Stop doom-scrolling: PLO Mentor is a better use of your phone

So while it’s not free, when compared with other training sites it’s definitely a cheap option. There are no ads or in-app purchases, and the whole thing works offline.

Developed for and by poker players, PLO Mentor is aiming to become a cheap, mobile-first study companion for the four-card crowd, with no computer or online connection required.

But what exactly can it do, and crucially, is it worth it?

Instant PLO training

PLO Mentor is a mobile app for Android and iOS. You can’t play hands to completion, but it’s also not just a selection of dry range charts.

Instead it’s an interactive training tool that allows you to examine and drill certain spots and situations, as well as analyze specific hands and track things like sessions and bankrolls.

The training experience can be as fast, and as long, as you want it to be.

Training is divided into three categories: 100bb cash games, 20bb multi-table tournaments (MTTs) and 40bb MTTs. You can then choose drills for each with a choice of positions and prior actions.

What happens next is a never-ending run of those spots, with instant feedback on every decision you make. When you’re done, tap ‘End training’ and, provided you’ve played at least 50 hands, you’ll be given instant feedback on the leaks in your game for your selected scenario.

There are also a few other useful features, such as a session tracker — more on those below.

SPECIAL OFFERS

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Fast play, fast feedback

I'm certainly no PLO expert, and the instant training was what I found most useful. Playing 50 spots took around 5 minutes, and gave me a breakdown of my biggest weaknesses, as well as how I had performed in each position.

In that short period of time the app was able to identify my weakest position (middle), my biggest overall mistake (overfolding), and the type of hands I was making the most errors with (unpaired double-suited).

I've definitely got room to improve.

I could then focus on these exact spots in a bid to improve skills — and my scores — for those specific situations.

The speed of this process is what felt most impactful for me. While the level of solver feedback is not super in-depth, it is immediately understandable. EV +/- details for each decision and knowing where to focus and what to drill is extremely useful information; gaining that understanding so quickly means I feel I’ve improved a little already.

The actual training itself is similarly speedy. With a portrait orientation ideal for one-handed use, the drills come as fast as you’re ready to do them. Being able to run through 50+ examples of the spots where you’re making the most errors — all in just a few minutes — makes PLO Mentor an instructive and useful alternative to scrolling social media or playing casual phone games.

The speed and ease of use helps make this app an easy one to pick up and play around with for a few minutes at a time, and the instant feedback is rewarding — especially when you start to note improvements in your accuracy percentage.

What else is in the app?

While access to fast training drills and near-instant feedback is the app’s main strength, it comes with several other tools that may prove useful.

The ‘Lookup’ feature allows you to set exact parameters, recreating specific hands or spots, to explore GTO approaches and review specific scenarios.

Set your own parameters in the Lookup tab.

The ‘Equity’ tab provides an equity calculator for PLO hands involving up to four players, based on exact hands or ranges, and covers 4-, 5- and 6-card PLO, as well as PLO8 (hi/lo).

Finally, the ‘Journal’ tab lets you track play sessions in real time, or after the event. Make notes, set details like variants, buy-ins, currencies and stakes, and keep tabs on your progress in the real world.

You can also save specific hands for review, and view them in a built-in replayer.

Equity calculations are not just avaiable for PLO, PLO5 and PLO6, but also hi/lo games.

Is it worth it?

Finding a diversion on your phone to kill a few minutes, or a few hours, is not a tough task. Finding an app that can entertain you, while improving your life in some tangible way, is far more rare.

PLO Mentor may not have the depth of some other GTO training tools, like Octopi Poker for example, but to dismiss it for that reason would be missing the point.

If, as the saying goes, 'the best camera is the one you have with you', the best poker training tool just might be the one that’s always there when you have a spare moment.

And the knowledge that all those spare moments contribute towards identifying leaks that are costing you money? That makes them feel less like time killed and more like time well spent.

This app does not have the market cornered — alternatives exist if you choose to look — but what it does, it does very well. The interface is pleasant, the solver logic appears sound, and the gamification of your progress encourages you to continue picking it up for another shot. You can set reminders in the app to log in and test yourself on a regular basis, but if you’re a PLO devotee, you may not need to.

Is it worth over $100 a year? That’s a question for you and your accountant, but if improving at PLO is important to you, this is a great way to practice whenever — and for however long — the fancy takes you.

PLO Mentor is available now on the App Store and Play Store, with free three-day trials offering full access. Learn more at PLO Mentor.

^{Featured image generated using AI.}