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

[snowbank]

I’ll probably break this post up into multiple parts, so that I can respond to people’s questions on certain parts. Because of the audience here, I’ll keep the post relatively basic to start. I’ll make this thread as in depth as people would like, so feel free to ask about things you don’t understand, or things you want to know more about.

Myths/facts about poker:

Poker is all luck... false.

There is plenty of ‘short term luck’ in poker, but in the long run the good players will get the money. I might go all in with Aces pre-flop and lose 3 times in a row, but long term that hand will win me good money in those situations. The same applies to other situations as well, just the edges are going to be smaller than getting in pre-flop with Aces. Once you learn when you have the advantage, you can get your chips in as the favorite. You’ll lose plenty of times when you’re the favorite. In the long run, all the good and bad short term luck evens out though, and if you’re getting chips in with the best of it, you will end up with the money.

Only the house wins at poker... false.

In poker you’re not playing against the house. The house takes a small “rake” for every hand that a flop is seen. Similar to something like ebay charging auction fees. The seller isn’t competing against ebay. Ebay’s providing them with a service. They bring the customer to them, so the seller gives them a very small fee for that service. The seller still has a margin, so they will still make a profit. The casino/online poker room provides the service of putting the game together/dealing the cards, etc... From a professional player’s perspective, you could say they provide our “customers” as well. :smxB: The player with an edge, will still make a profit.

Now that you know this, one thing I think that might really open people’s eyes is that all you have to do to make money at poker, is be better than the people you play with. Think about that for a minute. You just have to be better than the guys playing at your table. That’s it. You don’t even have to be better than all of them. Just be one of the better ones at the table and you’ll make money. Simple as that. The beautiful thing about that is in poker, everyone thinks they can play. Because of the short term luck that’s involved in the game, it’s tough for a lot of people to understand when they don’t actually know what they’re doing, or if someone has an edge on them. Can you imagine if you were good at basketball, and everytime you went to the gym people who were worse than you would willingly play you for money. Or bowling, everytime you went to the bowling alley someone who bowls a 180 would play you even though you bowl a 230. Golf, if you were a 4 handicap but guys with 15 handicaps would play you anytime you wanted. That’s the everyday life of a skilled poker player. The great thing about poker is, there’s no “score” or “rating” of how good someone is, everyone thinks they are good, so they will unknowingly play people who are better than them all day long, assuming they are just getting unlucky when they lose. If you played one on one vs. a professional basketball player it’d be pretty clear that you have no business being on the court with them, and even someone real cocky who thinks they’re better than everyone at everything wouldn’t be dumb enough to put money on the line against them. If you were playing poker against a professional poker player, you might never know. You don’t have to be a pro to make money. Just be better than the other guys you play with, and if you are, the funny thing is, they’ll never even know.

I don’t have a lot of money, so I couldn’t get started playing poker... false.

I started with $50. As I’ve said in the past, in my opinion poker is one of the best ways in the world to build up money with minimal amount of capital. Hopefully by the end of this thread, it will be clear why this is.

Fun fact: Biophase is a good friend of mine. For fun, he wanted to take $1, and a little poker advice, and see what he could do with it in his spare time. So, he set a challenge on his blog, to turn $1 into $1,000. A few months later he sent me a nice graph once he crossed the $1k mark.:smx1:

Okay, so you can start with next to nothing, but you’ll need a huge bankroll to make the big money... false.

Once you build yourself a decent bankroll, you’d be surprised how little you need to actually “operate your business.” I’ll get into this in another section, but for example my graph in this post from the first week of August: http://www.thefastlanetomillions.co...ssion/15773-week-life-poker-pro-snowbank.html - I needed just over $10,000 for my working capital to be comfortable for the stakes I was playing that week. With rakeback(I'll explain this later), my return for the week was over $25,000.(don't expect those results though, just showing an example of what's possible without needing a huge amount of capital)

Oh, you’re a professional poker player, are you on tv?

Being a professional poker player doesn’t mean you’re on tv, and being on tv doesn’t mean you’re a professional poker player. What they show on tv is usually tournament poker. They rarely show cash game poker. Personally, I play cash game poker.

Why don’t you/and others play tournaments? Don’t you want to be on tv?

Cash games are more profitable. Personally, I don’t have a desire to be on tv. I just want to make money. Overall, cash games are much more profitable.

A lot of the people you see on tv playing poker don’t have a lot of money, despite having a lot of big cashes. Many of them are backed(put into tournaments with others money) so they only get a small % when they do win money. Most people don’t understand the bankroll you need for big buy in tv tournaments is huge. Just to give an example of the %’s, I know a large number of players who were backed into the main event by “staking groups”(often players with a lot of money who pool their money together to stake other players into expensive tournaments that the players can’t afford the swings of, if they think the players they’re staking in the long run will net them a positive % return on their investment), and the players often got 20% if they cashed.(30/70 deals are also common if you’re doing makeup- which means you play many tournaments for the backers, but keep a running tab of ‘what you owe’ once you do finally make a big cash) So if one of the guys who were staked(which is a large number of people), let’s say won $1 million, they’d actually only take home $200k., their backers would get the rest.(and often more, if they had makeup owed to them by that player) The player gets a risk free lottery ticket and a chance at tv time(which potentially means sponsorships if you’re entertaining), so it’s not a bad thing to get staked. Not many people have the bankroll themselves to withstand the swings of what it would actually take to play big buy in tournaments full time. Another thing people don’t understand, is how often you’re actually going to have a big pay day is rare. Like I mentioned earlier, there is a lot of short term luck in poker, so even a great poker player will not win many big tournaments, and even a crappy player can win a tournament. There is a running joke when tourney players tell people how much they’ve won at tournaments trying to show off to non-poker people, you should ask, “ya, but how much did you lose” since tourney players often enter a bunch of tourneys- let’s say 20 $10k tournaments and have a $150,000 cash in their 20th, and tell all their friends they made $150,000. They forgot to mention the $200,000 in buy ins before they cashed, so they’re still in the red. The great thing for tournament players is it only lists your winnings, so it’s not uncommon to have $1,000,000 in tournament wins, but maybe it cost you $800k in entries to get that. Often players will get lucky and have a big score in a tournament or two and profess to anyone who will listen how much they’ve won or how good they are at poker, but if they talked about poker with anyone who really knew poker for 2 minutes, that person would be able to tell the real story behind their results pretty quickly.(I expanded way more on this part, because I get this question so often, and so many things are misunderstood about what is seen on tv. Figured I'd just expand now rather than later in the thread.)

