For over a decade, Mike Sexton has proudly announced on the World Poker Tour broadcast that No Limit Texas Hold’em is a game that takes a minute to learn but a lifetime to master. Only the very dedicated individuals have the discipline to teach themselves how to be great players and master the game. The rest of us must find other means of assistance whether it be by books, training sites, videos or trial and error. One of the great ways to accelerate your mastery is by following the famous African adage that “it takes a village.”
Utilizing collective wisdom and experience can dramatically increase the pace of your learning. The best setting to find collective poker education is on the various poker forums and communities on the internet. People come together to share, question and give advice on their play which allows you to gain from their communal efforts.
There are a wide variety of poker forums available. They vary is size and focus. Each forum organizes its information in sub forums where you can seek advice and feedback for your specific area of concern. The can cover everything from strategy to gossip or off topic sections for humor and community. The quality and personality of the poker forums vary widely so I thought it would be helpful to provide a list and description of 20 of the top poker forums for you to consider visiting to find community and poker education as you look to advance your game.
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Twoplustwo – It is by far the largest and most popular poker forum and one of the larger forums in the world by overall traffic. Twoplustwo has dozens of individual modded forums that cover every possible aspect of the poker world from NLHE, tournaments, coaching, gambling, legislation, gossip to sports and games. Unfortunately with the extremely high level of traffic comes a very high noise to signal ratio. There are many negative and silly posters on the site that disturb and frustrate your ability to find quality advice you can trust. The large forum following is often best seen in its collective investigative powers or for entertainment purposes in their occasional but inspired photoshop humor posts that draw thousands of participants to News, Views, and Gossip or Beats, Brags and Variance. Many a respected online poker player has cut their teeth by posting the the various strategy forums available. Many of the top players still post regularly for the wide audience in a few select forums.
- Full Contact Poker – Daniel Negreanu helped popularize this poker forum. The popular forum supports Negreanu’s poker training site Poker VT. It has a number of sub forums, some more valuable and active than others.
- PokerStrategy – One of the largest poker communities and forums. Sub-forums cover everything from beginner’s questions, to poker software, to sharing your successes and poker room reviews.
- Cardschat – Large worldwide poker community and poker forum for poker enthusiasts. There are communal and member only sections of the forums.
- Donkr – Popular European poker community that is active in various aspects of the game and has a non-traditional discussion style of forum format that lists not by subject matter but relative posting date.
- PocketFives – A popular poker forum with tournament poker fans. They have an active forum and community that is close knit and includes many top tournament players that relish all the tournament ranking that the main site provides. The default forum presentation is organized not by subject matter but rather by most recently posted or responded to.
- LiquidPoker – A long standing blog and forum community that focuses on strategy from low to high stakes. It has a strong cross alliance with gamers. The design may seem antiquated but the information is generally offered by poker purists.
- CardRunners – Formerly open only to members, in the post Black Friday environment the well moderated and highly valued strategy forums of this popular training site are now open to the public. One of the better sources for specific poker strategy advice.
- HighstakesDB – A poker forum and community fueled by the following of the high stakes cash game community and reporting done on the site. It can be an interesting source of speculation about the high stakes games.
- Blondepoker – A long time busy poker forum that evolved from the dtd forums. They have regular updates and announcements in addition to the normal poker forum categories.
- EatMyStack – UK poker forum that covers a range of traditional poker forum subjects like poker strategy and off topic discussion.
- PartTimePoker – Established poker community forums that cover the gambit of coaching, to bonuses, staking, and strategy.
- HendonMob – UK based poker tournament resource site also has an active poker forum geared for live and online players. There are few sub forums, with the Mob Poker Forum getting the bulk of the posting activity.
- FlopTurnRiver – An established poker community and resource site that offers a large array of poker and non poker related forums for enthusiasts.
- PokerNews – The forums that accompany the large poker news portal get some interesting forum posts, if more on the news and gossip side rather than the strategy side.
- HomePokerTourney – A very large array of sub-forums can be found at HomePokerTourney, from poker supplies, classifieds, galleries, giveaways, poker rules, tournaments and leagues. The older style may be a turn off to some, but it is a good resource for poker information not found on many other forums.
- InternetTexasHoldem – One of the older poker forums in existence. A large variety of sub forums are available for poker fans from staking, rakeback, ranting to tournaments, books and specific game advice.
- PokerRoad – A large set of forums that was formerly more active but has slackened for a while with the loss of leadership behind its media efforts that involved Barry Greenstein and Joe Sebok. They offer a variety of forums that used to draw big name high stakes poker players.
- 4kingpoker – A long established poker forum run by the poker and casino affiliate. It is lesser trafficked but has some interesting posts and poker informational resource posts.
- PokerCurious – A smaller and less trafficked forum, but quite a helpful poker informational resource site geared to new players and offering freerolls.