Utilizing the Full Tilt Poker Academy

Okay, someone asked TPC to do a post on the Full Tilt Poker Academy and TPC said he didn't use it that much. I, on the other hand, love it and I think that everyone should give it a try. It's free and simple poker knowledge, so there's really no sense in passing this up. So I'm going to give an overview on the certain aspects of the Full Tilt Poker Academy and anyone who has anything to add is more than welcome. I don't use all of it, but I do use most of it.

First off, you sign into the Full Tilt Poker Academy by using your same screen name and password that you use to log into Full Tilt's poker client. I don't think this can be changed. Anyway, once you enter the Full Tilt Poker Academy front page you will see 8 tabs across the top of the page. They are:

-The Pros
-Lessons
-Sit-N-Learns
-Challenges
-Sessions
-FTPA Store
-Podcasts
-My Academy

We will be going through all of them and I will explain what each tab is for.

The Pros -
Full Tilt Poker Academy utilizes over 100 pros to bring together this learning site. I won't put all of their names in here, but there are quite a few from Tom Dwan to Gus Hansen to Jennifer Harmon. The site is free to use and there is tons of useful information for beginners up to, I'd say, around mid level stakes. These pros have put together small segments of information regarding some of their strong points. So check through all of them and find one that you think would offer you the greatest help to start.


Lessons-
Okay, this is where it starts to get a little more fun. Now you get to chose, based on your level of skill, certain lessons that you want to view. These are usually a 10 minute video of a certain pro talking about a certain subject. The subject could be MTT's, Pre-Flop Play, How to Play against a certain type of player, etc. They aren't really boring, especially if you pick a subject that you feel you could really learn something to improve your game. I would start with an individual lesson to begin with and get used to how they are structured, and then move into the FTPA Courses. FTPA Courses are found by clicking the link that shows up just above where the lessons are at. There are four courses that you can take: Introduction to Winning Poker; Mastering No-Limit Hold 'em; Advanced Multi-table Tournaments; and Advanced Cash Games. These course take a number of lessons and structure them into a full on course of study for you to learn about a specific style of poker you want to play. I highly recommend these courses, and I suggest that you go through them at least three times each to allow them to fully sink in. And I don't mean run through them three times in a row all in the same day either. Go through one of the courses, and then take a couple of days or a week to try to use the skills you learned. Then, go back and do it again, rinse, repeat. This will allow you to learn it, use it, see where you might have misunderstood something, learn it again, use it again, etc.

Sit-N-Learns-
The Sit-N-Learns are fun as well as informative about how much you actually learned while doing the lessons. Basically, they are tests about the lessons you have taken. You pick a Sit-N-Learn that is based on one of the lessons that you have taken from the Lessons tab. Then, you are asked questions and timed on your answers. The faster you answer, the higher your score. The higher your score, the better chance that you can get into the exclusive $5000 Sit-N-Learn Freeroll put on once a month. You have to make the leader board on one of 27 different Sit-N-Learn sections. To do this, you have to be in the top 250 of scores in that section. Then, the people with the top 250 scores on each of the 27 sections get invited to the freeroll. You can do this once a month per section.

Challenges-
This is my favorite part. But I wouldn't start here! Do the lessons first, then work on this part. The Challenges are made by a specific FTP pro on specific aspects of a specific type of poker. In other words, Chris Ferguson challenges you in "Pre-Flop Play" to several tasks pertaining to "pre-flop play". Some of the tasks you only have to complete once, some as many as 5 times. When you complete a task you are awarded with FTPA Credits. These credits you can use in the FTPA Store which we will talk about in a minute. I enjoy picking one of these challenges because it gives you the challenge and tells you why each certain task was asked of you. This allows you to add new aspects to your game fully aware of what you are meaning to do. One major issue though... Don't try to force the tasks through! You will only lose money doing this. When you accept a challenge, memorize it as much as possible, and keep it up on your web browser for quick reference. But I try to only look at them when I'm at a break in a tourney or when I've sat out of a cash game for a b/r break or what-not. You don't want to constantly be trying to force the task through, but instead, you want to constantly be looking for where you can use the task to your advantage. A good example is where Gus Hanson tasks you to see 6 out of 10 flops in a 6-9 seat MTT with 90 or more starting players when you have 40 or more BB's. You don't want to do this on a loose table! If you try to force it on a loose table, you will just lose chips. Try to look for a table that has more TAG players than LAG players to do this. That will increase your chances of having less players on the flop which in turn increases your chances of winning your hand with your "small ball" type strategy.

Sessions-
I haven't spent a whole lot of time with the Sessions tab as of yet, but I plan on it. This tab has FTP pros explaining their plays and thought processes as they play in real time on FTP. You can find sessions on MTT's, Cash games, SnGs, etc. I think this would be a good section to utilize while in the middle of doing Courses. After you finish a course on a subject and are playing poker trying to use your newly learned skills, when you finish a session for yourself (or before you start one), try to find a session in the Sessions tab that shows a pro doing what you will be trying to accomplish. This will allow you to see the moves the way they play them and maybe hear some more "in tune" information while a game is being played.