Live poker vs. online poker:

Live poker is much, much easier than online poker. You may be thinking, “snowbank, then why the heck do you play online?” The ability to play as many tables as you want online, thus multiplying your hourly rate as many times as you want(or as many tables as you can handle while still playing your game.) As soon as a casino announces they’ll allow you to multi-table their games, I’m there. :smx9: Also, live poker is pretty boring if you’re used to online. In live poker, you see roughly 30 hands/hour. With all the tables I play online, I often play about 800 hands/hour, sometimes even up to 1,000. You can see how boring live poker would seem to an online player.

As far as skill level comparison, many live players who try out online poker get obliterated because they don’t know coming in how big the skill difference is. They assume “online must be rigged” because they don’t know how they can win at the casino playing 1/2nl but get crushed online. To show you how the levels compare, a good 1/2nl online player skill-wise could comfortably play in a lot of 10/20nl games at the casino.(bankroll wise they might not be comfortable doing that, but skill wise they often could)


Part 2: coming soon...

Part two should be up in the week or so. This will include a lot more of the "how to" rather just general info. Part 2 topics I will be covering: treating poker like a business, general poker playing advice, how much money you can make, and more.

 

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[snowbank]

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

PART 2

Part 2:

This part will focus mainly on learning to play poker “correctly†since I know a lot of people here are eager to try and get started. I’ll keep this pretty basic since it’s a ‘beginner audience’ mainly just giving you an idea of some basic concepts and a bit of the “why†behind it, so you’ll understand the logic. I can get as in depth as anyone wants though, so feel free to ask.

First, let’s talk about where it all begins: pre-flop. It is VERY important to be selective about the hands you’re going to play when you are first learning about being a winning player. As you progress and become a better player, you can open up your starting hand range more, but in the beginning, you should be playing pretty tight, and it should be one of your main focuses when starting out. If you are playing mediocre hands, and your opponent is playing tight and playing his really good hands, in the long run, who do you think will win?.... It won’t be you. It will make your job a lot tougher post-flop since you’ll find yourself in trouble a lot of times, and not know where you stand in the hand. A lot of times you will be folding your hands pre-flop because they won’t be good enough to play, and at the micro stakes you’ll notice people playing most of their hands. Don’t be like them. Play correctly, and don’t get involved in the “gambling.†Focus on playing your game, and stay tight.


rough opening range for a 6 handed game:

UTG: Under the gun- this is the first player to act pre-flop
UTG + 1
CO: cut-off
Btn: Button- this is the best position to have
SB: small blind- this is the worst position to have, because post-flop you will be forced to act first
BB: big blind

UTG: you should be raising any pocket pairs. You can raise AJo+(Ace Jack offsuit and higher), ATs+(Ace Ten suited and higher.) Also, you can raise suited connectors starting at JTs. You should be folding the rest of your hands.

UTG + 1: Same as UTG, but you can add 89s, 9Ts, ATo, KQo, KJo, QTs and KTs.

Co: You can now raise 56s+, KT, A8s+, QTo+.

Btn: Any suited Ace, K7s+, Q9s+.

Blinds: play SUPER tight from. Remember, you’re in crappy position. Raise good pairs, and hands like AK/AQ, but not a lot else.

At the really small stakes like most people here will be playing I like opening to 4x. Meaning, if the blinds are .01/.02, open to .08.

This is a pretty tight opening hand chart. I tried to make it for what I thought would be pretty optimal for very small stakes games and for people starting out to make the transition to learning pf easier. I’d even consider folding hands like 89s utg + 1 if you’re pretty uncomfortable with your post-flop game since it’s a hand where you’re going to be drawing on when you do hit a playable flop so you’ll have to know how to make sure you’re getting the right price, and know when you should give it up. Being the aggressor and being in position will help a lot since if you’re in position and you’re cbetting as the pre-flop aggressor you often get to see 2 free streets with drawing hands(turn and river), since your opponent will often check the turn to you if he calls since you’ve shown nothing but strength up to this point in the hand. This is very important to realize this advantage. This also makes your hand pretty disguised when your draw hits.

Don’t limp.(meaning, calling instead of raising pre-flop) It’s weak, and you don’t want to learn to play weak. You want to be tight and aggressive. You’re hand range is small, but when you’re opening the action, be aggressive, and raise.

Also, don’t do a lot of calling if someone raises in front of you. I’ll probably include this in part 3 since it looks like this part will be pretty long, but basically if someone raises in front of you, you should be folding most of your hands.

Another important thing to focus on is what position you are in. You want to be in position on people when playing pots. This means you are last to act post-flop. Example: if you are in the big blind, and it’s just you and the small blind going to the flop, you have position on them. Position is extremely important because you get to see what your opponent does before you have to act. So if your opponent who is relatively tight bets at the flop and you have 3rd pair, you know he might have you beat and can fold, where if you were first to act, you might bet your pair and get raised by your opponent and have to fold, costing you that money that you wouldn’t have lost if you had position on your opponent. That’s just one type of scenario, but there are so many types of situations where position will be very important. Trying to play out of position can be very difficult, and very costly, especially in the early going before you really get post-flop strategy down. Hands that look like pretty decent hands, but you are out of position on, a lot of times the correct play will be to fold them. Again, remember not to start playing in a lot of pots just because your opponents do. At the lower levels your opponents will probably be playing a lot more pots than you, because they don’t know any better. This = more money for you.

Now that you are working on your positioning when playing your hands, it will be easier to play post-flop correctly. This is the most in depth part to your game, and is most successful when the other things I mentioned (pre-flop hand selection and positioning) are done correctly. If you play great post-flop but are playing cards like K-9 out of position, you are making your job very tough. To be a solid player you have to do all three together. I can’t tell you how to play post-flop for every hand you are involved with, because there are so many different situations you could find yourself in. I can start you off with the right thought process to have. First of all, and possibly most important for beginning players, take this out of your vocabulary when learning poker strategy: bluffing. At the low levels, you should NOT be thinking about bluffing. You should be thinking about putting your money in with the best hands and learning how to implement your strategy correctly. At the lower levels, players are going to make bad calls against you. That’s why they are losing at low stakes poker. Don’t help them win money by bluffing your money away to them. They will call you, and you will complain about the bad call they made. Focus on playing solid poker, and make them pay you off when you have the best hand. Also, forget about thinking, “they might be bluffing meâ€, while involved in a hand. If you take “bluffing†out of your thought process in the beginning, you will be much better off. You can learn to implement bluffs, and pick off bluffs down the road, but bluffing should be far from your mind at this point.

