I just recently saw where two of the bigger poker training websites out there in CardRunner.com and Stoxpoker.com have decided to join forces to make a mega-training site.  Now I’m not sure what the exact numbers of StoxPoker’s membership base is but it has to be somewhat similar to CardRunner’s as their co-founder said it’s over 14,000 members.  This is certainly going to make for a big-time training site that can now compete with some of the giants like PokerPwnage and Real Poker Training.

And this story really got me thinking; Are these poker training sites really worth the money?  I myself have never actually been a member of one nor do I have any immediate plans to join one of these places either.  I really just stick to reading books and strategy articles.  However, the prospect of having players who make millions every year like Nick “Stoxtrader” Grudzien training me is definitely an intriguing prospect.

I sometimes wonder what the success rate of the players who go through poker training websites like StoxPoker, Real Poker Training and others are like when compared to the rest of the online poker community.  There seems to be a lot of ads from these companies touting their training abilities by saying how they’ve trained so-and-so who just placed really high in a recent tournament.

Now I’m sure that these companies only take those who excel and use them for the little ads and articles they run but poker training is something that always seems to be worth the consideration.  But I’d really like to see what kind of return on their investment these players are getting for joining these training sites as I’ve never really seen any kind of figures.  Until that kind of stuff becomes available, I guess I’ll just stick to the books.