Poker School
The curriculum

What you’ll learn

Interactive lessons – every concept comes with exercises, real table scenarios, and drills. Free to start; sign up and your progress follows you.

01Foundations

The table, the hands, and the habits – everything you need before your first real decision.

  • Hand rankingsThe ladder every showdown is judged on – and the mistakes beginners make reading it.~7 min
  • Position is powerWhy WHERE you sit matters more than WHAT you're dealt, most hands.~7 min
  • The flow of a handPreflop to showdown – the four streets, the actions, and what a bet is actually for.~6 min
  • Counting outsWhich cards save you – find them, count them, and see them in the deck.~9 min
  • Pot odds & the rule of 2 and 4Turn your outs into a percentage, compare it to the price – and the call decides itself.~10 min

02Preflop decisions

The first decision of every hand, and the one you'll make most often – which hands to play, from where, and how.

  • Starting handsWhich two cards are worth playing – a sane starting framework you can actually remember.~8 min
  • Open-raising & the first decisionRaise or fold – why limping in first is almost always the third-best option.~8 min

03Postflop fundamentals

The flop is where poker begins in earnest – learn to read the board, respect both ranges, and make every bet answer for itself.

  • The continuation betYou raised preflop – here's when (and how much) to keep telling that story on the flop.~8 min
  • Reading board textureDry or wet, static or dynamic – the three cards in the middle decide how the whole hand plays.~7 min
  • Whose flop is it? Range advantageStop asking whether the flop hit you – ask whether it hit the range of hands each player is supposed to have.~7 min
  • Value or bluff – every bet needs a reasonWorse hands call, or better hands fold – if neither is true, the chips stay home.~8 min

04Reading the game

Ranges, betting stories, scare cards, and sizing tells – how to work out what they have without ever seeing their cards.

  • Ranges, not handsStop guessing their exact two cards – learn to see the whole menu of hands they could have.~7 min
  • The story of a handEvery betting line tells a story – learn to check whether the chapters actually agree.~8 min
  • Scare cardsThe third flush card, the four-straight, the ace on the turn – whose range did that card actually help?~8 min
  • Sizing tellsAt low stakes, bet sizes talk – a field guide to tiny pokes, standard bets, and sudden bombs.~7 min

05Turn & river play

The streets where the pot gets serious – barreling with a plan, keeping medium pots medium, and finding the last honest bet on the river.

  • The turn: the expensive streetOne card changed everything: your draw is worth half what it was, and the bets just got real.~8 min
  • Double barreling: firing the second shotYou c-bet, they called, the turn is staring at you. When betting again is a plan – and when it's just stubbornness.~7 min
  • Pot control: medium hands, medium potsNot every made hand wants a bigger pot. Checking back is a strategy – here's when the quiet route pays best.~7 min
  • The river: no more outsNothing left to draw at – every hand is now exactly what it is. Thin value bets and honest bluff-catches, the two skills that settle the money.~9 min

06The mental game

Tilt, variance, bankroll discipline, and how to actually get better – the part of poker played between your ears, where most of the money is quietly won and lost.

  • TiltWhat tilt is, how to catch yours before it gets expensive, and the stop-loss habit that keeps one bad hour from becoming a bad month.~7 min
  • VarianceWhy good decisions lose sometimes, how to grade your play by the decision instead of the result, and how many hands it takes before results mean anything.~6 min
  • BankrollBuy-in rules that let variance happen without ruining you, why scared money plays badly, and rehearsing the discipline with PokerSchoolCash while the stakes are imaginary.~6 min
  • How to studyReviewing hands the useful way, fixing one leak at a time, and turning table time into deliberate practice with the trainer and drills.~7 min

07Bankroll math

The mental game chapter gave you the buy-in rules. This one shows you where they come from – win rates, variance measured honestly, the risk-of-ruin formula, and a grown-up system for moving up and down in stakes.

  • Your win rate is a rumorbb/100 as the honest unit of winning, why session results are nearly meaningless, and how many hands it actually takes before your win rate means anything.~7 min
  • Variance, measuredStandard deviation as the size of the swings, what a normal downswing looks like in cold numbers, and why every honest bankroll plan starts by expecting one.~7 min
  • Risk of ruinThe formula behind every buy-in rule you've ever heard – what actually drives your chance of going broke, with the 20-and-40 folklore priced in real percentages.~8 min
  • Shots, stop-losses, and moving downA working system for changing stakes: when a shot is earned, how to cap its cost in advance, and why moving down gracefully is the most profitable skill in this chapter.~7 min

08Tournament ICM

In a tournament, chips and money quietly stop being the same thing. ICM is the exchange rate – where it comes from, what it does to all-in math near the money, and how to use it at bubbles, final tables, and deal negotiations.