Don’t get continuation betting confused with bluffing. A continuation bet is when you raised pre-flop and on the flop you follow up with a bet. If you don’t have anything, sometimes you will still follow up with a bet. This is a continuation bet, and although it could be considered a bluff, it’s part of your strategy that I’m going to teach you so don’t get the two confused.

Play your hands aggressively. If you raise pre-flop with the hands I mentioned to use as a starting hand guide, usually follow up with a continuation bet when it is heads up. When it is three to the flop, follow up less. Look at it this way.... Let’s say you and your opponent both have KQ. You raise it pre-flop and he calls. The flop is 2-7-J. Your opponent checks to the raiser, which is you, and you bet it. Well, he can’t call because he has nothing, so he folds. This is why the continuation bet will be very effective. Many times both you and your opponent will have nothing, but you will win the pot because you showed aggression pre-flop and followed through on the flop and took it down. Doing this quite a bit will also confuse your opponents as to when you have a hand. If your continuation bet is called you shut down. That means you check, and fold to a bet(if you have nothing) on the turn and river unless you improve a great deal on your hand. Your opponents will begin to call you down lighter(with less and less) as they notice that you are taking down a lot of pots and maybe even bullying them. If you do have a strong flop hand and bet it, feel free to follow through on the turn if you feel that you are still ahead in the hand. Experience will help you a lot with this, but at low levels a lot of drawing hands will call, as well as 2nd pair type hands and top pair weak kicker type hands. Better hands would probably be raising. . It’s important that you take notes on your opponents as you figure out how they play so that the next time you are involved in a pot with them you have a better idea as to how they are playing certain hands. I can’t give you exact ways to play post-flop because I don’t know your opponent. That is where your experience comes into play, in figuring out what your opponents would raise with, or call with in certain spots. If someone calls you down the whole way until the river and the 3rd club falls on the board and all of the sudden he goes all-in, you know that he probably hit the flush. You have to pick up on patterns from players and from the game your playing in in general to get a feel of when you are ahead and when you may not be ahead, so that you can proceed with caution if you have to, or get more chips in the pot to make drawing hands pay or to get value out of your good hands. If you think that your opponent is drawing and you have a good hand it is important to bet a good bet in relation to the pot, so that you give him incorrect odds to hit his flush, which means when he is calling you he is incorrectly investing too much money into the pot which you will win the majority of the time. A lot of players bet like wimps. Bet your hands. You should be betting at least 2/3rds the size of the pot. On a hand where you think they have a flush or straight draw at these stakes you might want to bet closer to the size of the pot. For example: you raise pre-flop with AJ and 1 opponent calls and the flop is 2-4-J, with 2 clubs. Now you bet and your opponent calls. Well, it is likely that they could be drawing, and it is very unlikely that you are behind in the hand. If they had AA, KK or QQ they probably would have re-raised you pre-flop, and if not then probably on this flop. They could have possibly called with lower pair, but there is a very good chance they are drawing. Either way, on the turn, which let’s say is a 7 of diamonds, it is important you bet your hand, to make a drawing hand pay, or to get value from a hand like 99 or TT who thinks you may not have the J. This is just one scenario, but this is the type of thought process you should be going through when thinking about your hands. You should think, “what can he have here, and based on what he could have, how should I play this hand.†It is important to be able to give up hands if you might be beat. Don’t pay someone off on a hand just because you were curious. Just wait until the next hand.

Don’t forget to remember all parts of your strategy: playing tight pre-flop, being in position, being the aggressor, bankroll management(which we’ll get to.) Forgetting to play hands in position is like steveo forgetting to get an inspection on an apartment building. “Ya the deal looks great†6 months later: “Oh, the roof caved in..... that’s weird†It’s like any other business, you have to do all parts to make sure you’re successful. Forgetting one aspect of your “poker business†is like Russ forgetting the beds in his bed and breakfast. It will be detrimental to your success. Don’t forget to treat this like a business if you’re trying to make money. Don’t get caught up in “gambling.†It’s only gambling if you don’t know what you’re doing. :smx9:

It’s important to give yourself time. Michael Jordan didn’t start his first day with a basketball doing 360's and posterizing people, he tried some layups and learned to dribble. The fundamentals. That’s what you’re working on now. Once you have your fundamentals down, you can expand from there, but it’s important to get them down now, instead of playing incorrectly and then having to re-correct everything in the future. If you feel you are having problems in your game, take a look at what you’re doing pre-flop and make sure you are not straying away from the hands you should be playing. Remember, in the beginning, it is best to be tight and be going to the flop with the top hands, and playing in position, which will make post-flop play much easier for you. Don’t make your job harder than it has to be in the beginning. Make it easy on yourself.

One thing I need to make sure I include in this part is bankroll management. You cannot be underfunded if you want to make sure you have success. You need to be able to withstand the swings of the game. For each level you should have 30 buy ins. So if you’re playing $5 buy in games, you need a $150 bankroll. It’s important to note, that if you don’t have an edge in the games, it won’t matter what size your bankroll is. If Donald Trump decided to start his poker career with $200,000 playing 5/10nl, he’s plenty bankrolled for the game, but he’s still going to lose all his money because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. So the 30 buy in rule is for players WITH an edge. Follow the advice here and get experience so you’ll have an edge, and use the 30 buy-in rule and you’ll definitely have a leg up on other people trying to learn how to make money.

Part 3: I’ll talk about more strategy, and touch on some things I didn’t cover(since I didn’t want it to get too long and overload people) and also we’ll get to the fun stuff such as how much money you can make.

