Popular poker training site CardRunners merged with rival StoxPoker this week, shaking up this still-growing industry. At the helm of CardRunners is Taylor Caby, a 24 year-old graduate of the University of Illinois. Caby has helped grow CardRunners into a highly profitable enterprise that has helped thousands of poker players improve their games. Caby sat down with Poker News Daily to talk about the recent merge of CardRunners and StoxPoker.
Poker News Daily: Explain the allure of merging with StoxPoker.
Caby: The guys at StoxPoker have been friends of ours for a while now. They’re all great people and the pairing of the two companies seemed like a good fit. StoxPoker Owner Nick Grudzien put together an impressive team of pros that are both fantastic players and great people to work with.
The allure from our end was that we wanted a no-sign up fee option for players cautious about poker training, but we wanted to do so without compromising the integrity of the CardRunners brand. With StoxPoker, we felt like there was an option to position it at a more comfortable entry point because their instructors are so relatable to many different types of poker players.
PND: Right now, what is StoxPoker’s niche in the poker training market? What is CardRunners’ niche?
Caby: Stoxpoker has a variety of poker training content for just about any game you can imagine. In the past few weeks, we’ve added 11 new small- and mid-stakes instructors to their lineup in order to solidify Stoxpoker as the best entry point for someone looking to sign up to their first poker training site. Also, the price is right. Without a signup fee, it’s cheap to get access to over 500 videos at Stoxpoker.
CardRunners continues to be seen as the premium brand in the poker training industry. Our services are not cheap, but we consistently get the top poker talent in the world to make educational content for us. You’ll see guys that are beating games as big as $200/$400 No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha making videos for CardRunners.
PND: What can members of each site expect as part of the merge?
Caby: Members will be offered pretty hefty discounts when it comes to one of the sister sites. Both CardRunners and StoxPoker customers will begin to see free bonus videos from the sister site being rolled out over the coming weeks. We’ll also be able to produce crossover videos using instructors from both camps. There will be a lot of additional perks and promos along the way. To celebrate the launch, Stox added 11 new small-stakes and mid-stakes coaches, which is a huge achievement given that so much of the video content these days is geared towards mid- to high-stakes players only.
PND: Is this a buyout one way or the other?
Caby: No, this was a merger. We are now one company, even though the two brands will be run by the same management team as before. Nothing has changed about how the businesses will be managed on a day to day basis.
PND: How does this benefit CardRunners in the long-run?
Caby: We’re always looking to grow and we really wanted to expand our range of offerings without confusing our members and redefining who we are as a company. Merging with StoxPoker allows us to do that by getting rid of their signup fee and expanding their roster of coaches. All of the principals of CardRunners and Stoxpoker are poker players themselves; we’re trying to learn this “business” thing as we go along. We’re excited about combining our resources, talents, and passion for this industry!