Poker Fighter is a very handy app that you can download on your phone and use for a few minutes of poker practice when you find yourself with time to fill.
What You Will Learn
Poker Fighter teaches ABC poker as played on a 6max table with 100 big blinds. If you are following The Plan, you are playing on nine player tables with a 30BB buy-in. So, the strategy that Poker Fighter teaches will be looser and a little less aggressive. Still, it is a very good resource for you or any other beginning poker player.
ABC poker strategy as taught by Poker Fighter would work just fine at a nine-ring table NL10 or NL25. Players at those stakes tend to fold more. At NL2, and NL5 and NL 100 you would need to play more tightly due to the number of loose callers you would find there.
The ABC poker it teaches is tailor made for tables with fishy players. As you gain experience with default strategy short-stacking and begin to adjust to fishy tables by widening your range, many of the hands taught on Poker Fighter will be part of that wider range.
Organization
This app is well organized for ease of learning and navigation. The first screen divides the learning into four sections, pre-flop, flop, turn, and river.
The pre-flop section has lessons on starting hands, defending the button, defending the blinds, isolating and a “full pre-flop battle” in which all of those skills are tested. Each lesson has several modules. For example, the raising lesson has nineteen modules and a final “battle” to test all of the skills taught in that module.
Modules for pre-flop include open-raising, isolating fish, defending in position, defending vs. hijack open-raise and many other important concepts for reacting to pre-flop action before you.
Their lessons for the flop include flop theory, attacking, defending vs. bets, re-raised pots and donk bets. Modules in each of those lessons are specialized including betting dry re-raised flops without position, wet re-raised flops without position. There are seven other lessons just as specific about re-raised pots (meaning they were re-raised pre-flop, so now are larger than single raised pots). Those modules are followed by a “final fight” for re-raised pots. The flop section of course has a lesson for “full flop battles.”
The turn and river lessons and modules are not as numerous because there are fewer decision options on those streets. But they are just as informative and well worth playing through.
For each module, there is a brief explanation and then it starts dealing hands and offering options, i.e. call, fold, raise by 4BB, etc. The strategy taught in these lessons is sound tight aggressive poker, with a merged bluff range pre-flop, a polarized range on the river and little other bluffing. This is ABC.
The designers of Poker Fighter did not invent the ABC strategy, nor do they claim to. What they have produced is an app that makes learning that strategy easy and fun. I highly recommend it. It has free lessons in each section with the “premium” plan opening all lessons.
The Price
I first downloaded Poker Fighter two years ago and it was $45 for a one year membership. I played many hours, learning poker with no losses. I learned much more from this app than from playing online with play money, which I have found to be nearly useless as a learning tool.
When the membership ran out, I had already begun designing my short-stack default strategy so I did not bother to renew. I checked the price for this review and was pleasantly surprised to see a drop in the price. It is now available for $1.99 per month for one month, $1.50 per month for three months, or $1.00 per month for six months.
That is a bargain! It is a bargain nearly as good as purchasing the book Poker Beginner to Poker Winner in 1,000 Hands on this website instead of on Amazon. Although Amazon is a good option if you prefer a paperback or a Kindle version rather than downloading the .pdf.
If this sounds like a glowing review, it is. I highly recommend this app. The creators of Poker Fighter did not pay me a dime for this review. I can practically guarantee that if you spend even a few hours on it, you will increase your winnings on the poker tables to more than cover the cost.
Keep calm and Re-buy!
Frank