 

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[snowbank]

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

As mentioned I've been working on a site that will help people looking to make money from poker, or if they're already making money, make more of it The site is now live as of today:

bluefirepoker.com

I didn't have anything like this when I started playing poker and if I had I think it would have dramatically increased the speed at which I learned the game, being able to learn from people already making a lot of money from it and having them explain exactly how they're doing it. Been a really long process so hopefully you guys getting into poker like it; def be interested in feedback. I'll probably make a post about some of the process in another thread so it will be helpful to others.

 

[biophase]

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

So what changed? After 4000 hands, I'm still losing. (Not $1500, mind you!! But $100ish) Where did it all change for you. Since I don't have a "Bill", would you recommend a coach? (I'm already a paid member at Bluefire!)

Hi Jill,

I think there is a fundamental concept that I did not understand when I first started playing poker. With that said I will try to explain the biggest changes in fundamentals. I am going to keep this super super simple to avoid a bunch of what if scenario responses that always ends up happening.

Bet to fold out better hands and to keep in worst hands
Let's say you have a pair of Aces and you think your opponent has a pair of Kings. Assume that your opponent will not fold his pair of kings.

You are betting and hoping for a call here. In this scenario you are betting for value, hoping that he will continue to call you down.

Now, let's say you have a pair of Queens and you think your opponent has a pair of Kings. Assume that you opponent will not fold his pair of kings.

You are betting and hoping for a fold here. But why would you keep on betting? In this scenario you are betting as a bluff, hoping that he will fold. But we just stated he will not fold. You are wasting money here. It's better to check and go to a showdown.

Showdown Value + Betting for value or a bluff
Sometimes you hand may have showdown value, meaning that it can beat certain hands at the end. I see people make bad bets on the river and waste money at low stakes because they don't understand this.

1) Let's say you have: 5-6 and the board is A-10-5-8-9, pot is $2.00 and it was checked all the way. You are last to act, you have a pair of 5's. If you make a $1.00 bet here, who is likely to call you? Are you betting for value or a bluff? You don't really know right? Someone with a 10,8,9 or 5 with better kicker may call you. Chances are high that if you get a call, you will probably lose the pot. This hand has some showdown value because it can actually beat other hands at showdown.

2) Now, same scenario except you have 10-7 and the board is A-10-5-8-9, pot is $2.00 and it was checked all the way. You are last to act, you have a pair of 10's. You bet $1 here for value as you can get calls from a 5,8,9 or 10. You bet is much more profitable. This hand has allot of showdown value because it can beat most hands at showdown.

3) Now, same scenario except you have 2-3 and the board is A-10-5-8-9, pot is $2.00 and it was checked all the way. You are last to act, you have a nothing. You bet $1 here as a bluff because you want to fold 5,8,9 or even a 10. This hand has no showdown value because it can't beat any other hands at showdown.

So let's look at all 3 scenarios again:
1) You bet $1 with no real chance of getting any return for your $1. If someone calls, you will probably lose that $1. You were better off going to showdown and hoping your pair of 5's were good.

2) You bet $1 with a high chance of getting a $1 return. You were going to win the $2 pot anyway because you likely had the best hand.

3) You bet $1 with a chance of winning the $2 pot. You weren't going to win the $2 pot at all.

Way ahead and Way behind (WAWB)
1) Let's say you have AA and the board comes K33. Your opponent bets into you. This is a situation where you are either way ahead or way behind. There is no middle ground in this hand. Your opponent has 3 possible hands. KK, a hand with a 3, or anything else(QQ,AJ,10,9, whatever).

If your opponent has KK, you are way behind. You are drawing to 2 outs (Aces)
If your opponent has a 3, you are way behind. You are drawing to 2 outs (Aces)
If your opponent has AK,QQ-44, he is way behind and drawing to 2 outs

So what do you do when he bets into you on the flop?

Fold - Never
Raise - Let's say you raise his bet. Who is going to continue here? If you raise you will fold out QQ-44 hands which you crush and only get calls from AK, KK or a 3 which 2 of 3 crush you. You also fold out pure bluffs. Again, ask yourself if the raise is a bluff or value?
Call - This is best because your opponent may keep betting into you.

In this scenario, you want your opponent to keep betting his QQ or AK on the flop, turn and river. He could be betting as a bluff with 99. Once you raise, you will slow him down if he has nothing. Why would you want to do that?

2) Let's say you have 55 and the board comes K33. Your opponent bets into you.

Now here you have that loses to many possible hands. So what do you do when he bets into you on the flop?

Fold - Sometimes
Raise - Let's say you raise his bet. Who is going to continue here? If you raise you might fold out QQ-66 hands which have you beat. Ask yourself if the raise is a bluff or value? Here is clearly a bluff raise.
Call - Sometimes, but then what do u do on the turn?

I hope you're starting to understand the reasoning behind making certain bets. It's not always, I have the best hand - BET, or I have the worse hand - FOLD.

 

[biophase]

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

Yo Snowbank,

I'm trying to find that graph to post as a reply but I only have the $1 to $500 one handy. So here it is. Funny how this looks like a technical analysis chart with resistance at $500. Once I finally broke through, the graph when up quickly. Maybe I can use TA to predict my upswings! Maybe poker is like stocks in more ways than one. :smug2:

 

[biophase]

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

biophase, how long did it take you to get to that level? What was your initial level when starting online? Were you a "decent" player? or never had played in your life before?

With $1, I started at the $0.01/0.02 tables. I don't think you can go lower than that. The buy in at those tables was $2.00 max. I bought in with $1 and played cautiously with it.

I knew the basics of poker but was not a winning player. I was one of those guys who deposited $50 or $100 every now and again and basically played whatever I felt like until the money was gone. I started playing for fun back in 2004 and I'd say I probably lost about $1500 total until 2007. Since Bill deposited $1 into my account I haven't had to add any money into my accounts again. In fact, I even withdrew money last year.

As with anything in life, coaching and having a professional guide you is a huge advantage. I think the most important thing in the beginning is plugging leaks in your game. At these super low levels, its pretty straightforward and easy.

Most people don't like to start with pennies cause they feel its not exciting enough. Who really cares about winning a $0.25 pot? But if you can't beat the penny levels, how do you expect to beat the higher levels.

 

[snowbank]

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

Shore up the easy part of the game while down at the low levels, that way it becomes automatic and you can concentrate on your opponents at the higher levels.

