Tournament Savagery Review: The Most Complete MTT Masterclass in Poker

If you are sat at home fresh off your online grind on a successful Sunday, you might be forgiven for thinking you know a good deal about tournament poker. That is, until you undertake an MTT training course like Tournament Savagery.

It will shred the way you look at MTT strategy, right from opening sizes to adjusting at chipEV. It will change the way you approach the game completely. Built by poker legends and GTO LAB co-founders Daniel Dvoress and Nick Petrangelo, it is what happens when two of the best tournament players get together and give a 25 hour masterclass that goes through every single stage of an MTT, from opening cEV all the way down to three-handed FT dynamics.

As someone who has played their fair share of tournaments and thought they had a bit of a clue of what is going on in them, I went through the entire course. Below is my honest, in-depth take on what makes it stand out from all other MTT coaching content in poker.

What is Tournament Savagery?

Tournament Savagery is the pinnacle of GTO LAB’s MTT courses. It is 43 videos and more than 20 practice drills, built in sequential order that resembles a real tournament. You go through a short introduction, then preflop, then postflop, then blind versus blind, and finally you get to go through the esoteric spots in poker, like extreme chip leads or deficits.

For me, the biggest immediate takeaway was that Tournament Savagery is not a theory dump. You can find countless “theory slop” in poker coaching content these days, where it is just solver outputs regurgitated. Tournament Savagery instead explains concepts and encourages you to understand the baseline and reasoning at each step. You go through early-stage chip accumulation, pre-bubble, through the bubble, post-bubble reset, final table distributions and structures. In fact, over 10 hours alone are dedicated to final tables, which tells you that this is a course made by the best MTT players. The purpose of the course is not to teach you how to survive or avoid blunders, but to dominate, play well and win the tournament.

Most players end up losing their big equity spots later in tournaments, and that’s why a big portion of Tournament Savagery is spent studying bubble dynamics, pre-FT distributions and heavy ICM implications.

Tournament Savagery, the MTT masterclass by Nick Petrangelo and Daniel Dvoress

Who are Nick Petrangelo and Daniel Dvoress?

An MTT poker course is only as good as those teaching it, and this is where Tournament Savagery separates itself from the market before you watch your first video.

Nick Petrangelo is one of the most accomplished tournament players we’ve ever seen, with two WSOP bracelets and over $40 million in live tournament earnings. A fixture in the nosebleed MTT scene for years, he most notably won the 2018 WSOP $100,000 High Roller for $2.9 million, and has become known for being an excellent coach for people playing similarly big spots. When you are getting taught by someone, to know is not enough. It adds validation when they have been there and won too.

Daniel Dvoress is the perfect study partner alongside him. Well-known for being one of the most well-studied and analytical players in the game, Daniel is someone who helped shape modern tournament coaching and strategy with Run It Once before prioritizing his focus on playing in high rollers himself. A common name and winner in the online GGPoker Super Million$ and Triton series live for years, he has won tens of millions in tournament poker as well as two WSOP bracelets. His reputation positions him as someone who is deeply theoretical, principled in his play and very insightful. He is the player who other top pros go to when they want to check whether something works and why.

The duo are both long-time study partners in real life, battling in the same arenas. This adds enormously to the course, as the chemistry is there when they are combining but both are perfectly suited to their modules, whether it’s Daniel explaining concepts behind bubble factor and risk premiums or Nick giving you insights into cEV exploits against different player profile types.

The structure: how the course was made

Around 25 hours of intensive poker MTT coaching sounds scary, but the natural flow and organisation makes it manageable and digestible, and most importantly, applicable. The path of a natural tournament means you are learning concepts in the same order you find them in a poker tournament, that helps immeasurably with the learning. Very often, these concepts layer on one another, so having this flow is perfect for a holistic MTT course like Tournament Savagery.

You get straight into the most important MTT fundamentals, like cEV open sizes, how to handle inequal stack depths and building a stack of your own. Then you begin to get to the mid stage of a tournament, where ICM should be considered. One feature of GTO LAB is the comparison tool, which allows you to compare two different solutions side-by-side. This is huge for helping Daniel and Nick explain concepts, especially when ICM and cEV begin to differentiate like during the mid stage.

The most intensive portion of the course comes at the end, where you look at bubble dynamics, working to the FT and full-ring aspects before looking at short-handed and heads-up.

One learning that is evident is how strategy evolves and shapeshifts as the tournament develops. A hand in the same position can be a clear open in one moment and a clear fold later in the MTT, purely because of ICM pressure. This is explored deeply in Tournament Savagery, so if this is a dynamic that confuses you, this course will give you perfect clarity.

Tournament Savagery MTT course strategy and ICM study

Where the course goes deep: make-or-break concepts

This is where I want to highlight the real gold that is in Tournament Savagery. The depth of poker knowledge here is the main point of the course.

