This was from an article I wrote about PokerSchoolOnline.
Training for the World Series of Poker in Your Underwear
You caught the poker bug. You have your TiVo programmed for every showing of Travel Channel’s World Poker Tour and ESPN’s reruns of the World Series of Poker. You can quote from the movie “Rounders.†A poker night out with buddies no longer includes wild card follies like “Follow the Queen.†You have developed a taste for pure unadulterated Texas Hold’em, the game of champions. You harbor a dream that, one day, you will hear the World Series of Poker mantra, “shuffle up and deal,†from your $10,000 seat at the table. You are not alone.
In the not too distant past, transforming your dream into a reality would be costly and time consuming. Becoming a proficient poker tournament player meant spending years flying to major tournaments to garner valuable time on the felt, each experience accompanied by an entry fee ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars. But thanks to the foresight and vision of Mark and Tina Napolitano, thousands of aspiring poker players from around the world are honing their tournament skills under the tutelage of experts and pros for less than it would cost them in cocktail waitress tips. And they’re doing it in their underwear…or so many of them claim.
PokerSchoolOnline.com (PSO) is an online poker training site that caters to a wide range of player skills and needs; from the beginner looking to acquire basic skills, to the experienced semi-professional seeking to test and develop new strategies. It offers its members the ability to play online poker tournaments, satellites, and sit ‘n’ gos, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Members compete for monthly and quarterly sponsorship dollars, redeemable for major brick and mortar tournament entry fees. There are forums where members exchange ideas with each other or solicit the advice of well-known pros and experts like Jennifer Harman and Daniel Negreanu. Once a month, members get the opportunity to play with experts like Barry Tanenbaum, Rolf Slotboom and John Vorhaus while discussing and analyzing the play via chat and internet radiobroadcast. And then there are the online classrooms, designed by people like pro/author Bob Ciaffone, internet pro Mathew Hilger, author Lou Krieger, and many more.
As an occasional contributor to PSO, I realize I may have an obvious bias. But PSO’s offerings have also gotten the unofficial endorsement of some notable players. Clonie Gowen, the dazzling Dallas pro and winner of the World Poker Tour’s Ladies Night Invitational, says she has recommended PSO to her friends who are looking to start out in poker. Perry Friedman, WSOP Omaha/8 bracelet winner, did a short stint at PokerSchool to sharpen his Hold’em skills and claims that he started making more money in Hold’em because of it.
And as far as PSO’s ability to fulfill dreams perhaps there is no one better to ask than Sweden’s Mattias Andersson. Matts (or pokermats as his online schoolmates know him), a PSO member since March 2002, walked away with an 8th place finish and $575,000 in this year’s World Series of Poker Championship Event, which seated a record field of 2576 starting players. While he wasn’t the only PSO member to make the money in poker’s big dance this year, he will most likely be the one that ESPN viewers remember. During his stint at ESPN’s feature table on day four of the final event, pokermats crippled former world champion Robert Varkonyi, busted pro Dewey Tomko on the bubble, and sent World Poker Tour champion Gus Hansen to the rail to become a contender for the day’s chip lead. Day five of the final event again finds him at ESPN’s feature table, sandwiched in between world champions Dan Harrington and Chris Ferguson, or the proverbial rock and a hard place. Over the years, Chris Ferguson has gained the nickname Jesus, due to his long hair, gentle demeanor and calm, unnerving stare. PSOers joked that pokermats must have thought he was God, with Jesus on his right hand side and having made it this far in poker’s most prestigious tournament. But pokermats could produce few miracles against the former champions, except, of course, the miracle of surviving day five. Day six goes better for Matts, doubling up in the first hour, unseating champion Chris Ferguson, and holding on for dear life to make the final table. Matts’ final table all-in bet with AdKs looked good against Greg Raymer’s AsTd, until a straight materialized on the river for Raymer, leaving Matts to reflect on his wild ride.
While some may question Matts’ maturity and decorum at times, I suspect most viewers will identify with what this experience truly represented to the quirky, unemployed 24 year-old kid, who had played only two other major tournaments in his life; a dream come true. Or perhaps Matts’ internet post to his PSO buddies just after making the final table says it all, “ I can’t believe this is true. I’m so freaking happy!!â€
Pokermats was joined by six other PSOers playing the final event; Alex Dadoyan, John Dobbs, Desmond Portano, Mike Fillat, Glenn Fair, and Gary Ward. Both Portano and Fillat also scored in the money for the event, claiming the 44th and 198th spots respectively. And while the PSOers all gained their $10,000 entry fee through qualifying competitions at different online poker sites, they all agree that PSO provided them with the skills to get them there. PSO is sure to gain some notoriety for its members’ performance in this year’s World Series of Poker, putting over 40 percent of its starting members in the money, but PSOers have been scoring money finishes in major poker tournaments since its inception.