Ya, bingo. Poker is a game of "levels" in the sense of thinking. As you move higher up in stakes, players are thinking on an entirely new level. When you play microstakes, you're learning basic poker. You want to learn this correctly in and out, so when you attempt to move up, you aren't focusing on basics, you should already have them down cold. So if you move up from 5nl to 25nl, all the 25nl players should know what any 5nl player does, so it will get a little tougher. If you move up from say 200nl to 400nl, it becomes a game where, "okay, he knows I'll do this with this type of hand, so I can do this instead to push him off his hand since I know his range is this." If you don't know the basics, as you move up from one level to the next, you won't correctly be able to put your opponents on hand ranges they should have in certain situations, so for lack of a better term you're pretty much screwed, if you don't take time at each level to 'master' that level so to speak. Everytime a 100nl player tries to sit in a 400nl game, he might as well be playing with his cards face up because he's playing so basic(in comparison to a 400nl player) that he has no chance, since the 400nl regs know everything a 100nl reg knows, so they know exactly what he's doing and why he's doing it, so they can pretty much run him over and he'll have no idea what they are doing to him. I'll expand more about this when I do the strategy part, but you'd be amazed how real that is. He would literally have no chance in the long run playing with 100nl level skills at 400nl. Think of it this way, if you wait until you are a very good player at 25nl to move to 50nl, well, every 50nl reg was already a top 25nl reg before they moved up(or should have been), so you basically just move to play against the top players from your previous level, and some better ones. So it's unbelievably important to master the basics to get yourself a foundation that you can build on from level to level.

 

[PokerRich]

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

Great thread Bill!

Sorry I'm a little dense - is there anywhere we can read on the basic's of solid poker game? As in if I went to play right now, what hands do I keep/what do I bet/ etc. - Is this going to be covered as well or should I read the Green Book? Just trying to get a fastlane to poker mini guide Thanks!

I am sure snowbank will cover the basics in his article. I will post an email I sent my poker students when I coached. A couple warnings:

1) These concepts were for players who had been playing for a while and were looking to take the next step in their game. If you a true beginner you may want to come back to this later. I am not sure this will help anybody here but I know it's not helping anybody sitting in my computer
2) This was written 2 years ago and was aimed at low-middle stakes players. The games have changed since then (they are tougher now) so these concepts don't go far enough in today's low-middle stakes games. However, I do still think they are helpful for players at the micro stakes.
3) This was written quickly upon request as an email so grammar/ spelling may be shaky.

NLHE= no limit hold em
UTG= under the gun
MP= middle position
LP= late position
SB= small blind
BB= big blind
PT= poker tracker
LAG= loose aggressive
TAG= tight aggressive

NL Concepts​

NLHE is an ever changing game and every table you sit at is going to be different. I have been very hesitant to put anything in writing because I want to stress that your style has to be fluid. If you are looking at a hand chart or thinking about what the book says to do in a particular situation you are limiting your game. A book will never tell you to reraise an UTG raise and a MP caller with 79s but sometimes that is the right play. Sometimes folding AQo in that exact situation is also the right play.

Even though NLHE requires a fluid style, there are some general concepts to follow.

1) Position. Every professional NL player stresses position and I think it is critical to being successful. Look at your PT position stats if you don’t believe me. There are two major position points to consider.

- Position against opponents. If there is a tricky LAG on your left, leave the table. You are playing at a disadvantage and there is a better table available.
- Position in the hand. Being last to act in a hand is a huge advantage. You can watch all the action develop in front of you and can control it. You can make big pots or keep them small. 78s is easy to play from the button, not so easy out of the SB.

How do you relate this to actual play? Tighten up your raising from UTG and UTG+1. Don’t call out of the blinds with marginal hands. A10o is a good example for both situations. Do you want action in either spot? What types of hands are you going to be up against? A10o is garbage unless you are in position and controlling the action.

2) Avoid marginal situations. Thinking about A10o leads right into avoiding marginal situations. If you are being put to the test frequently in NL cash games you are doing something wrong. Either you are practicing bad table selection, or more likely, you have some leaks in your game. Your opponent should be the one who feels pressured. There are several causes for marginal situations. Bad position, marginal cards, and/ or passive play all lead to marginal situations.

For example:

Non-marginal situation: You are on the button with A10o. You have been running the table. It’s folded to you and you raise pot. Only the SB calls. SB is a solid but imaginative player. Flop is A72 rainbow. SB checks and you bet 75% of pot and he calls. What could he have? You don’t run well against his range. Turn is a 3 and SB checks. This couldn’t have helped his hand but you check behind for pot control. The river pairs the 2 and your opponent makes a 50% pot bet. You quickly call and he tables A9s and you scoop the pot.

By controlling the pot in position you were able to avoid a marginal situation.

Marginal situation: same hands and same type of opponent except now you are in the SB and opponent is on the button. Button raises and you call with your marginal hand out of position. Flop is A72, you check and button pots it. You call thinking your hand might be good. Turn 3, you check and your opponent bets ¾ of the pot. Now you are in a big pot and if you call you could face another big bet on the river. This is a solid unimaginative player, he has to have AK or AQ. You fold.

There is an excellent article on pocketfives.com by Green Plastic called “What is your edge?†If you haven’t read it you should as it goes more in depth on this point. Basically Taylor says you need to have an advantage to play a hand. It can either be positional, better cards or being a better player, but you have to have at least one advantage.

A couple of concepts to help avoid marginal situations.
- Don’t play weak Aces and weak broadway hands. You know where you are with 44 but you won’t know where you are at with K10o. This changes if you are on the button or cutoff with no action in front of you but play slowly after the flop and don’t call a reraise with these types of hands.
- Be the aggressor, especially in position. If there is a weak-tight limper UTG and you have J9s that you are going to play, raise it. You give yourself the chance to win the pot right there or to win it with a continuation bet on the flop if called. If you just limp in you will have no idea where you are at.
- Don’t zealously defend your blinds. This is not a MTT where blind defense is important. Don’t call with any 2 because you have odds. If you have a hand that can flop a monster and you are getting priced in, then play it, otherwise just fold.

3) Be the intimidating, tricky player at the table. Be the one opponents fear and hate.

