparently so lacking in scope or quality that some people asked for - and received - refunds.