Disclosure first: we build PlusEV Poker, one of the apps on this page. Read everything below with that in mind. In exchange, every price carries a date, every claim is checkable, and the section explaining who should not use our app is honest.
Which poker training app is best?
There is no single best one, because the apps do not do the same job. The right question is which leak you are fixing. Prices and store details checked 21 September 2026.
| App | Drills | Platform | Price | Free option |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PlusEV Poker | Preflop, 6-max cash, spaced repetition | iOS + Android | Subscription (monthly or yearly) | Generous free hands for new players |
| Postflop+ GTO Poker Trainer | Postflop, cash + MTT + Spin & Go | iOS | Free download | Yes |
| Poker Trainer (Learn Poker) | Preflop, postflop, hand ranking, odds | iOS | Free download | Yes |
| pokertrainer.se | Preflop quizzes, basic exercises | Web | Free | Everything |
| Poker Fighter | Preflop and some postflop | Web + mobile | Subscription | Free tier |
| GTO Wizard | Solver lookup, postflop trees, trainer | Web | ~$26-$116+/mo | Limited free tier |
| DTO Poker | MTT, ICM spots, preflop | Web + mobile | ~$278 one-time preflop; postflop ~$10-30/mo | Trial spots |
| Upswing Poker | Courses, not drills | Web | ~$99/mo or $999/yr | Some free content |
Short version. Preflop cash leaks: PlusEV or pokertrainer.se. Postflop: Postflop+. Tournaments: DTO. Looking things up rather than drilling: GTO Wizard. Learning the game from scratch: Upswing or Poker Trainer.
What is the best free poker training app?
Postflop+ GTO Poker Trainer, if your leaks are postflop, and pokertrainer.se if you want preflop reps in a browser with nothing installed.
Postflop+ is the surprising one. It is free to download on iOS, rated 4.7, and it works fully offline: you download solver-solved spots to the device and drill them on a plane or underground. It reports exact GTO frequencies, bet sizings and the EV cost of each mistake, across cash, MTT, Spin & Go and heads-up. For a free app that is a lot of machinery.
Poker Trainer (Learn Poker) is the other free iOS option, also rated 4.7. Five drills: preflop against GTO or custom ranges, postflop hand reading with live equity, hand ranking, best-hand identification and odds. It is aimed lower than Postflop+, which makes it the better first app if you are still learning what beats what.
None of the three costs anything to try, so there is no argument for guessing. Install one this week and see whether drilling holds your attention before any money moves.
What is each app actually for?
PlusEV Poker
One specific player: you play 6-max cash, you already know your preflop game is leaking, and you want it fixed through reps rather than explained through videos. It deals real preflop spots, scores you against the solution, and feeds every miss into a spaced-repetition queue so the ones you get wrong keep coming back.
It does not cover postflop. It does not cover tournaments. If you need either, buy something else, and Postflop+ or DTO is where I would send you.
Postflop+ GTO Poker Trainer
Cash players fixing postflop leaks and tournament grinders who want spots on a phone with no connection. Its stated scope is millions of pre-computed spots across cash 6-max and full ring, MTTs, Spin & Go and heads-up, filterable by flop texture. It is the closest thing on this list to a postflop counterpart of what we do preflop.
Poker Trainer (Learn Poker)
Beginners and improving recreational players. The five drills cover more ground than any other free app here, but each one shallower. Level progression and offline play are the features it leads with.
pokertrainer.se
Where free matters more than depth. The exercises are basic and nothing adapts to your weak spots, but as a way to confirm you care before spending money, it is honest and we have no problem recommending it.
GTO Wizard
A player who studies postflop seriously, wants to look up specific spots, or runs custom solutions. It is the most complete study tool on the market and the price reflects that. If your leaks are preflop, most of what you pay for is a library you never open. Longer breakdown in our GTO Wizard alternatives comparison.
DTO Poker
Tournament players. Its DNA is MTT: ICM spots, varying stack depths, and a preflop product you buy once instead of renting. For a cash game player it is the wrong shape.
Poker Fighter
Preflop and some postflop scenarios in a drill format. The free tier is generous enough to test whether drilling works for you before committing.
Upswing Poker
A player who wants structured education and will put in the hours. The courses are deep and the instructors are credible. It is the most expensive option here by a wide margin, and for a beginner who just needs to stop open-limping, most of the library is several levels past what they need.
What does a poker training app actually do?
Three different things, depending on which one you open.
Video courses and coaching sites (Upswing, Pokercoaching, Run It Once) give you a library of strategy content from professional players. You watch, take notes, and try to apply it at the table. The format is a classroom.
Solver and study tools (GTO Wizard, PioSOLVER, Simple Postflop) let you look up what game theory says about any spot. Full decision trees, node-locking, your own solutions. The format is a reference library.
