Poker: How you can get started, succeed, and many myths and facts

Great thread, Snowbank. This is something I've wanted to learn for years, but have never found the time. I'd hoped that I'd have time to sign up to be your apprentice on FASTMentors.com, but alas, I'm just overwhelmed with other projects right now.

I'm loving this, tho. You'd said that before you could even seriously mentor someone, you'd suggest that they read a few good books on the subject. Can you tell us what your top one or two recommendations would be for ramp-up reading?

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for all the info snowbank, BTW, did you just have a birthday...? If so, Happy birthday!

"Harrington on Hold 'Em" Volumes 1-3 and "The Theory of Poker" I've seen recommended.

I am surprised you are not getting more rep for this. The analogy below is priceless.

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That is fine. In fact, this is where you build your patience and tighten up. Yes, its annoying cause you raised 910 and you want to play it. Don't concentrate on the results if you call and get sucked out on. When a guy keeps going all in and people are calling, there's no reason for you to not go all in also... if you think you have the best hand. How would you play this at a real money table?

Remember, you want to get your money in when you're ahead. If you're holding AQ and this guy is going all in every hand, what are the chances that you're hand is good?

There's another lesson here too. If you sat at a play money table for $1000 and then built it up to $5000 at the table and a maniac appears and you are afraid to push AQ all in for $5000 against his random (probably worse hand) then you are playing at a level too high. You have to be comfortable with getting all your money in with the best hand or you're not going to succeed.

You are going to get players like this at .01/.02 and .05/.10 tables too. These people don't care about the $5 they are spewwing away. You have to be able capitalize on them at real money tables. So, practice it at the play money tables.

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If you move up to the higher level play money tables (where the minimum buy-ins are about 2,000 chips), you'll weed out a lot of those players. Why? They lose before they reach that level.

Yes, take their money. If it's play money that's going to happen since people don't take it too seriously. If it was real money, just pick your spots and learn when your hand range will beat their hand range. If you are trying to learn, and a lot of people are doing this with play money, do like biophase did and try .01/.02 to start to avoid this. You realize if this was happening at a real money table you would make a bunch of money though right? You are going to have the advantage waiting for the better hands and then going in against their often dominated hand range.

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Snowbank,
I love to ask this question on 2+2. Why nl over limit?

At what point did you feel it clicked? (The turning point in your game?)

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Thanks Jill! Ya, I've been swamped with stuff too. Hope it's all going well for you.

If you're playing no-limit, I think "The Little Green Book" by Phil Gordon is a pretty good book. Gives a better idea than other books on the type of play that you'll need to play online. However, it's very beginner, and has some things in there that I don't agree with, but it's a good starting point for no limit. For limit, "Small Stakes Hold em" is the book to read. In general, "Theory of Poker" should be an okay book. Personally I play no-limit, as most people do. There's more money to be made, and it's more fun. So I'd suggest "The Little Green Book", and if you love reading poker books, "Theory of Poker" as well.

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Yes, just turned 26 this weekend. Thank you!

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Harrington on Hold em I haven't read/know anyone of my poker friends who've read it off the top of my head, so can't say how they are, but Dan Harrington is mainly a tournament player, so not sure how good his cash games books would be. Could be okay for beginners, but not something I'd recommend unless I read them/knew of a poker friend who read them. At the same time, wouldn't be fair to say not to read them, because they could be okay for beginners.

Fwiw, a lot of poker authors would have a very difficult time beating small-mid stakes games online, so just keep that in mind. Many make the majority of their money writing about poker, and not necessarily playing it.(not all, just something to keep in mind)

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Your opinions on stoxtraders book? "Winning in tough Hold'em Games?"

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Something I wanted to expand on from this is, that's how it's viewed as a lot of people, as just a form of entertainment. Some people don't mind throwing on $50, $100, $500, or whatever and playing to have fun, expecting to probably lose it. So if you actually learn to play, and are trying to be a good player, all the people you're playing against won't actually be trying to become good poker players. Many people just play for fun. So to make money at this game, is very easy if you put your mind to it, since many won't even go out of their way to try and learn to play correctly, or who might want to get better but don't know how to access the information on how to play correctly.

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Limit bored the hell out of me to be honest. I tried it, but it was a real grind, I just got no excitement out of playing it.

As far as when it clicked, I think it's when I started really focusing on one game. I had jumped around messing with sit and goes, etc... and finally just said, let's focus on the game where people can make the most money and become really good at it. You know the saying, "jack of all trades but master of none." I had been pretty good at a number of games, but wasn't really good at one particular. So I hired coaches to help me with my game, and worked really hard on my game, and just progressed as time went on. A lot of people don't see the hard work behind poker success. My first month as a "pro" I made $0. That month I spent a ridiculous amount of time analyzing my hands, and talking with anyone who was better than me who would spend a few minutes with me about what I could do better. I don't think I'm a "natural" like some of the online poker phenoms. I didn't just start playing and dominating games right away or anything like that. I won't tell my whole poker story now, but basically I started with $50 and was winning like $1 or $2/day while learning the game.(and at that time didn't have anyone guiding me, so was pretty much trying to figure stuff out on my own) I was really conservative with my bankroll and just kept building it up, and have been way over rolled for all games that I've ever played, so never had a point where I just all the sudden started dominating or anything like that. I just progressively got better, and I put in a lot more volume than just about anyone, which helps me see new things/get new ideas a lot since I see so many different hands played, and in all sorts of ways.

