Learning to play poker
Steve’s recent post called How did I get here? got me to thinking: how do people learn to play poker?
I know that my friends and I all learned by playing against one another. As one person got better, the others worked to catch up. When new people joined, they worked harder than everyone else to try to get to “that level” only to find “that level” get raised again upon their arrival. It’s a constant race to see who can take their game up a notch without being caught.
I probably lost $100 in the first month or two that I played poker, I just couldn’t win on a regular basis and that makes staying in the black almost impossible. Ben Fiitts (Fittsy) of LearnPokerStrategy.com has a great post about learning to play poker for free.
If you take it seriously, the play money games on Full Tilt Poker, Poker.com, and Empire Poker can be great training grounds for your game. The players are extremely loose because it’s not real money and it will help build a “thick skin” towards the inevitable bad beats you’ll take at the higher limits down the road.
If you want to play for money I’d suggest starting out with the micro-limits, maybe the .01/.02 NL games or the .05/.10 limit ring games. Some of the site even have $1 SNGs.
With online poker young poker players can see thousands of hands in a week. This means that catching up to the players like Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim, TJ Cloutier, and the other legends is easier than ever. It took them decades to see the number of hands I can play online in a few months. Talk about an advantage!
Poker is a game that takes practice, as much of it is situational, but you should also do a little bit of reading to get a grasp of the math and concepts behind the game. I would recommend a few books from first hand experience:
- Super System by Doyle Brunson
is a good starting point for aggressive no limit hold ‘em and has been deemed “the poker bible” by many of the games greatest players. A lot of the strategy is considered “old school” but it’s still a great starting point for anyone’s game.
- The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky
- Hold ‘Em for Advanced Players by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth
Learning poker takes a life time, even great players like Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu have talked about how much more they have to learn. The key is to always keep going and keep trying to get better, if you stop, you’re dead.
Related Posts
- Winner And Still Cham-peen - Texas Dolly Doyle
- It's Just Play Money - Learning the Ropes of Texas Hold 'em
- Guest Article - Taking a break from poker
- WPT By The Book - Texas Hold'Em
- Full Tilt Poker
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