There are three main levels of players. The first level is the low limit player who plays their own cards. “I have top pair and that’s a big hand.â€

The second level of player is the one who is playing their own cards but playing them in relationship to their opponent’s hand. “I will call with second pair because I think my opponent just has AK.â€

The third level is the player who is just playing their opponent. “That’s a scared feeler bet, I am going to blast him off the hand.†They do not need good cards to win a hand. They frustrate their opponent and when they finally play a big pot to showdown they have the nuts. This is the intimidating tricky player you want to be.

How do you get there? Concentrate on your game and don’t be mechanical. How often do you sit down at a table and just play level one and two? When you do your game is not improving. By playing on level three and thinking through every hand your game will improve exponentially. Are you going to make mistakes? YES. That is OK. That is how you get better. Early on in your level 3 play, move down a limit or two so the money doesn’t matter if you stack off trying to bluff a calling station. Learn your lesson and don’t do it again.

Every time you are to act, think things through on level 3. If you flopped a set, how are you going to get your opponents stack? Maybe a small bet will induce a big bet out of him if he’s aggressive. Maybe an overbet will induce a calling station to call with any piece of the flop. If you missed your hand, how can you get your opponent to lay down his hand? Think every action through and remember you always have two or three options every time you have cards in front of you.

Critique your game after every session, both the good and the bad. Replay the hands you got stacked on. Did you get all your money in with top set v. a flush draw? Well played then. Did you overplay top pair, top kicker against a nit’s set? Where should you have gotten away from it? Use PT for this type of analysis.

As I mentioned at the beginning, you have to have a fluid style to adapt to different playing conditions. Generally at the lower limits, you have more calling stations. This means being a real LAG is not always optimal. TAG play is closer to optimal. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of opportunities to be tricky. However, you need to be more selective on where you run plays. If you are focusing on level 3 play, you will find these opportunities.

 

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[callmelucid]

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

I now fold a lot more but am still having troubles knowing when to fold immediately? Are there some hands you should fold on 100% of the time? (ie picture card and low number?)

the fundamentals say play with the top of your hand range. expand when you have good position and tighten up in early position. also there is the gap theory where if someone raises their hand, you want to be calling/raising with hands that are ahead of his range.

if you want to get into the advanced thinking and actual reasons of why we do this... bear with me.

assuming stacks are 100 big blinds deep (normal tables. 100nl .5/1 blinds for example), you want to call with hands that have good potential to make the best hand or hands that have excellent equity on flops.

if someone is raising utg with any pocket pair or aqs+, you know your range needs to be above theirs. when you are given ato on the button and a tight under the gun raiser raises, at best you are coin flipping with them in terms of equity. if someone that plays like me raises from cutoff on a lower limit table, i'll have 56s+ 89o+ any broadway, any pocketpair and many axs, kxs, and qxs hands. here if you have ato you should call or possibly raise (but thats another topic)

think about calling with ato. what do you hope to happen on the flop? when the flop comes a83 rainbow, and you get check/raised, where do you stand? most of the time you are going to bet this flop and the guy will fold. you take down a small pot. when the guy raises into you or you get check/raised, you are behind a lot of the time and end up losing big pots. the concept here is that hands like ato are good for picking up small pots but bad because its hard to put down and can easily lose you big pots. other hands that are overvalued but easily dominated: kj, qj, tj, 9t, a2-aj, kt, etc. not saying you shouldnt play these hands. just saying that when you are deciding to call, raise, etc, take note that your hand can easily be dominated. rarely call with these hands but feel more free to raise these hands from middle, late position in 6max games.

also, with pocketpairs at the lower levels, consider calling these from any position if you know the opponent is likely to get most of his chips in at least 12% of the time. this gets into implied odds. also, be sure to google pot odds and learn about that.

you will be a winner at micros or low limit casino games by just following this alone

 

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[Kung Fu Steve]

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

Wanted to be one of the first to say "Awesome, Rep up"

 

[snowbank]

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

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?)

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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[biophase]

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

I signed up for PokerStars, and have been playing for a day on 0.01/0.02 tables. I won a good amount from my 0.40 buy-in up to a dollar, but then my winnings have dwindled, and I lost 0.06.

With that, would it be wise to set a profit goal, or to play for a certain amount of time? I'm very disciplined but am confused as to what goals I should set for the day. Basically I'm running like a chicken with its head cut off, but I figure action is better than no action.

Set a goal to build your bankroll to about $25 by playing .01/.02. Your goal should be to consistently win or get your money in when you are ahead. I'm not positive at .01/.02 but I think that winning .20 to. 40 per 100 hands is a decent goal.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

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

I vote legendary ... great stuff here.

:95mph:

 

[biophase]

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

That graph was made with pokergrapher with data from pokertracker.

 

[biophase]

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

but I'm having a lot of problems playing low pairs out of position, either in the blinds or UTG, UTG+1, and was wondering what your strategy is in handling these situations. Also you how would do act when someone has raised in front of you 3-4x the blind?

I'll try to elaborate on Bill's answer. Like he said, you are playing low pairs in hopes of hit a set on the flop. At your level, it should mostly be hit a set or give up.

I raise all pocket pairs from any position if I'm the first to open a hand. So even being dealt 22 or 33 UTG, I raise. I will call a raise with a PP (even in the blinds) as long as the person who raised has a decent stack behind him. A general rule of thumb is for that person to have at least 10x what you need to call. If I hit my set I generally go for the check raise if I called a raise PF.

 

[snowbank]

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

Snowbank,

Do you think if someone dedicated 10-20 hours a week to learning to play they could be making $5k/mo within 6-8 months?

Or does it take most people a few years + to be hitting those numbers?

I'm not trying to ask "is it possible" because obviously it is, but how realistic it may be...does that make sense?

I got this same question from someone through PM. I'll copy/paste what I wrote to them:

Short answer: easy.

longer answer: most people give up before they reach that point because they go into it thinking it's just some fun game that if they play for X amount of time they'll expect to make Y amount of money. It doesn't work like that, and is just like any other business where you have to put in work to get results. If someone actually did dedicate themselves and kept at it despite the swings of the game, $5k/month should be no problem. I know some people who pick up the game from scratch and are making $10k+/month within 2 months.(obviously those are very good results though and shouldn't be expected) All depends on how quick the person picks it up, how hard they work, how much capital they want to invest in it, how much time they dedicate, etc...

 

[PokerRich]

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

Snowbank / Bio,

Is there somewhere to locate a graph like this to help my tracks hands vs winnings? Or is this something you guys make yourselves?