FTPA Store-
The FTPA Store allows you to spend the credits you have earned in the FTPA Challenges and such FTPA gear, FPPs, MTT tokens, poker strategy books, and even Subscriptions to certain Strategy sites. After you get accustomed to the FTPA I would look through the store and find something you might want to buy with your credits you will be earning. This will give you goal to attain and will help keep you on track with your FTPA.

Podcasts-
This section is pretty self-explanatory. These are short, video podcasts of FTP pros talking about different aspects of poker. I would definitely take a look through these to find subjects you might be struggling with. This is a good add on to Lessons and Courses.

My Academy-
This is where you get to see what Challenge you are on. You can also see the Challenges that you have accepted, but are waiting idle. You can change between the active challenge and idle challenges anytime on this tab. This is what you will want to keep in your web browser and handy when you are trying to accomplish certain tasks in your challenges. At the top of the page in this tab, you have your "Dashboard". The Dashboard allows you to change the main screen in My Academy to show "Track your Challenge Progress", "Access your Academy Transcript", Add your Favorite Pros", and "Check the Sit-N-Learn Leaderboards". This way your My Academy page will have the information you want as the main part of your page. Play around with the settings and see what works best for you.


I hope that I've either answered any questions you might have had or made someone interested in an excellent, and free, way to improve your game while getting bonuses through the FTPA Store. If anyone has any questions concerning something I've talked about or something I might have missed, please post your question in here and I'll try to answer it ASAP. And again, if anyone has anything to add feel free to do so. But no matter what, I think this is an excellent resource that, if used properly, can do nothing but good for your poker game.

Awesome post!!! Thanks for doing this DG. Lots of great info!!! I definitely need to take more advantage of the Academy.

TY! I really do think it's a good idea even for players who are above average. It can plug leaks in your game and give you new ways to add BB/100 as well.

cool I was just wandering around FTPA earlier and read a couple of the Chris Ferguson challenges but decided not to take the challenge cause it was to hard for me , 100 straight hands to fold or raise might break me .

thanks for explaining it all mr DG . I may try again after reading this

Great stuff DG. I like the Academy and have taken several of the challenges although the videos that go behind them are generally excellent.

They are really good vids. But don't think that you won't find much better and more in depth vids and strat guides on pay sites. In fact, the strat guides that some of the CC members have posted here are actually 10 times better than what the FTPA has. So use the FTPA, but don't use it exclusively. If you can pay the cost associated with a pay site, also do that. But definitely go through the Learning Poker section here and look for guides that will help you with the level and style you play.

I thought the same thing when I saw that part of the challenge. Plus you have to fold or raise 100 hands 5 times, meaning a total of 500 hands. then if you wanted to do it 10 times it would take 5000 hands without limping which is pretty hard.

The good thing about this challenge for me was that I've always wanted to stop limping, but I just never could seem to control it. This challenge pretty much stopped me from limping with average hands and it really helped the way I play.

I ended up finishing this challenge and getting the 4000 credits for it, but it took me a few weeks to finish it all.

I've been utilizing the FTPA for a while. I'm about 2/3 way to having enough academy points to buy a $26 token. I've also picked up a few bucks in the Sit N Learn freerolls.

i got a question about the challenges.

is it possible to change challenges at anytime? example...

one challenge is to buy into 5 SNGs for less then 5% of your bankroll. once you buy in can you change the active challenge to a preflop play challenge or one of the math challenges? then when your done playin the SNG you just change back to the first challenge(SNG with only 5% BI) untill u have finished all five of them?

I don't think you can do it the way you are talking. But I'm not really positive. I think you have to play the whole tourney or session while having the specific challenge you want up. But you can change them at any time, it's just I'm not sure, by your example, if you would get credit for the first challenge.

ya i think your right. i checked out FTPA myself and it said that updates to your status will change 2 hours after a cash game and 1 1/2 hours after a tourny finishes so i figure if you want credit for it you need to keep the challenge the same.

When I first signed up, streaming was problem; jerky. I'm a dialup person as broadband is not available in my area. Will take another look to see if they've addressed that issue.

If they haven't fixed it, itlegacy, you can always load the video and wait to watch it until it completely loads. I think. LOL

Does anyone know if the FTPA can be used with Rush poker? I'm talking about the challenges, btw. Can you complete the NLHE challenges by playing Rush?

Some of the vids were very good, some seem a bit weak. I really like the active challenge section, where you go through a checklist and it tracks your progress. Good for concentrating on a specific area of your game.

I sent an email to FT support last night asking if we could use Rush poker to complete the NLHE challenges. Basically, it looks like you can if it's a task about playing a specific hand in a certain way, but you can't if it's a session based task (such as "Getting to know your opponent). Here's the response they gave me.

Thanks for the post.. FTP has too many different point systems lol..

There are a couple at FTP, but this one, by far, is the easiest. And you get free poker training while doing it, and you can still do the ironman. Triple bonus imo.