Is Raise Your Edge worth it?
Barry Carter goes back to school to see what bencb's Tournament Masterclass course has to offer and who it is suited for.
Perhaps the most striking thing about Raise Your Edge is the order in which you learn things. I think a lot of tournament courses would start with the fundamentals, then progress in a linear fashion from early stages, middle stages, bubble stages, then final table.
Raise Your Edge is not presented that way. Instead it teaches you in order of importance and how frequently a spot will come up. For example it starts with opening ranges for all the different stack depths, then 3-betting, then defending, then squeezing and so on. It is quite a substantial amount of time before post flop is introduced, even later for the ICM spots, and so on. Some of the theory behind the ranges comes in after you have studied them in detail already.
This will be unusual for poker players who are used to quite a formal learning structure, but it’s an approach I advocate (In my last two books we start both with a chapter on immediate leaks you can fix before reading the theory behind them). What bencb is doing is training his students in order of the frequency in which spots come up, which will no doubt pay dividends because it means they will know how to play these spots automatically when they do come up. As he says throughout the course, getting the preflop stuff right makes every future street much easier.
Mastering preflop ranges
I think a lot of poker players would be surprised just how long is spent on the preflop spots compared to post flop. Again, I think this is probably wise, as a lot of post flop mistakes come from having the wrong ranges. The amount of time spent on preflop probably delivers more bang for the buck of a poker player, they will probably see an immediate improvement right away which will help them stick with the course. This is not a cheap course, so seeing improvements soon at the table is important.
The whole course is solver approved and Ben puts in a lot of work to ensure the members understands the why behind the ranges and the lines he advocates. Perhaps most importantly, the course gets updated regularly as the solver technology improves and player populations change. For example, just this month the ICM section of the course has been completely revamped. Again, this is not a cheap course so this is very important. If you are investing this much money in a course not only do you want it to be up to date, you also want a reason to keep coming back to the material.
Speaking of which, the secret sauce of the course might actually be the community built around it. There is an exclusive Discord group that is very active and perfect to help you ask questions and refine your knowledge. I would argue that if you are not going to participate in the group you are not getting the most out of this course. Ben encourages an active learning approach in his videos (there are quizzes and homework assignments which are very useful if you have an active learning style) and discussing the theory and posting hands in the Discord group is the obvious way to put the theory into practice before hitting the tables.
Not for beginners
One thing I would warn potential customers on is that this course is certainly not for novices. I think you need to have been grinding for a year and understand the basics very well before you start with Raise Your Edge.
If I were to profile the sort of person who should join Raise Your Edge it probably should be a breakeven or better player, who plays four or more tables at once, uses tracking software and has at least a basic understanding of ICM and what solvers do. That is quite a sweeping generalisation but my point is, I think Raise Your Edge is a course that would potentially turn a regular into a crusher, not a novice into a regular. I would suspect most of the customers at PokerStrategy.com would fall into that ideal customer category.
So is Raise Your Edge worth it? I would say certainly, as long as you were willing to put in the work that Ben advocates. Just watching the videos back-to-back is not enough, you would have to do all the quizzes, assignments, study the ranges, revisit the material especially when it gets updated and perhaps most of all make use of the Discord channel.
Join Raise Your Edge now!
It doesn't matter whether you want to master regular tournaments, perfect your skills in bounty MTTs, boost your mindset, or reignite your poker career with live cash games—there's something in store for everyone.
And don't forget: There's a money-back guarantee on all the offers available, meaning if you completed the course and done the work but you feel it provided no value, you can get a refund for your purchase within 60 days.
The courses on offer at Raise Your Edge
If you would like to raise your own game to the bencb level, your best bet is to join his Tournament Masterclass. It's arguably the best coaching course you can get your hands on and highly popular amongst PokerStrategists.
- Apprentice Class: $697 with the code POKERSTRATAPP
- Expert Class: $1,297 with the code POKERSTRATEXP
The free introductory video provides you with all the information you need in order to decide whether the Tournament Masterclass is a fitting offer for your level of play. You will learn how to make good decisions for a wide range of different situations, which is the one skill that really forms a strong and fearsome poker player. More importantly, you will learn how to make better decisions than your opponents or other winning players.
Deliver knockouts like a Bounty Beast
In collaboration with bencb, w3cray has put together a unique strategy package for knockout and bounty tournaments. The focus of the course is exclusively on these types of tournaments which are amongst the most popular these days.
Bounty tournaments are quite a bit more complex than their standard brethren, with players often times only guessing the right approach to the very specific structure instead of really knowing what to do.
- 9+ hours of video content
- 7+ Bounty Tools for Equity Calculations
- Theory, Math and Practice Videos
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- Dedicated Practice Videos
- Private VIP Discord Channel for direct questions and contacts
