I would like to take a moment to thank Hannah for taking the time to write such a comprehensive review of my Hold’em course.

This is the first time one of my students wrote such a long review so I decided to publish it on the blog (+ it is so positive :)).

I took the liberty of adding some headings and fixing some typos, other than that this is the review exactly as I received it.

The Review

I bought the course entitled ‘From Zero to Poker Hero – Poker for Beginners’ because I wanted to learn how to play poker. As a person who has never learned the rules of it, I just wanted to learn the basics. I had no idea about the figures, when to bet, how much to bet, and which hands I should play. Basically, I was a total beginner who just wanted to learn something new.

I started doing the lessons, but I had only a week till my vacation and I wanted to finish the course before it. Because of that, I was doing three lessons per day. After every one of them, I played poker for 30 minutes. I don’t recommend you doing this course so fast, I only did it because I had no time. Normally, I would do one lesson and then play as long as I needed to start feeling confident. Later I would do another lesson and play again. I think that by doing that I would play poker better because there is a tone of information in Goku’s course, and I needed time to process all of it.

Repetition is key

Sometimes it was hard for me to understand something completely and it was because of all the terminology that I didn’t know. I had no idea about the poker rules before, so I had to check the meaning of all the words. If you also don’t know what a ‘river’ and ‘wet board’ are, I recommend you read the poker glossary terms before starting the course. The glossary is attached to the course so there is no need to google the words. Also, you have a reliable source of definitions and you don’t have to double-check them. Actually, I recommend reading the glossary to everyone, because it is much easier to do it before starting the course. Later you can come back and search for some terms that you forgot. By doing it you will better understand all of the lessons.

As a poor student, I was scared to put 20 dollars into playing poker, I didn’t really believe that I won’t lose it. But I didn’t!

Watch the course first, then start playing

I did do something stupid at the beginning though. After the first lesson in which the game is briefly explained, I decided to play. With no idea how to play poker whatsoever. I lost 6 dollars in 30 minutes. Just thirty minutes! Because I didn’t know any tactics then, I would recommend not playing from the very beginning, but watch all of the lessons at first, to have any idea about how the game really looks. Later you can come back to watching the lessons but also add playing poker after each lesson. In that way, you will be able to learn a lot of information and get to know the game. That’s very important. I felt that playing was the best way to systematize the knowledge that I gained by doing this course.

A ton of useful stuff

As a person who has completed the course, I can say that that I’ve learned a lot. I can assure you that if you listen to all of the rules and follow them, you won’t lose your money. There is a tone of useful information, starting with what kinds of hands you should play, what positions there are at the table, and also some harder stuff like bluffing, pot odds, or expected value. Everything is explained very clearly.

The course is divided into 21 lessons and 4 bonuses. Every video concerns a different topic and there is a lot of information to process. At the end of every lesson, there is a quick summary, which is incredibly helpful, because you can check if you understand everything. The videos aren’t long and usually, they are about 6 minutes. Goku says everything you need to know and if you don’t understand something, you can check the word in the poker glossary terms, which I’ve mentioned before.

100% recommended

I recommend this course to anyone who wants to learn how to play poker. I think it’s a quick and great way to do it. The price is very affordable and the course contains a tone of knowledge.

What I like the most about internet courses is the fact that you can go back to some previous lessons anytime. In my opinion, it is a huge advantage.

To sum up, I think this course is really well done, I’ve learned a lot and I highly recommend it to all of you! Goku did a great job!

Goku’s comment

Hannah actually made a couple of really great points I did not consider before and have not heard before from any other students:

  • that it makes sense to watch the course fully first, then start playing as you are rewatching it – this is actually very powerful for recollection. From the very beginning, I wanted this course to be structured in a way that maximizes the amount of useful knowledge the students get from it, but also remember after some time. That’s why I recommended going through it watching a lesson and then practicing for at least 30 minutes. What Hannah suggests is actually even better!
  • no matter how you are going through the course, if you are a complete beginner to the game, you should wait with the practice until you have watched the starting hands video – this makes sense because otherwise, you may lose some money unnecessarily, simply because you don’t know what you’re doing and this may discourage you from learning more. I’m glad Hannah didn’t get discouraged after her first session which was quite terrible and followed through nonetheless because otherwise, we wouldn’t have such a full review but rather I suppose a short negative one…

Hannah also sent me her hand history which shows that her first session was indeed not the best start to No-Limit Texas Holdem.

The session lasted 91 hands and ended at $ -9.12 ( -7.96 EV ).

All together, Hannah spent 11 hours at the tables, played 844 hands, and finished at $ -8.49 ( -$7.22 EV ) so if it weren’t for this first session, she would actually have made a profit of $ 0.63 over 753 hands which of course is not a lot, but still, it’s great to learn poker and win money at the same time.

Overall, she played too passively, not raising or reraising often enough even with the best hands like AA, AK, KK, QQ which makes me wonder if there isn’t a video on aggression missing in this course. Her stats were VPIP 34.45 / PFR 7.65 /3BET 2.99 and these are a bit skewed because of those first 91 hands played randomly, but even without these Hannah was limping way too often which again makes me wonder if there should be a video on why limping is not the best idea.

Anyway, I guess everyone learns best from their own mistakes and you are bound to make mistakes when you are first starting out playing poker so it is best to remember not to give up or get discouraged even if it doesn’t go your way perfectly at the beginning. Just keep playing, keep rewatching the videos, and keep learning. Once again, thanks so much for the review, Hannah!

Here’s the biggest pot she played (a bit lucky if you ask me):