When you’re a member of PSO, you are never alone in your quest for a victory on the felt, as this year’s World Series of Poker contenders learned. Hundreds of PSOers around the world stayed glued to the internet, tracking their schoolmates’ progress – sending them words of encouragement, monitoring their chip count, watching internet interviews, and feeling their pain when a bad beat sent them to the rail. Poker is known as a brutally competitive and individual sport. In contrast, PSO is an incredibly supportive and social community.
In the throes of competition, in the school’s public forums and in private messages, PSOers exchange words of encouragement, share experiences, debate strategies and offer advice to their online adversaries. Comradery on the virtual felt has transcended onto “live†felt as PSOers use almost every major tournament as an excuse to meet each other, face to face, across a real table. The annual PSO convention, held during the World Poker Open, is widely attended by members from all over the world. While the convention sports educational seminars, special tournaments, and lots and lots of serious poker, socializing never takes a back seat. There is little sleep and a plethora of alcohol consumption – which in one case resulted in a pair of PSOers waking up one morning in each other’s arms, leaving them to wonder which one of them would run screaming for the door first.
The PSO community has also found life beyond poker. When member DJExpress was diagnosed with cancer, PSOers held a benefit golf tournament at their annual convention. When Gem56 was hospitalized with a life threatening respiratory ailment, a PSOer sent her a laptop computer for her to use in the hospital so she could stay in touch with her poker community. PSOers have donated school memberships to fellow schoolmates who have fallen on difficult financial times, many times anonymously. When a distraught member posted about discovering his daughter had cerebral palsy, another member posted about his own parents’ fears when he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, how they overcame it as a family and about the rich life he now enjoys. And of course there are the marriages. So far two PSO couples have tied the knot, one at this year’s PSO annual convention.
As perfect as this all sounds, PSO is not without its critics or occasional problems. There are those that feel that the sponsorship award system rewards less aggressive play than is required in a live tournament setting, potentially fostering a bad habit of ladder climbing versus the risk taking necessary to take down a major tournament. Skeptics question whether a system that uses a virtual bankroll instead of real money can ever simulate the competition and stress associated with “real†tournament participation.
There is also, clearly, an undercurrent of opinion among some of poker’s more seasoned pros that the new breed of online players is bringing less skill and less experience to the world of tournament poker, to the point of degrading the sport they love. Online poker’s defenders are quick to point out that the availability of internet tournaments 24/7 has enabled many online players to log in more tournament playing hours in one year than some of the big boys have in their decades of play. Online players may be coming up a learning curve as far as interpreting the physical tells of their brick and mortar foes. But based on the recent successes of online players in live tournament settings, they are either coming up the curve rapidly, or the physical read represents a smaller edge than players believe.
With PSO’s growing track record on the major tournament circuit, I suspect you will find the occasional criticism falling on deafer ears. PSO's tag line, “the home of future champions,†is apparently meeting the mark. So if you still harbor that dream, maybe all you need is a clean pair of boxer shorts and a PSO membership. And if you have any questions – just ask pokermats.
I am a recent (just under a month) member of PSO and find it to be a good resource. The play money tournaments have better opponents than the real money tournaments I play at Pacific. Their articles, lessons and forums are also pretty good. They have a free trial, and I'm happy enough that I haven't cancelled my membership yet.
PROS
-good materials available online. I haven't worked through it all, but I have read all or most of the material by Rolf Slotboom (mostly limit ring game play, but also has some stuff on PL Omaha), Al Spath (limit), Bob Ciaffone (NL and PL... they only have a few lessons so far from him unfortunately). They have a lot of clips from the Caro's Tells DVD. I'm currently reading through Andy Glazier's lessons on tournament play. I'm sure you could get some of this stuff if you searched online (i.e. some are similar to articles in the cardplayer archives, or can be found in books from these authors or others), but I still have found it helpful.
-quality of play in the tournaments is very good I found, at least compared to the low buy-in real money tournaments I have played
-they have materials and tournaments for games other than hold'em regularly (Limit Omaha, Omaha H/L, PL Omaha, 7 Stud, as well as the usual NL and PL hold'em games).
-tournament structures vary, but are always very good.
CONS
-they need more players. It can take a while for a single table tournament to fill up. Being almost exclusively a Hold'em player (so far), sometimes they don't have a tournament starting for several hours.
-speed of play. People are often SLOW here.
I do feel my NL tournament play is benefitting from playing on PSO, and I like the materials. Overall I give it a thumbs up.
You sure it is worth the cost?I mean Caro video:got it.Articles by Ciaffone etc got em or can get them.I figured the best thing for schooling would be to get tutorials directly from guys like Ciaffone himself,I understand he is surprisingly inexpensive.Am I overlooking benefits?I am very curious because the idea of a poker school is very appealing.
