Hey guys…saw this post here so I figured i’d chime in and explain why it is the way it is.

The forum can be viewed by non members, but they cannot post or reply to posts – which is where the protection comes in and membership is required.

This is the way most training sites set up their forum.

The reasoning is that people need to understand the value they get when they engage with the forum. Is there a community? Are posts answered? Are they answered well? Do people take the time to respond? Or is it a black hole?

TPE has a pretty good community and that is one of the selling points.

We can’t show that if the community is hidden, and over time the community will suffer for it because less people will join and those who do may not understand the value of it.

As far as free information – I can understand why that is brought up but I think it’s a bit overvalued. Someone who comes in and just reads strategy posts without engaging themselves rarely becomes a better player or does anything with the information. There are hundreds of poker forums (free) that people can go get information from. Hiding content doesn’t really solve any problems.

What does work is using a forum effectively. The effective way to use a forum is to interact with it. To post your own hands and post your own replies because putting thoughts into words is how you learn. That is 100% effective. To do that you must be a member of TPE.  I know you do it and it is what makes you a great community member, and someone who gets the most out of TPE.

I hope that helps. We appreciate the feedback and the chance to clarify our strategy.