# Take Your Game to the Next Level

The primary goal of Poker Academy is to help you become a better player. Poker Academy Pro contains a comprehensive suite of powerful poker tools no serious poker player should be without. You may be wondering how you can best use these tools to improve and polish your game, and most importantly, to increase your winnings. Learning even one new concept or plugging one small leak in your game will easily pay for the cost of this software many times over once you put your new skills into action for real cash.

### Practice, Practice, Practice

Poker Academy Pro is the ultimate practice tool. There is no substitute for experience. With Poker Academy Pro you can play at high speed to gain experience fast. Unlike most humans in online play-money games, our computer opponents always take the game seriously. Unlike real cash games, you can experiment with new styles and learn without losing your shirt. We offer a wide variety of different player styles to practice against. Your experience against a well rounded line-up of opponents will prove invaluable.

### Drill on specific situations

If you find yourself unsure of how best to play certain situations, you can use the Dealer Options to set up exact conditions and then drill on them until you are confident in your play. For example, learn the difference position makes by playing the same hand one hundred times each in early, middle, and late positions. Learn to play King-Queen offsuit under the gun by playing it hundreds of times in a row. The ability to isolate and train on specific scenarios is a powerful learning tool. You will feel extremely confident the next time you find yourself in a well practiced position.

### Learn to read hands

Use the peek feature to see if your suspicions are correct. Play with all of the cards face up and study how each player plays their hand. Review hand histories and play back old sessions to see how well you played, and where you made mistakes. You can also use the 'instant replay' feature to see if taking a different action would have made you more money. For instance, you may have slow-played a set on the flop, and now want to replay the same hand to see if betting for value earlier would have built you a bigger pot.

### Try out new Concepts

Reading poker books is an excellent way to learn and understand new poker concepts. As you are reading, put the concepts into practice by trying them out in Poker Academy. The combination of a well written reference book and the ability to demonstrate those concepts immediately will solidify your understanding.

### Analyse Your Game

Use the Player Statistics to find leaks in your game. Discover what hands you play profitably, and which you lose money with. For instance, you can filter your hands by position and instantly see which starting hands you are losing with in that position. You'll need to either stop playing those hands in that position, or drill on them until you learn to play them profitably. Use the Sharks & Fish list to see which players you are winning and losing against. Use the bankroll graphs to spot trends in your performance over time. Compare your statistics to other players to discover how your style differs.

### Learn the odds

It is vital to know the odds of making draws, the probability of your hand being the best, and the odds of winning if you jam with your pocket pair and your opponent calls you with two overcards. Poker Academy Pro contains several tools to help develop a good intuition for poker math. The Sidebar's Hand Evaluator gives real-time stats on the strength of your hand. The more fully-featured Hand Evaluator window breaks down the probabilities of your hand's strength, draws, and the opponent's likely holdings. The Showdown Calculator is an essential tool for calculating the odds of any match up of hands. Using the showdown calculator will help you make the right judgement in tricky all-in situations.