Over the past nine months I have watched the hype cleverly increased over time regarding David Chicotsky and Ari Engel and their training facility. They have set up a state of the art poker training centre in Las Vegas designed to train people in their specific poker tournament strategy and despite many negative comments about people who train others in poker, these young men have managed to maintain a buzz about their product and have shown success through the results of their students. Despite my sceptical attitude towards the Maven System and these “systems” in general, they do seem to help students improve and Learn Texas Holdem tournament strategy effectively.

David and Ari are two successful online poker players with an excellent history of high online cashes. David won the 2008 Bluff Magazine Online Player of the Year title and has used that accolade as the foundation of his poker school. Using lightspeed technology, which is the ability for them to appear on screen in a narrator type setting and stream on demand; they have been filming their material since the middle of 2009, hoping to launch an online platform in March 2010.

Currently the only way you can get “The Maven” training is to visit their training centre in Las Vegas where you must pay $5000 for an intensive day of poker training in a group setting. You are given the theory behind the system then you watch David play numerous tournaments with this strategy for many hours. It seems that they are pushing the idea of dedication, multi-tabling and running out the same strategy over and over which they believe will eventually result in a big score obtaining a good profit for the player. Intensive hand analysis is also included.

At $5000 per day it is a very expensive way of learning how to win at poker. Indeed you would need a $5000 win to pay for the tuition! Despite this, most of the players who go through the training are completely positive about it and highly recommend it. David regularly posts on the forum results from his students but it is not reported exactly what they their tournament ROI before and after the training is to show tangible improvement. There is also the concept that after spending $5000 you would probably want to convince yourself this was worthwhile even if the changes were minimal in your success.

In March 2010 it is anticipated that the online version of the MavenVT.com will open for business. It is reported to cost $1000 as a one-off fee for unlimited access to the training materials. The up-sell concept is to persuade you to visit their poker training centre for an intensive review session which is far more expensive. They assure users, however, that the online material is enough to profit.

David said in an interview that most of the material is available online they have just put it all together in an effective way. This worries me slightly that a player may pay $1000 only to discover they know all of the aspects of the training already. Chicotsky assures everyone in his articles, however, that even if that is the case you will still learn from watching the videos and listening to the theory behind their ideas.

The big success of the Maven System is Chicotsky keeping it fresh and despite no updates in over one year since its announcement he is still getting coverage and magazine interviews. Players are intrigued. Could it be the new age way to profit in online tournaments? No doubt Engel and Chicotsky are going to get rich from this regardless but they maintain they are dedicated to the training for the right reasons. 1000 sign-ups at $1000 (which I think is virtually guaranteed given the coverage they have had) will be worth $1,000,000 to them and they may get far more than that.

My interest remains in whether they can justify the high price and whether any poker training can be worth that much money. Time will tell.

By Malcolm Clarke

Related posts:

1. Building Your Profile at Pokertube! I have blogged before about the fantastic functionality and opportunity...
2. David Benyamine: France’s Best Poker Player Nicknamed ‘Magicpitch’, David Benyamine is France’s best Poker player ever....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.