ICM and risk premiums. The crux of the whole course is a thorough, deep and nuanced breakdown of the Independent Chip Model. Most players think they get ICM as that vague notion of maybe being a little more tight or a little more aggressive depending on your stack and stage, but this course tells you that you have so, so far to go in your understanding. Tournament Savagery teaches you how to work out risk premiums, which is the extra plus or minus of equity you get when busting is expensive or getting chips is justified. The MTT course shows you precisely when ICM should make you fold hands that look like slam-dunk jams or calls, and one thing I really appreciated was how both Daniel and Nick looked at where people might be overfolding or adjusting too much, encouraging you to understand the baseline but make your own adjustments and exploits in game. There are whole modules for bubble factor misconceptions, false assumptions about who is at risk and this makes it one of the real gems in the course.

Inequal stack depths. One of the most misunderstood and neglected parts of tournament poker is how stack size gaps between the table create strategic pressure points. Nick and Daniel look at how you need to dial up or down your aggression based on who is behind you and who covers you, how to exploit capped ranges, and how your preflop plan should mould and develop as stacks change and positions rotate around the table. It’s the kind of nuance and intuition that separates a top-level reg from a breakeven or losing one, and an understanding like this will compound your edge over time.

cEV bet sizing. Find yourself absently-mindedly opening 2x or 2.5x at times? Me too. This course shreds your perception of opening, and rebuilds it from the ground up. It looks at solver-preferred sizings and why they function, the logic behind the different sizings depending on your stack depths and positions, and most importantly, gives you practical heuristics so you can apply them at your next poker tournament. This opening module makes you realise how in-depth and impressive the course is as a whole.

Postflop under pressure. The postflop section might have been my favourite. It’s 17 videos that cover high-frequency check-raise boards, how to build an aggressive but balanced range, when to float versus a c-bet by calling instead of raising, defending in-position against check-raises, how to play turns across the most common nodes, single-raise pots against cold-callers, and the asymmetrical ranges in 3-bet pots between the button and big-blind. It even layers ICM in there too, so you understand how pressure reshapes your sizes, aggression and hand selection once payouts are involved. Understanding how ICM adjusts your postflop game, not just preflop, is a massive level-up to most regs who aspire to reach higher levels.

It goes beyond the solver

A lot of modern poker training content goes on “here’s what the solver says”, and this is a big gripe of mine. This course goes far beyond. Nick and Daniel apply countless hours of playing MTTs, from the low and mid-stakes as they built up their own careers to the high-stakes and nosebleed which is what you see them battle in today. They add their experience to add context and nuance to the spots a solver alone can not teach you. They explore the GTO baseline through PioSolver, and then teach about deviation, population tendencies and how to make the correct adjustments that win you the maximum EV in the games you play.

That was the core philosophy of the course. A top-level MTT masterclass delivered by the very best in their profession. Not a robot who blindly follows a solver, but by two crushers who aim to maximize their EV by learning and adapting, because that’s why they are the best poker players in their format. The course encourages flexibility, for you to be a player who understands the theory deeply but can break the rules profitably. As a tournament player, intuition will be the thing that separates you from the field. Spots come thick and fast and most players at reasonable stakes have access to a solver. Not many have access to two of the greatest minds in tournament poker.

This course gives you a window into their intuition, and even ventures beyond into future game simulation and metagame dynamics, the type of forward-thinking most poker coaching or content never even touches.

Daniel Dvoress, GTO LAB co-founder and Tournament Savagery instructor

The teaching is accessible

Part of me was expecting this to be a real slog. 25 hours of any kind of education is a lot. But this wasn’t. From all the poker coaching content I’ve looked at, it was one of the most accessible and digestible, and I think it was down to Nick and Daniel’s delivery and dynamic.

Nick makes his modules engaging and light. He is engaging, funny and has a real knack for keeping you dialed in during the video. He consistently goes back to apply his own knowledge and experience, and that helps you get through the densest material. Daniel brings a scientific and structured approach, his explanatory nature helps get you around the most complex ideas. Having two different minds attack the deepest concepts in tournament poker is perfect for learning, because one type of framing might not click, or it can become monotonous. It means you also are getting two schools of thought in one course, by two players who both reached the peak of tournament poker by slightly different paths.

The GTO LAB software is a perfect complement to the course. The comparison feature, which I mentioned previously, allows you to check two solutions together and see the differences. Daniel consistently encourages you to open up the solutions library and explore the concept at your own pace, to make sure you fully understand. When going through differing ICM spots and seeing how ranges shift, EVs change and how your aggression or passivity will be different, it is a brilliant teaching tool. When you watch a big blind defending range tighten as you go from cEV to a big payjump or bubble, the concepts really stick and make learning a lot more fun.