Drill trainers (PlusEV Poker, Postflop+, Poker Fighter, pokertrainer.se) deal you spots and ask you to play them. You answer, get scored, and the ones you miss come back until you stop missing them. The format is a gym.
Pairing two of them is often the right answer. A classroom and a gym are not competitors.
Why does most poker training not stick?
Because knowing the answer and producing it under pressure are different skills, and only the first one is taught.
You can study a button opening range all morning, understand why T7s is a raise, and then fold it tonight because the decision felt wrong with chips in front of you. That is not a knowledge problem. It is a retrieval problem: the information is in your head but does not surface fast enough.
Every language app on your phone solved this years ago with spaced repetition. Test, score, re-test the misses on a widening schedule until recall is automatic. The same mechanism works on the roughly 500 preflop decisions that repeat every session.
Does drilling actually improve your game?
Measured, in our case. We tracked 1,043,612 hands of post-training play across intermediate cash game players. After 30 days of spaced-repetition training, preflop accuracy improved by +0.061 BB per hand on average. The full methodology, sample definition, and exclusions are in the study. To see what that gain does to downswings and bankroll at your own win rate, the variance calculator has it built in as a comparison.
Whether that number matters depends on how many hands you play. At 500 hands a session, +0.061 BB is roughly 30 big blinds recovered per session from preflop leaks alone. At $1/$2, that is $60 a session from decisions you were already making, just making them wrong.
The argument is not that drilling replaces study. It is that study without drilling leaves the improvement on the table. Here is one of the ranges PlusEV trains you on, and every cell is a decision you will face tonight:
| AA | AKs | AQs | AJs | ATs | A9s | A8s | A7s | A6s | A5s | A4s | A3s | A2s |
| AKo | KK | KQs | KJs | KTs | K9s | K8s | K7s | K6s | K5s | K4s | K3s | K2s |
| AQo | KQo | QJs | QTs | Q9s | Q8s | Q7s | Q6s | Q5s | Q4s | Q3s | Q2s | |
| AJo | KJo | QJo | JJ | JTs | J9s | J8s | J7s | J6s | J5s | J4s | J3s | J2s |
| ATo | KTo | QTo | JTo | TT | T9s | T8s | T7s | T6s | T5s | T4s | T3s | T2s |
| A9o | K9o | Q9o | J9o | T9o | 99 | 98s | 97s | 96s | 95s | 94s | 93s | 92s |
| A8o | K8o | Q8o | J8o | T8o | 98o | 88 | 87s | 86s | 85s | 84s | 83s | 82s |
| A7o | K7o | Q7o | J7o | T7o | 97o | 87o | 77 | 76s | 75s | 74s | 73s | 72s |
| A6o | K6o | Q6o | J6o | T6o | 96o | 86o | 76o | 66 | 65s | 64s | 63s | 62s |
| A5o | K5o | Q5o | J5o | T5o | 95o | 85o | 75o | 65o | 55 | 54s | 53s | 52s |
| A4o | K4o | Q4o | J4o | T4o | 94o | 84o | 74o | 64o | 54o | 44 | 43s | 42s |
| A3o | K3o | Q3o | J3o | T3o | 93o | 83o | 73o | 63o | 53o | 43o | 33 | 32s |
| A2o | K2o | Q2o | J2o | T2o | 92o | 82o | 72o | 62o | 52o | 42o | 32o | 22 |
The small blind is where most players leak the most money. UTG is where they leak the most confidence: you know the range should be tight, but under pressure you either play too many hands or too few.
What should you look for in a poker training app?
Four things separate the useful ones from the noise, whichever category appeals to you.
The content comes from solvers, not from someone’s opinion. GTO solutions are reproducible. “My coach says” is not. Any app worth your time either runs its own solutions or licenses them from a reputable source, and tells you which.
It addresses your actual format. A 6-max cash range is meaningfully different from a 9-max range, and both are different from a tournament range at 20 big blinds. An app that trains all three without distinguishing them is training you to play all of them slightly wrong.
Free content exists so you can test before you pay. Every app in the table offers something before the paywall. Use it. If the free version does not feel useful after a week, the paid version will not either.
It measures something about your play. Tracking accuracy over time is the minimum. If an app cannot show you whether you are getting better, it is a quiz, not training.
The bottom line
The right poker training app depends on what is actually broken in your game. If you do not understand strategy yet, start with a course or a free app like Poker Trainer. If you understand it but cannot reproduce it under pressure, a drill trainer built for that is the better spend. If you are already profitable and want to study edge cases, a solver is the tool.
PlusEV Poker is the drill trainer for preflop cash. It does one thing, for one format, and the case study is where we prove it works rather than claim it. New players get a generous number of free hands to try it, no card required.