Frequently asked questions

Yes. Every course — the five Hold’em levels plus the tournament, PLO4 and PLO5 courses — every quiz and every tool is free to use without an account. If we ever offer paid coaching, the courses will stay free.

Take the free Find Your Level quiz. It takes about three minutes and recommends a starting level based on what you already know. Complete beginners can go straight to Level 1 — Foundations.

The core Hold’em course has five levels, from the rules of the game in Level 1 to mindset and study habits in Level 5. Specialist courses in tournaments, PLO4 and PLO5 are split into stages. Mark lessons complete as you go, then pass each short quiz to earn that level’s or stage’s badge.

Luck decides individual hands, but skill decides results over time. Good decisions — which hands to play, when to fold, how to size bets — make a measurable difference over thousands of hands. That said, short-term results are unpredictable and no strategy guarantees winning.

No. Without an account, your progress, quiz results and badges are saved in your browser on this device. Create a free account and they’re also saved to your profile, so they follow you across devices and count towards your XP.

Go to the Levels page and use “Reset my progress” at the bottom. This clears completed lessons, badges and quiz results stored in this browser.

When every hand is known, the calculator checks every possible board exactly — even before the flop. When a hand is left random, it runs a Monte Carlo simulation of 150,000 deals and shows the margin of error, typically a few tenths of a percent.

Yes. The bankroll tracker stores sessions only in your browser. We never see them. Use the CSV export to back up your data or move it to a spreadsheet.

No. They’re simplified, beginner-friendly starting points for six-handed No-Limit Hold’em with 100 big blind stacks. They’re a solid baseline, and you can edit every chart to fit your own game.

No. PokerLevelUp is an independent educational website. We don’t operate games, hold player funds or accept wagers. Our Play page lists independent partner clubs, each with its own terms and compliance information.

It depends on your country, state or province. It’s your responsibility to check local laws before playing for real money. You must also be at least 18 (or the legal age where you live, if higher).

We don’t recommend thinking of poker as income. Results swing a lot, even for strong players, and most people who play lose money over time. Treat poker as a hobby and a skill game, set limits, and only play with money you can afford to lose.