How did I get here?
I won the first home sit-n-go game I ever played, then I didn’t win for another few months, but I was hooked. From the first few nickle-dime games in my backyard to finally being tempted into online poker I’ve come a long way, with lots of bumps and dips along the way, so here’s a shortened, highlighted version of the story:
I hate to admit it but when I first started I sucked, and I sucked bad. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I learned quickly. I understood how to bet, but I didn’t bet well, and I understood what beat what, but I constantly called away my chips with next to nothing, but it was all necessary. A few of the guys I started playing with were more experienced and they roped in about 8 new guys, all friends, and we learned the game together. In terms of learning my first few lessons in Texas Hold’em, these games, more specifically the ‘Are you an idiot?! You should have done …”s helped me learn the finer points. Yelling at someone online goes the same way, you’ll only make them better, and no one wants that, heh, but I’m glad I got yelled at all I did.
The next step was my friend Sean lending me the book “Supersystem” by Doyle Brunson. Wow. That book opened my eyes to a whole new level of poker. I couldn’t digest it all in one sitting, I had to keep reading little sections, try it in games, go back and read more, and so on. That book gave me a good start on how to be aggressive and have more of a fearless playing style. I went through stages in my poker game, being more aggressive, playing tighter and more timid, leaning on math more than anything, and even the pure instinct, don’t look at your cards type (that only lasted about 20 minutes). I like to think I’ve finally fallen into a rhythm with my game style, but it is changing constantly as I find more holes in my game and more holes in other people’s game. I think the best style is a fluid one, where you can change depending on circumstances and the people you’re playing against, and hopefully I’m not anywhere near the peak of my poker gameplay.
With the advent of online poker I found a great way to lose a quick couple hundred dollars. My first three buyins of $50 were gone in a couple of days and I told myself “never again” after each one. Finally I hit a nice rush and won a couple hundred back over christmas break my first year at college, and cashed in a large MTT in 6th for $450. Since then I’ve been a winning low-limit player, mostly at the $1/$2 tables and $30 and less buy-in sit-n-gos. I’m looking forward to posting here and sharing the thin slice of poker knowledge I like to think I’ve discovered.
Good luck at the felt!
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The Poker Blog » Learning to play poker
August 6th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
[…] Steve’s recent post called How did I get here? got me to thinking: how do people learn to play poker? […]