I'm already playing a lot of hands and realize I need some better tracking methods...

Thanks.

PokerTracker - Online Poker Tracking & Analysis Software Tool or :: HOLD'EM MANAGER ::. Either pt3 or HEM would be fine although HEM offers a small stakes discount which probably makes it a better deal right now. I recently switched from pt3 to HEM and like HEM better but that is personal preference. If you are serious about poker, you should buy one of these programs as soon as you can.

 

[Jill]

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

I'm still playing the "play money" tables, which I find a little frustrating, because I don't think people really try to play "good" poker. But in any event, my question is pertaining to the loose aggressive player who will raise 100x bb pf, and everyone else calls. It's frustrating when you're trying to learn to play right, and the loose cannons play this way because you end up folding to them or sitting out most of the time. They don't care because when they lose big, they just go to the cashier and get more chips.

Would you get up and leave the table? Or is there something I can learn from this for reference at a real cash table?

 

[Sid23]

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

I'm still playing the "play money" tables, which I find a little frustrating, because I don't think people really try to play "good" poker. But in any event, my question is pertaining to the loose aggressive player who will raise 100x bb pf, and everyone else calls. Would you get up and leave the table? It's frustrating when you're trying to learn to play right, and the loose cannons play this way because you end up folding to them or sitting out most of the time. They don't care because when they lose big, they just go to the cashier and get more chips.

Would you get up and leave the table? Or is there something I can learn from this for reference at a real cash table?

Jill,

First off, please take my advice with a grain of salt because I'm just learning and have only been playing about a month so I may be giving the wrong advice.

I'm currently playing at the Hold 'Em NL 6-max 0.02/0.04 with a $4 buy in on real money tables on Cake Poker and I see what you describe a lot. People raise and call on almost every hand. At first, I played along and got in once and a while, but often lost post-flop because I wasn't confident in my hand.

I used to hate these tables and usually left tables that were so loose. But then I decided to stay one day and just change my game and play VERY, VERY tight. And by tight I mean I think I was seeing the flop about 10% of the time max. I folded 90 out of every 100 hands. I only called or raised really, really strong hands and then played very aggressive with them. I played Jacks or higher pairs and AK - AJ. Rarely would I play other hands, even from the button. The loose players never caught on that I only played good hands only, which is a nice bonus.

Guess what happened? I began winning 8 out of the 10 hands I played and with so many loose players at the tables, the pots were huge. One week I played about 200 hands a day and doubled my money at least 1 time a session. I made something like $20 that week and playing at .02/.04 that's not bad.

Granted, it is a little boring (I've since started playing 2 tables at a time because I fold so much), but the results seem to be good.

I'm not sure if my strategy is the best one (hopefully others will weigh in), but thought I'd let you know what's been working for me (it's still working 3 weeks later).

Best,
Sid23

 

[snowbank]

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

****PART 3****

How much money can you make?
​

Probably the most fun part to talk about/think about when you're trying to learn the game, is the potential benefits of learning to play well. How much money can you actually win?........

Short answer, a LOT.

I'll be more specific:

At micro and small stakes poker a good player can earn 10 big blinds/100 hands.(some more, but this is a good number to be shooting for) So if you are playing .10/.25, and you are making 10 bb/100, you're going to make $2.50 every 100 hands you play. Now you're probably thinking, well, that's not much money at all. But the thing is this is at very small stakes. The scalability of your poker business is absolutely huge. Not only can you move up and play higher stakes, you can also add more tables. You can add a lot more tables, basically multiplying your hourly rate until you hit diminishing returns. It's different for everyone what the best number of tables for them is to play, and like anything else it's something you get better at as you practice. Maybe you can only play 4-6 tables for a while, but then after a while you learn to play 8, or 10, or 12. I started playing 1 table at a time. If I'm playing 6 max tables, now I get bored if I'm playing any less than 8. If I play full ring tables, I like to be playing at least 16 at a time. Number of tables isn't something you should really shoot for. You should just focus on playing good poker, and over time you will be able to add tables as you get better and as more situations that come up become second nature, which = less time needed to concentrate on each table, which = ability to play more tables while still playing good poker.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, it's good bankroll management to have 30 buyins per level that you're playing at. So if you are playing .10/.25($25 buy in), your bankroll should be $750. If you don't have $750 you can obviously start playing lower stakes, even as low as .01/.02(where you'd only need $150). Let's just a look at an example of someone who doesn't have much money, but decides to scale the crap out of their "poker business."

Johnny decides his New Years resolution is to make money playing poker, since he doesn't want to have a job. He deposits $150 onto PokerStars, and begins playing the .01/.02 tables. He plays solid tight poker and throughout the month of January works his way thru .05/.10 and gets a roll big enough to play .10/.25.($750). Obviously making $600 in a month isn't much money, but Johnny knows he just needs to learn the game and build his bankroll before he can think about making a lot of money. To start February, Johnny begins 2 tabling .10/.25 to ease his way into it. He starts out with a winrate of 7 bb/100 hands. Johnny is playing around 200 hands/hour, so he's making roughly $3.50/hour. The competition is a bit harder, so Johnny wants to focus and not add more tables right now. Throughout the month Johnny adds a 3rd table, and with his rakeback, at the end of the month Johnny has enough($1,500) to move up to .25/.50. He's starting to feel pretty confident about his game, and after the first few days of March decides to add a 4th table when he realizes .25/.50 is not that much harder than the previous level. He's still earning about 7 bb/100, but because of the higher level he's playing and the additional tables, he's now earning $14/hour, as opposed to the $3.50/hr he was making just 1 month ago. At the end of the month after adding in his rakeback, he makes about $2,000 on the month. His bankroll is now at $3,500. He can more than comfortably dive into .50/1 games now. It's a bit harder at this level, and he's only winning at about 5 bb/100. He's a little discouraged about this, until he realizes that he's actually still making more money! He's making $20/hr now as opposed to $14, because he had the bankroll to allow him to move up to a higher level game. Sure, it's a bit harder, but his decreased winrate isn't enough to not have him continue to improve his hourly rate. Along with his rakeback, his total earnings for the month are $2,500, bringing his total bankroll to $6,000. He is now rolled for the 1/2 games. At this point, he decides to hire a coach for April to make his transition easier. He picks things up quickly through his coach, and realizes a lot of mistakes he was making. Despite the increased level, he's beating the 1/2 level for 7 bb/100, giving him an hourly rate of $56/hr. He gets bored halfway through the month only playing 4 tables, and adds 2 more which has him bringing in $84/hr. This has been a big breakthrough month for Johnny, and with his rakeback, which has increased dramatically over the months because of the increased stakes/tables, he brings in over $9,000 on the month, now bringing his bankroll to $15,000. He can't believe he started with just $150 4 months ago. Johnny is conservative, and doesn't want to move up to higher levels so he decides to play it safe and stay with 1/2, but still wants to make more money so he decides to add a couple more tables. He handles 8 tables no problem, and with a winrate of 8 bb/100, he's very happy with his $128/hr income. Now he realizes why it was important to use bankroll management so that he would have the capital to comfortably move up in stakes as he improved. He makes over $15,000 on the month, doubling his bankroll bringing it to $30,000! Johnny decides to keep playing small stakes and takes out a good chunk of his bankroll to put a downpayment on his first investment property.

