When it comes to poker training, there are so many different options out there these days. While many of these provide valuable resources, they tend to mainly be geared towards serious poker players who spend a lot of time playing and studying.
Options for recreational players are much more limited, perhaps in part because they are often not seen as a “valuable enough” market. However, Emils Uztics recognized the gap and for the last few months has been spearheading Raise to Ten, a community-driven poker training platform focusing on recreational players who play low-stakes cash games.
Emils is a member of the Run It Once Training team, one of the biggest coaching platforms that was originally created by Phil Galfond. In fact, in the conversation we had with him a few days ago, Emils says that the idea for Raise to Ten came directly from Galfond, who knows the value of being surrounded by other players with similar goals having risen the ranks in poker with friends like Tom Dwan and Andrew Robl, amongst others.
Raise to Ten differs in many ways from everything else out there, as it is designed to give casual players who are passionate about the game a path to build their bankrolls and potentially move up in stakes while realizing and acknowledging the constraints that a recreational player has to deal with and work around to accomplish their goals.
Raise to Ten: The Origins
Emils Uztics, the man behind Raise to Ten, has been a part of the Run It Once (RIO) family for many years. For a while, he worked on the company’s online poker product, but he stepped away after three years to start his own business in a niche that had nothing to do with poker.
He then rejoined the RIO coaching platform, in many ways continuing where he left off. As he explains, although poker and training sites were two separate entities, there was always a lot of crossover, and the two teams worked together and helped each other.
The idea for Raise to Ten came about at the end of 2023, stemming from the realization that Run It Once was geared primarily towards serious and advanced players. Galfond recognized that the platform had more to give to part-time players who mostly play live..
So, they embarked on a journey to create a community-driven environment where people could surround themselves with like-minded individuals who share similar goals and deal with similar problems, on and off the tables.
The focus was placed on low-stakes live cash game players, those playing up to $2/$5 No Limit Hold’em. The platform specifically wanted to serve those who don’t necessarily have dozens of hours every week to devote to playing but still wanted to make progress in their game.
Raise to Ten went live with its beta in the summer of 2024, and the platform launched fully a few months back, in December of last year.
Raise to Ten’s Community & Goal-Focused Approach
Unlike many training sites, Run It Once included, Raise to Ten takes a much different approach, with a focus on the community and clear, achievable goals.
There is a step-by-step strategy course to get you started, but it consists of shorter, concise videos so that you can get through it without having to spend 20+ hours. It offers important insights but doesn’t get bogged down in details that you probably don’t need to beat live games at the lowest of stakes.
However, the course is just a small piece of the whole program.
The Raise to Ten platform is designed with a very clear and concise goal in mind: to get you to $10,000 in profits over the course of six months.
To achieve this, there are many tools at your disposal:
- The community – everybody in the program is there to achieve the same goal, and everyone is eager to engage in conversations about hand histories, strategies, and common mistakes.
- Weekly video calls – every week, there are two live calls in two different time slots (to cover European and US times), covering specific topics like, e.g., limped pots.
- Personal journal – keep track of your progress and stay accountable, not just to the site and yourself, but to the entire community. In that sense, de facto, everyone in the program helps each other out.
Over the course of the first few months, Raise to Ten has managed to build a very active and friendly community, where members encourage and cheer each other on.
Of course, there is a significant level of personal responsibility. The site promises to get you to the $10k goal within six months, but you are expected to play at least 50 hours every month and attend at least one call every week. As long as you keep up your end of the deal, they’ll keep working with you beyond the six-month mark if you haven’t hit that bankroll goal.
To be fair, this is a relatively low bar, and the team at Raise to Ten is very flexible, realizing that life can happen and come between a person and their poker goals. Those who occasionally fail to meet their targets aren’t automatically booted from the program. Rather, the whole idea of this program is founded on mutual understanding and support to find the best possible solutions.
SIGN UP FOR RAISE TO TEN VIA OUR LINK = SAVE $100
What Kind of Poker Player Is Raise to Ten For?
Due to its somewhat different approach, Raise to Ten tends to attract the type of player that you won’t find enrolled in traditional coaching sites. In fact, the demographic might surprise you!
According to Emils, Raise to Ten has a diverse membership group that includes a number of women, retirees, and others that differ from your more common 21-35 year old male poker grinder. Some members are nearing retirement and are now looking for the next challenge, while staying active and making use of the extra time they now have on their hands.
These people aren’t looking to spend five or six days a week grinding poker. Instead, they are the exact category the platform caters to: playing 10–20 hours a week on average wanting to improve their results, and are interested primarily in the challenge of improving and seeing results from the effort they put in.
It is thus no surprise that the community is very active, with 85% active members and multiple daily posts from people looking to talk strategy, general poker stuff, and create friendships.
According to Emils, the feedback from the community has been largely positive, with members praising both the formal side of things (courses and video calls) as well as the ability to regularly share and discuss hands. They feel that the feedback from others in the group can be very transformative, helping them recognize some easily fixable mistakes that they simply weren’t aware of as previously they had no one to point them out.
Raise to Ten: Good Bang for Your Buck
Like with any training program, among the biggest questions people have at the end of the day are: how much will this pleasure cost, and is my money well spent here?
To sign up for the Raise to Ten six-month program, you’ll need to pay $749. This gives you full access to the course, the library containing all previous video calls (which has grown quite substantially by this point), and, of course, the community. When you divide that by six months of program access, that comes to a pretty reasonable monthly price point.
SIGN UP FOR RAISE TO TEN VIA OUR LINK = SAVE $100
Plus, of course, you get the promise that you’ll make $10,000 in profit over the course of those six months and, as long as you keep your end of the bargain (playing at least 50 hours a week and attending one video call), the team will continue to work with you until you reach your goal – with no extra charges.
So, unlike many other options out there, this one feels a lot like a proper investment in your poker ambitions, where the ROI is pretty obvious.
Once you reach the goal, it’s up to you if you want to stick around. If so, continued membership in the program will set you back around $50 a month. Again, that’s pretty reasonable if you like the community and want to have a place where you can always chat poker with fellow players who are in the same boat.
So, if you are someone who plays low-stakes cash games as a hobby but feel ready to start taking things a bit more seriously, Raise to Ten might just be the perfect program for you. It is fun, affordable, and gives you very clear steps and goals to follow on your journey as a poker player without overwhelming you.
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