  • Chips are not cashWhy doubling your tournament stack doesn't double your money, shown with real numbers – the single idea that separates tournament strategy from cash-game strategy.~6 min
  • Inside the modelHow ICM actually computes money from stacks – finish probabilities from chip shares, a full worked example, and the model's honest limitations.~8 min
  • Bubble pressureThe risk premium in hard numbers – why a coin flip needs 65% on the bubble, why stack sizes set the price, and how big stacks convert other people's fear into chips.~8 min
  • Satellites, final tables, and dealsICM at its extremes – satellites where folding aces is real, and final-table deals where knowing the model is worth actual dollars at the negotiating table.~8 min

09Exploit trees

Balanced play is the starting point, not the goal. This chapter builds your deviation system – reading population tendencies, typing opponents fast, adjusting in the right direction by the right amount, and knowing when to snap back.

  • The baseline and the deviationWhy balanced play is your home base and not your destination – population tendencies you can bank on before you know anything about the player in seat three.~7 min
  • The field guideFour archetypes cover most of the poker-playing world – how to spot each one inside an orbit, and the two or three adjustments that harvest each. You've already met them all at the practice tables.~9 min
  • Levels and the snap-backExploiting opens you to counter-exploits – how the leveling war actually plays out at human stakes, and the discipline of returning to baseline when the read goes stale.~7 min
  • Building your treeAssembling the chapter into one repeatable decision tree – default, observe, classify, deviate, verify – plus the study loop that keeps it growing with your game.~8 min

10Solver literacy

Exploit trees taught you when to leave the balanced line. This chapter teaches the line itself – why unexploitable play exists, how often a bluff has to work, what blockers actually buy you, and how bet sizes carve a range. Plain English, engine-checked numbers, no worship required.

  • Why balance existsThe indifference principle from scratch – what it means to be unexploitable, the bluff-to-value dial behind every river bet, and why balance is a shield you carry, not a religion you join.~8 min
  • MDF & alphaThe two numbers on every bet's price tag – how often a bluff must work to print, and the minimum slice of your range you must defend before any-two-cards profits against you.~8 min
  • Blockers & combosCounting hands the way solvers do – 1,326 combos, how the cards you hold erase whole chunks of villain's range, and when a single ace turns a hopeless bluff into the best one available.~8 min
  • The geometry of sizingHow bet sizes carve ranges – the small bet that rents the whole board, the overbet only nut advantage can afford, and the geometric line that lands the last chip in the pot on the river.~9 min

11Stack dynamics

A pair of kings is not the same hand at 20 big blinds, 200, or five ways to a flop. This chapter is the missing variable in every lesson so far – SPR and commitment math, the deep game's implied-odds economy, the short stack's all-in weapon, and why multiway pots quietly break the heads-up rulebook.

  • SPR & commitmentThe stack-to-pot ratio – one division problem that decides whether top pair is a stack-off or a bluff-catcher, and how preflop sizing lets you manufacture the ratio your hand wants.~8 min
  • Deep waterPoker at 200 big blinds – the implied-odds economy where sets and suited connectors get raises, dominated broadways become traps, and position stops being an edge and becomes the whole game.~8 min
  • The short stack's weaponPush/fold poker priced honestly – why the open shove becomes your best-played move under 15 big blinds, the fold-equity arithmetic that funds it, and the ladder from shove-only to normal poker.~8 min
  • Multiway potsWhy every heads-up rule bends when a third player sits down – bluff margins that evaporate through two callers, value bets that need real hands, and the draws that love a crowd.~8 min

12Going pro

The final chapter is about the job, not the cards. Picking games that are actually beatable, reading a live table like a local, closing the last opponent heads-up, and running your poker like the small business it is – including the honest arithmetic of whether you should.

  • Game selectionThe biggest edge in poker isn't played at the table – it's choosing the table. Reading a lineup in one orbit, taking the seat the money flows into, and quitting games instead of sessions.~7 min
  • Live craftThe skills that only exist in a room – which physical tells actually carry signal, why 30 hands an hour changes everything you know about samples, and the etiquette that protects your money.~8 min
  • Heads-upThe endgame duel – why a bare ace becomes a value hand, the position flip that confuses everyone once, and the aggression premium that decides who pays rent and who collects it.~8 min
  • Poker as a businessThe ledger, the hourly rate, and the honest math of the job – records that don't lie, what a win rate actually pays, staking without ruined friendships, and the graduate's final checklist.~9 min

It ends with a diploma

Complete the curriculum and sit the capstone exam – 25 timed questions over everything above. Pass it and the Poker School Diploma is yours: dated, shareable, and earned. Free, like the lessons.

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