On Wednesday, Octopi Poker's own Matt Hunt and Victoria Livschitz played hosts to a community of listeners for a Q&A session – featuring news on the platform's latest updates, sneak peeks into upcoming additions, and an open floor for questions. As part of the discussion on the future of the platform, the trio shared details about Octopi Academy.
Octopi Academy is the company's first foray into the coaching arena – one they hope will not merely parrot the existing options in the space, but rather offer a complete shift in approach.
"We are not attempting to copy the competition," Livschitz asserted. "We are attempting to sort of revolutionize how poker coaching and poker study through content is done."
Livschitz went on to provide further details about the project, including the shared vision of the company founders and leaders for Octopi Academy.
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'More engaging and less boring'
In listening to Livschitz speak about the project, it's clear that the company's plans for Octopi Academy center not only on sourcing top-level coaching material, but also on making the content accessible and captivating.
"One part of the shared vision that our founders and leaders have always had is that people learn by using stealth study tools such as solvers and people also learn by consuming content done by coaches," Livschitz began. "Both paradigms need to be changed. One of the big things we are trying to do is make everything fun and far more engaging and less boring.
"If you think of what Duolingo for poker would like, that's what we are trying to envision, think through, and implement."
While Octopi Poker already has great minds like Livschitz, Hunt, and Stephen Chidwick on the team, they want to expand to create a roster chock full of poker's top level coaches.
"We are going to announce very soon – keeping fingers crossed – the roster of coaches who are going to be building Octopi Academy," Livschitz said. "I believe that we're going to have pretty much the best set of coaches and the best content on the market, but again, built with a fresh set of eyes and a fresh set of ideas and a fresh set of approaches. There will be free content and paid plans."
So, when can users expect to start their first lessons on Octopi Academy? Soon.
"I'm going to sort of pre-announce something that we will announce in the next few days, which is sort of the pre-launch of Octopi Academy," Livschitz continued. "It's going to be essentially a 12-week guided MTT study program. I think our marketing campaign will maybe start tomorrow. The actual program will start on February 25 and wrap up by the end of May."
Existing Octopi Poker users will have access to the study program, with a discounted price promised for new customers to the platform.