I once got tutored By Ciaffone. It was (if I remember correctly) $100 for 5 hours? I think Bob would be VERY helpful to a new player. He advocates a VERY tight style which is what almost every new player will benefit from.
PSO has individual forums for many pros. You can ask the pros some questions in their forum and get answers pretty quickly. To list a few: Russell Fox, Al Spath, Harman, Negreanu, Hilger, Vorhaus, Ciaffone, Krieger, Caro
Comments
Training for the World Series of Poker in Your Underwear
You caught the poker bug. You have your TiVo programmed for every showing of Travel Channel’s World Poker Tour and ESPN’s reruns of the World Series of Poker. You can quote from the movie “Rounders.†A poker night out with buddies no longer includes wild card follies like “Follow the Queen.†You have developed a taste for pure unadulterated Texas Hold’em, the game of champions. You harbor a dream that, one day, you will hear the World Series of Poker mantra, “shuffle up and deal,†from your $10,000 seat at the table. You are not alone.
In the not too distant past, transforming your dream into a reality would be costly and time consuming. Becoming a proficient poker tournament player meant spending years flying to major tournaments to garner valuable time on the felt, each experience accompanied by an entry fee ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars. But thanks to the foresight and vision of Mark and Tina Napolitano, thousands of aspiring poker players from around the world are honing their tournament skills under the tutelage of experts and pros for less than it would cost them in cocktail waitress tips. And they’re doing it in their underwear…or so many of them claim.
PokerSchoolOnline.com (PSO) is an online poker training site that caters to a wide range of player skills and needs; from the beginner looking to acquire basic skills, to the experienced semi-professional seeking to test and develop new strategies. It offers its members the ability to play online poker tournaments, satellites, and sit ‘n’ gos, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Members compete for monthly and quarterly sponsorship dollars, redeemable for major brick and mortar tournament entry fees. There are forums where members exchange ideas with each other or solicit the advice of well-known pros and experts like Jennifer Harman and Daniel Negreanu. Once a month, members get the opportunity to play with experts like Barry Tanenbaum, Rolf Slotboom and John Vorhaus while discussing and analyzing the play via chat and internet radiobroadcast. And then there are the online classrooms, designed by people like pro/author Bob Ciaffone, internet pro Mathew Hilger, author Lou Krieger, and many more.
As an occasional contributor to PSO, I realize I may have an obvious bias. But PSO’s offerings have also gotten the unofficial endorsement of some notable players. Clonie Gowen, the dazzling Dallas pro and winner of the World Poker Tour’s Ladies Night Invitational, says she has recommended PSO to her friends who are looking to start out in poker. Perry Friedman, WSOP Omaha/8 bracelet winner, did a short stint at PokerSchool to sharpen his Hold’em skills and claims that he started making more money in Hold’em because of it.
And as far as PSO’s ability to fulfill dreams perhaps there is no one better to ask than Sweden’s Mattias Andersson. Matts (or pokermats as his online schoolmates know him), a PSO member since March 2002, walked away with an 8th place finish and $575,000 in this year’s World Series of Poker Championship Event, which seated a record field of 2576 starting players. While he wasn’t the only PSO member to make the money in poker’s big dance this year, he will most likely be the one that ESPN viewers remember. During his stint at ESPN’s feature table on day four of the final event, pokermats crippled former world champion Robert Varkonyi, busted pro Dewey Tomko on the bubble, and sent World Poker Tour champion Gus Hansen to the rail to become a contender for the day’s chip lead. Day five of the final event again finds him at ESPN’s feature table, sandwiched in between world champions Dan Harrington and Chris Ferguson, or the proverbial rock and a hard place. Over the years, Chris Ferguson has gained the nickname Jesus, due to his long hair, gentle demeanor and calm, unnerving stare. PSOers joked that pokermats must have thought he was God, with Jesus on his right hand side and having made it this far in poker’s most prestigious tournament. But pokermats could produce few miracles against the former champions, except, of course, the miracle of surviving day five. Day six goes better for Matts, doubling up in the first hour, unseating champion Chris Ferguson, and holding on for dear life to make the final table. Matts’ final table all-in bet with AdKs looked good against Greg Raymer’s AsTd, until a straight materialized on the river for Raymer, leaving Matts to reflect on his wild ride.
