CardAcademy.com is an Aussie based training site backboned by World Series of Poker 2005 winner Joe Hachem. Instructed by several of the greatest Australian pros, Card Academy is looking to provide some "Aussie Oy Oy OY" teaching methods to improve your game.
Membership Options:
VIP:
Platinum (6mth)
Gold:
Pay Per View:
$300usd / year $170usd or $180 aud
$29.95aud /month + $49.95 aud initiation fee
$5.95 AUD (3 days)
Videos:
150+
Streaming:
Yes
Downloadable:
No
Hand Replayer:
No
Forum:
Yes
Payment Methods:
Poker Site Transfer (Stars,Hansa - Platinum package only), Paypal
Instructors Joe Hachem
Emad "Boondy" Tahtouh
Nick "popitpopit" Nicolaou
Arul "arulx" Thillai
Jethro Horowitz
Grant "grunter321" Levy
Rayan "Rkruok" Nathan
Release Schedule:
Approximately 10 videos are released each month.
CardAcademy has a nice mixture and variety of videos. They tend not to specialize in one area, but rather spread it out across the board.
Cash Games
(Videos)
Pros
7/10
NLHE - No-Limit Hold 'Em
6 Max (40)
Nick, Emad, Arul
Mixture of low to mid limit 6max games here. Highest limit is 5/10NL, and the majority are at the 0.50/1.00 NL limit. Good job of instruction here, as actions are always detailed and explained in full.
Full Ring (3)
Jethro
Only a few videos here at low/mid limits
HeadsUp (3)
Nick, Emad
A couple high stakes headsup videos
LHE - Limit Hold 'Em
6 max (4)
Emad, Nick
Mid to high limit LHE videos.
Multi Table Tournaments (MTT)
8/10
MTT Pros: Emad, Nick, Rayan, Joe Hachem
A vast amount of MTT videos though most are in the meduim to high stakes variety. There are only a handfull of videos for mtts under $20. Many of the mtt videos are recorded live, and therefore viewers are able to get real time thinking of the thought processes. Actions are usually explained thoroughly, and video quality pretty good.
Sit and Go's (SNG)
6/10
SNG Pros: Nick, Emad, Arul, Joe Hachem
There is one sick SNG video featuring an allstar lineup ofh Hachem, lilholdem954, mao15, zangbezan24, westmenloAA and others. The rest of the sng videos are anywhere from $5 to $500. Hachem is the instructor for the high limit ones.
Other Games (Stud, Omaha, Razz, etc.)
8/10
A very large section of other games, especially in Omaha variants. Like the other sections, instruction for these topics are very well done. Most of the Omaha videos are for cash games.
Weaknesses
Card Academy does suffer from some audio problems where your speakers will have to be adjusted from video to video. No real cases of where the audio is recorded too loud, but there are plenty when it is too soft. There is also a problem when streaming from Windows Media, where it is impossible to fast forward. There are times when I don't watch the whole video in one sitting, and it becomes a pain if you have to watch everything again back in real time. One other glaring issue with CardAcademy.com is that their main draw is the fact that Joe Hachem is an instructor. Unfortunately it doesn't appear as if he has done a video since October 2007. Is he still an active instructor?
Strengths
The instructors of Card Academy are generally not known to the mass poker population. Though they are excellent instructors, with both the knowledge base and the references to back them up. All of them take the time to explain their actions and though processes, and not afraid to correct mistakes that they think they made.
Expected Value: Is Card Academy worth it?
CardAcademy is a pretty good training site. Unfortunately they cater towards an Australian player base, and hardly ever mentioned among the training site circles. As mentioned before Joe Hachem does not really appear active anymore, so its pretty disappointing that your main star stops instructing. If this were to happen with the other training sites, there would be a huge uproar amongst the respective customer base. Should you join? If you are Australian and want to interact with other aussie poker players, sure it's a great learning site. For others, there is simply other options out there.
Overall Rating:
7/10
Sample Videos
Please follow the above link to the Card Academyhome page and choose your free sample videos from the bottom of the page.
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8/10
7/10
6/10