Tournament Savagery MTT strategy concepts and drills

The drills make it stick

Watching a brilliant poker course is one thing. Retaining and applying it at the table is another. Tournament Savagery works with the GTO LAB software to give you more than 20 different practice drills throughout the course, so once you have finished a video, you can go and train it in realistic spots with one click.

That’s where I really enjoyed the course, that you can watch a video, go and test yourself in the full-table trainer, and if something wasn’t quite understood, you just go back and watch the segment that you might have missed. It closes that gap between understanding concepts theoretically and having it as an instinct. Both Daniel and Nick encourage you to go and use the drill to ensure you firmly have a grasp on what they are teaching.

Tournament Savagery GTO LAB MTT training drills

The hand reviews are gold

Some of my favourite content in the entire course is the hand reviews. There are plenty of them, pulled from real final tables and high-stakes play, including breakdowns of the kinds of spots you see at Triton and EPT final tables.

These reviews are where all the theory comes together. You see the concepts applied to genuinely complex, multi-street hands, complete with the reasoning behind non-standard lines, creative sizing, and low-frequency but high-impact bluffs with the big stack. There are full breakdowns of hands involving world-class players, focusing on things like wide continues, finding bluffs even when your range is strong and your options are limited, and using stack leverage to apply ICM pressure. Watching how these two think through a real hand, including the mishaps, the misplays and the marginal edges, is worth the price of admission on its own. It is the closest most of us will ever get to sitting in the room while two of the best dissect the exact spots that decide tournaments.

Nick Petrangelo, GTO LAB co-founder and Tournament Savagery instructor

Who is it for?

The real answer is that Tournament Savagery is great for anyone who wants to take tournaments seriously, and it can work for any skill level who applies themselves. Am I saying it is perfect for a beginner who wants to crush their local Friday night tournament? No, but if you are a beginner who wants to apply themselves, Tournament Savagery will work for you. If you are a reg who thinks you have it all worked out, it will break certain illusions and make you a far better player. If you are a top reg who has a few leaks, it will certainly help you too, and it is great as a refresher or to go through before an intensive poker schedule or series.

• If you want to look at your technical MTT poker game, and the mechanics behind it, it adds exhaustive details.
• If you want to completely reshape and level up your MTT fundamentals from the ground up, this is the course to use.
• If you are a strong player already and gearing up for your next live or online series, the FT and ICM content will get you sharp and ready.

Low and mid-stakes players will find their foundations elevated, particularly around ICM concepts and exploitative adjustments. High-stakes pros will get insight into how the next level up thinks, and layer on their knowledge and understanding. Nick and Daniel go into stack distributions, non-intuitive population exploits and future game simulations that most poker content never even looks at.

Final verdict

Tournament Savagery is without a doubt one of the most complete MTT courses ever made. It brings clarity to the most complex areas of tournaments, like inequal stack depths, ICM, bubble factors, risk premiums, pressure-driven postflop play and it does so with a level of flexibility that appreciates you as a player and not just someone with their face in a solver.

The passion and personality from two of the best MTT poker players ever jumps out, it is clear this is not just another poker course by detached theorists reading from a chart. They have grinded the exact spots they are talking about, at the highest stakes in the world, and they clearly love the game. This comes through in every video, and it is what makes the 25 hours of deep theory and concepts engaging rather than exhausting.

If your bottom line as an MTT player comes from ICM understanding (which it definitely does), then this is the course that will do the most to improve it. Whatever leaks you may have as a tournament player, you can start to fix them with Tournament Savagery. It’s a true masterclass from two top-level tournament poker minds, and after you experience it, your understanding and results will not be the same.

Want to learn how to become an MTT monster? Tournament Savagery is available now on GTO LAB, giving you lifetime access to all 25 hours, 43 videos and 20+ drills from Nick Petrangelo and Daniel Dvoress. On top of that, you get access to the GTO LAB software to drill the spots you are learning, as well as an invite to a private Discord channel where you can discuss the concepts and learnings with the best MTT players in the world.

Exclusive GTO LAB Discount

Use code SAVAGE88 at checkout for $88 off Tournament Savagery, and start turning those MTT mishaps into trophies.

Tournament Savagery Review: Frequently Asked Questions

Cameron Dhaliwal

Poker Writer, GTO LAB

Cameron Dhaliwal is a poker writer, content consultant, and poker player with experience across poker media, PR, and strategy content. He has worked with WPT, GTO Wizard, PokerListings, ClickOut Media, and PokerStars. Away from the keyboard, he can usually be found grinding live cash in LA, Texas, Vegas, or Asia. His love-hate relationship with tournaments has taken him to some of the most popular stops, with his claim to fame being runner-up in the Irish Open Heads-Up Championship in 2025.

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