While some may question Matts’ maturity and decorum at times, I suspect most viewers will identify with what this experience truly represented to the quirky, unemployed 24 year-old kid, who had played only two other major tournaments in his life; a dream come true. Or perhaps Matts’ internet post to his PSO buddies just after making the final table says it all, “ I can’t believe this is true. I’m so freaking happy!!â€
Pokermats was joined by six other PSOers playing the final event; Alex Dadoyan, John Dobbs, Desmond Portano, Mike Fillat, Glenn Fair, and Gary Ward. Both Portano and Fillat also scored in the money for the event, claiming the 44th and 198th spots respectively. And while the PSOers all gained their $10,000 entry fee through qualifying competitions at different online poker sites, they all agree that PSO provided them with the skills to get them there. PSO is sure to gain some notoriety for its members’ performance in this year’s World Series of Poker, putting over 40 percent of its starting members in the money, but PSOers have been scoring money finishes in major poker tournaments since its inception.
When you’re a member of PSO, you are never alone in your quest for a victory on the felt, as this year’s World Series of Poker contenders learned. Hundreds of PSOers around the world stayed glued to the internet, tracking their schoolmates’ progress – sending them words of encouragement, monitoring their chip count, watching internet interviews, and feeling their pain when a bad beat sent them to the rail. Poker is known as a brutally competitive and individual sport. In contrast, PSO is an incredibly supportive and social community.
In the throes of competition, in the school’s public forums and in private messages, PSOers exchange words of encouragement, share experiences, debate strategies and offer advice to their online adversaries. Comradery on the virtual felt has transcended onto “live†felt as PSOers use almost every major tournament as an excuse to meet each other, face to face, across a real table. The annual PSO convention, held during the World Poker Open, is widely attended by members from all over the world. While the convention sports educational seminars, special tournaments, and lots and lots of serious poker, socializing never takes a back seat. There is little sleep and a plethora of alcohol consumption – which in one case resulted in a pair of PSOers waking up one morning in each other’s arms, leaving them to wonder which one of them would run screaming for the door first.
The PSO community has also found life beyond poker. When member DJExpress was diagnosed with cancer, PSOers held a benefit golf tournament at their annual convention. When Gem56 was hospitalized with a life threatening respiratory ailment, a PSOer sent her a laptop computer for her to use in the hospital so she could stay in touch with her poker community. PSOers have donated school memberships to fellow schoolmates who have fallen on difficult financial times, many times anonymously. When a distraught member posted about discovering his daughter had cerebral palsy, another member posted about his own parents’ fears when he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, how they overcame it as a family and about the rich life he now enjoys. And of course there are the marriages. So far two PSO couples have tied the knot, one at this year’s PSO annual convention.
As perfect as this all sounds, PSO is not without its critics or occasional problems. There are those that feel that the sponsorship award system rewards less aggressive play than is required in a live tournament setting, potentially fostering a bad habit of ladder climbing versus the risk taking necessary to take down a major tournament. Skeptics question whether a system that uses a virtual bankroll instead of real money can ever simulate the competition and stress associated with “real†tournament participation.
There is also, clearly, an undercurrent of opinion among some of poker’s more seasoned pros that the new breed of online players is bringing less skill and less experience to the world of tournament poker, to the point of degrading the sport they love. Online poker’s defenders are quick to point out that the availability of internet tournaments 24/7 has enabled many online players to log in more tournament playing hours in one year than some of the big boys have in their decades of play. Online players may be coming up a learning curve as far as interpreting the physical tells of their brick and mortar foes. But based on the recent successes of online players in live tournament settings, they are either coming up the curve rapidly, or the physical read represents a smaller edge than players believe.
With PSO’s growing track record on the major tournament circuit, I suspect you will find the occasional criticism falling on deafer ears. PSO's tag line, “the home of future champions,†is apparently meeting the mark. So if you still harbor that dream, maybe all you need is a clean pair of boxer shorts and a PSO membership. And if you have any questions – just ask pokermats.
Good luck out there,
Amy
I think PSO has a LOT to offer new players.
PROS
-good materials available online. I haven't worked through it all, but I have read all or most of the material by Rolf Slotboom (mostly limit ring game play, but also has some stuff on PL Omaha), Al Spath (limit), Bob Ciaffone (NL and PL... they only have a few lessons so far from him unfortunately). They have a lot of clips from the Caro's Tells DVD. I'm currently reading through Andy Glazier's lessons on tournament play. I'm sure you could get some of this stuff if you searched online (i.e. some are similar to articles in the cardplayer archives, or can be found in books from these authors or others), but I still have found it helpful.
-quality of play in the tournaments is very good I found, at least compared to the low buy-in real money tournaments I have played
-they have materials and tournaments for games other than hold'em regularly (Limit Omaha, Omaha H/L, PL Omaha, 7 Stud, as well as the usual NL and PL hold'em games).
-tournament structures vary, but are always very good.
CONS
-they need more players. It can take a while for a single table tournament to fill up. Being almost exclusively a Hold'em player (so far), sometimes they don't have a tournament starting for several hours.
-speed of play. People are often SLOW here.
I do feel my NL tournament play is benefitting from playing on PSO, and I like the materials. Overall I give it a thumbs up.