If I had to pick one thing in general that helped my game, it was when I learned how to constantly be the aggressor, and when to 3-bet and why 3 betting was so important(though this was in 2006) before many people had started 3 betting so much, so the "a-haa" type moment wouldn't matter so much in today's games since most people have figured it out at least somewhat. Now it's figuring out what level they're thinking on, and now if they are still thinking on a level of aggressive 3 betting with no real reasoning behind doing what they're doing, I can 4 bet bluff in these spots and make the play profitable even though in a 100 big blind stacked game it's a very tough thing to do, but as games progress, you can find edges in places where they didn't exist before, based on what level of thinking your current opponents play at. I guess playing so many hands I notice the type of general game strategy people are using at which levels better than some, and try to stay one step ahead.

Kind of went off on a tangent, but really, it's just a lot of practice, and constantly trying to get better. I think anyone who put their mind to it could learn it and do well.(if you wanted to switch to nl I'm sure you'd do fine if you had the time to dedicate to it)

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Have never read it. I don't read many poker books. I don't get a lot out of them, and usually learn a lot more talking to players better than me rather than reading books. My 'poker book reading history': read a bit of Super System way back in the day. Read a little of Theory of Poker but got bored. Read some of Small Stakes Hold em but decided I didn't want to play limit. Read all the way through The Little Green Book(the only poker book I've read cover to cover.) Read Sklansky's no-limit book, the one with a couple of the 2p2 guys, it was not good and I had to stop reading after a few chapters. Read some of 1-2 other random poker books when first starting to concentrate on no-limit, but the books were way too passive to ever have a chance of being a winner in an online game with those strategies.

At this point for me, there's not many books that would help much. Most books are geared towards beginners, and for good reason, that's the main audience who would buy one. The people who could write a ridiculously in depth advanced book either wouldn't publish it(super small niche so tough to sell many of, and could affect their games depending on what level they played at), or would privately sell their book for a large sum of money(which one online player has started to do in the last year or so after getting rejected by publishers.)

For that book in particular, it's a limit one, so not sure. I would say, you'd probably be okay buying that book, since he has a successful online background.

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Good points. I've read maybe 6 books cover to cover and 6 more skimmed. To be honest I actually found they weakened my game. Mind you I'm no where near the caliber player you are, but I wouldn't consider myself a complete newbie either. To many distractions in those books and the input is to cut and dry. Nothing in poker is cut and dry. There is always a higher level thinking on what would seem a simple decision.

I agree limit can be boring. I need to branch into NL. Ive only tried it once or twice and ran with my tail tucked between my legs. I'll admit it, NL intimidates me.

One interesting point that you bring up several times and I'm glad you do. You seek advice from better players then you. Great business concept.

I look forward to future posts.

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Ya, I'm with you there. Many books often give you a style so you could 'hang around longer/not lose your money real fast', but won't turn you into someone who can crush the games. Then once people realize they can't actually win much with the styles books teach they either have to give up or re-learn how to play the right way if wanting to make a bunch of money. I also agree with the 2nd part. I think books often say, "do this" but they don't give enough in depth reasoning as to why you're doing certain things. They often give one reason, but forget a lot of other variables that could make the play they suggest incorrect, and don't give examples on how to adapt, etc... So players who read the books understand X, but when Y happens, the book didn't prepare them for that. There's so many levels of thinking involved, and the books usually don't cover many of them.

The major difference is obvious, that you can bet any amount of money, instead of just 1 bet. So, I definitely understand it being intimidating since if you don't have a good idea how to approach no-limit, essentially you can get taken for good amounts of money pretty quick. That's why it's real important to get good fundamentals down. Once you do, then you'll have the foundation to be the player that has the edge, where instead of getting 1 extra bet out of someone, you will be able to extract much more value in no-limit, which is why winrates in no-limit are much higher than limit, because players with an edge can push their edges more.

Ya, I get a lot out of talking to players better than me. A lot of the people in my poker circle are at a similar level as I am, or better, so it's nice to have people around you like that where you can bounce ideas off of/talk strategy, etc... If I read every poker book ever written, I'd still get more out of talking strategy with a good player for 30 minutes than I would from reading all those books. I'm lucky that where I live in Arizona there's actually a handful of us(4-5) who are some of the very good online players and we all live within 10-20 minutes of eachother, so if I'm off my game a bit, I'll ask one of them to come over for an hour or two and sweat a session, to see if they notice any leaks, or spots where I could be playing better in.

Also, I've hired coaches several times in the past. Some of the coaches I've hired have run me up to as much as $500/hr, but if you think about it, if you pick up one thing from a coach that can make you an extra bet or two per session, you'll get such an insane return from paying them from coaching since you'll always have the knowledge they teach you, so you can continually make an extra $20-$30/hr or whatever if you pick something up from them that you didn't know before. I actually might hire a friend of mine who's a better player than I am, to come live with me for a month and give him a piece of my action, so I can try and pick up some things from him. I think a lot of people get their ego involved and think that they know enough, when they should be looking at all the people who are better than them, who must be doing something different to get the better results they're getting. You can always learn something new. Poker is an unsolved game so no one knows everything.

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