Poker Savvy Plus, a review
Poker Savvy Plus is an instructional online poker video site, aimed at making you a more profitable player, sounds just what I need, so I’ve put together a bit of a review for you.
There is a host of information such as news and recent blog post titles on the main page, so you can quickly identify whats new, all of which is well laid, and helps you to quickly find out if there is any new content that you are interested in without you having to login, which is a nice feature.
After logging on you are redirected to your own “my account” page, with a news tab, links for referring friends and other account related options as well as a recently viewed items pane. Which I think is a really good idea, say for instance you watched a video on 6max a few day’s ago and after a few sessions you want to re-watch it for a recap, all you have to do is login and you can access it straight away without you having to search for that particular video.
There is a lot more to the site then simply coaching video’s though. As a member you get access to 5 new coaching video’s per week, a members only forum where you can interact with the pro’s, pro blogs and strategy articles, on topics such as thin value betting and re-raising from the blinds. You also get access to special members only promotions, including a monthly freeroll.
The video’s are obviously the meat of the deal however, so I’ll go into some more detail about the video side of the site.
When you navigate to the video page, you are presented with two views, an academy view with the following sub-headings; Featured Series, Staff Picks, Cash Games and Tournaments, you can also view the entire library via the “view by date” view.
The Video’s can by displayed within the web page, or can be maximized similar to You Tube. Underneath the video window, links are provided so you can download the video in either Windows Media (WMV) or iPod (MP4) format, and sometimes Quick Time format. There is also a link to the download FAQ, which offers some answers to common questions you may be wondering about, such as DRM (Digital Rights Management), where it says “We believe you should be able to watch videos on a plane, on your iPod, or any time you’re not online.”, which is another great point zero DRM downloads.
Unfortunately “for various reasons” not all video’s will be available for download, but the download FAQ explains that around 90% are expected to be made available for download. Trial members can download up to 3 video’s per week and paying members can download up to 30 videos’ per week, I think that is a very fair restriction.
A lot of the video’s are part of a topical series, with multiple video’s covering different sub-topics of the same area, such as how to adjust from 6max to full ring, etc, because of this nature of having collections of video’s, I think it would be useful to have a link where you could download a particular series or video collection in one step, rather then downloading each video individually. That is a very small quibble though, considering you can download most of the video’s without the hassles of DRM, and you can watch them all via the website as well.
Beneath the download links you are given a description of the series and a description of the particular video your are viewing, or have opened.
Being primarily interested in cash games, I have spent most of my time browsing this area of the site. Within the cash games section the video’s are further categorized under, full ring, heads-up 6 max, limit Hold ‘em and Omaha and mixed games.
One feature that may be missed by users is a search by title feature, this could be particularly useful if a user wishes to refer back to a video they haven’t downloaded or a new video was recommended to them by title. Though they are extensive filters to get around this, and recently watched video’s are displayed in your my account area so it certainly isn’t necessary, but as the video library catalog expands it may become more useful.
One feature that may be missed by users is a search by title feature, this could be particularly useful if a user wishes to refer back to a video they haven’t downloaded or a new video was recommended to them by title. Though they are extensive filters to get around this, and recently watched video’s are displayed in your my account area so it certainly isn’t necessary, but as the video library catalog expands it may become more useful.
Another small quibble is that there doesn’t appear to be a way to go from one video to a view of all of the video’s of that same series; for example I came across a 2 part, member submitted video by browsing the cash game section in the “view by date” view, I could see part 2 but not part 1. I was forced to search for all video’s by the author’s name and it was found easily enough after that, but if that author made rather a lot of video’s it would have been more of an annoyance. A simple and effective solution would be to provide a link back from each video to a view with all the video’s from that series.
The first video I tried was part 1 of a 3 part series called “10′s a Crowed” viewed within the website, where you are given the option of whether to continue streaming from the US which appears to be the default or to stream from Europe, I used the default on what I believe is a 2meg connection and had no problems. This video is an introduction to no limit full ring aimed at micro stakes players and beginners.
The first thing that stood out was the exceptional sound quality, it was very clear, you just couldn’t fault it, so too was the video quality.
As for the content, there were rather a lot of bullet points but they where all very clear, even for my strained eyes lol and any particularly important points where frequently highlighted by the author for added impact. The differences between full ring and 6m is continually reinforced as your are talked through basic opening ranges over view of a 10 max table.
I enjoyed the video, and felt it was a rewarding watch, it was easy to remain focused on the author’s points, the audio and video where clear and crisp and it was a great alternative to supplement other learning methods. I would highly recommend it to anyone new to Full Ring.
I also tried the same video in VLC after downloading it to my desktop, and experienced the same quality without any problems or delays with the download, I was very happy with it.
For a limited time you can sign up for a free 7 day trial, which I couldn’t recommend more, if you then decide its for you, you can pay via all the standard credit cards, paypal, money bookers, by using Savvy Points purchased from the Poker Savvy shop and even by player transfer from Full Tilt. You can sign up for either 3 months at $75, 6 months at $140 or a year for $250.
You can also get a 6 month or a 1 year membership by signing up to a poker room via Poker Savvy , in addition you can get free gifts by making additional sign-ups. More details can be found in the sign up FAQ.
In summary, I am really pleased with whats on offer at Poker Savvy Plus , the video’s I have seen are of exceptional sound and video quality and are all a really rewarding watch with well presented ideas and concepts.
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