Let's take a better look into the numbers I mentioned:

Johnny's hourly rate in May was $128/hr. It's actually a bit higher than that because of the rakeback though. Per table at 1/2nl at 6 max players make probably around $4/hr. So because Johnny was 8 tabling, he was making an additional $32/hr, making his actual hourly rate $160/hr.

Here's a breakdown per level of a bunch of different scenarios:

Stakes Tables bb/100 Rakeback/hr Hourly

.10/.25 1 10 .50 $2.75
.10/.25 4 10 2 $11.00
.10/.25 8 10 4 $22.00
.25/.50 8 10 8 $48.00
.5/1 8 10 16 $96.00
1/2 8 10 32 $192.00
2/4 8 8 40 $296.00
5/10 8 6 45 $525.00
10/20 6 6 45 $765.00

These would be higher end rates for the games, but you can kind of see where people try to reach for as they move up in games, and even if you're winrate isn't as high as these, you can still make a lot of money just playing a good amount of tables, having a halfway decent winrate and adding in your rakeback. Obviously there are much higher games as well.(There are $500/$1,000 stake games.) Some guys are making millions of dollars/year.

Hopefully this gave you a good idea of how much money you can make, and gives you some inspiration if you've had struggles early on while trying to learn the game. It'll often take time to get a hang of it, but once you do as you see it is an extremely scaleable business and the potential profits are huge. Most people give up early on because they don't see what's ahead if they put in the work. The money is there, but you've gotta put in your time. I'd say good luck to everyone at the tables in 2009, but as you should know by now, it has little to do with luck.:smxF:

 

[snowbank]

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

Until you get your site up and running, where would one go to find a coach? Is there like a "Dice.com" for poker coaches?? LOL. My $100 is now $82 (but only after about 400 hands) I'm playing tight pre-flop, but keep getting sucked into hands I shouldn't after the flop.

Thanks for this. Fun stuff!

The good news is the site should be up and running this week.

I know of one guy who's a phenomenal micro stakes coach but I think he charges $100/hr(which is a lot for a micro stakes coach) I'd definitely put in a lot more hands before you hired a coach though, and I'd maybe save hands you're having trouble with and either post them here, or save them so if you decide to hire a coach they can help you through the tougher hands, which speeds up the learning process since they'd spend time on what you're having trouble with and not everything in general if you have certain aspects down.

 

[reipro]

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

You can go to PokerVT.com. It is Daniel Negranau's site (not sure if I spelled his name correct). For the money it is the best site I have seen.

Until you get your site up and running, where would one go to find a coach? Is there like a "Dice.com" for poker coaches?? LOL. My $100 is now $82 (but only after about 400 hands) I'm playing tight pre-flop, but keep getting sucked into hands I shouldn't after the flop.

Thanks for this. Fun stuff!

 

[Sid23]

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

Ok, you've got me thinking now.

Let's say I'm a total newbie. I learned the rules of the game with a couple of friends, but we all pretty much started playing after figuring out the rules on WikiPedia. I really enjoy playing, but I really don' t know what I'm doing. How would you suggest going from knowing nothing to making money in micro-stakes. I'm sure coaching would be a great help, but I feel like I would be wasting my money and a couch's time at this point. Is there a book or something I should read to really understand the basics?

I'm really interested in building money this way in order to fund some investment property. My first reason is that I do really enjoy playing and I'm sure it would be even better if I was winning.

Thanks,

Josh

Josh,

I was in the same position as you just a few months ago. I still have to remind myself what is higher...4 of a kind or a full house? Haha.

Anyway, I think the best combo to get started is to play some, then read some (like Parts I, II and III that Snowbank was gracious enough to post in this thread) and then play some more.

I read a lot at the beginning but couldn't understand much of what I was reading. After I played the game a bit more, some things started to make more sense. Each time after reading I would play and just try to remember one thing from my reading. I learned starting hands, then continuation betting, then post flop play, etc.

Another thing that has helped me a lot is to go back after a session and look at the hands that confused me, whether I won or lost. Sometimes you win a hand, but realize in the long run you'll lose playing that way more than you'll win. Post them on www.bluefirepoker.com for feedback.

I started in November with never having played a hand of poker before in my life. I started with $50 on Full Tilt Poker. I've put in an average of 10 hours a week since then and I'm now playing 2 tables at a time on $10NL and in the last few weeks finally winning pretty consistently. I'm building my bankroll to $500 so I'll have 20 buy-ins and move up to $25NL. Should be in the next month or so.

Good luck!

 

[biophase]

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

I don't play online, only casually with friends. I think what you refer here to is the fact that I had to switch playing the cards and started playing the players. After a few hands I started learning who would be bluffing and who would be in a strong position.

Is this the same you are referring to here?

No, I'm actually referring to a change in the concept of poker. Most people when they have a strong hand just bet, bet, bet. They think "my hand is strong" so I bet. They don't think about how to extract maximum value from that strong hand.

If you bet flop get called, bet turn and they fold. You've gathered 1 bet from your hand.
If you bet flop get called, check turn, bet river and they call you've gathered 2 bets from your hand.
If you bet flop get called, check turn, check river, they may bluff bet into you at the river and you call and you've gathered 2 bets from your hand, or you raise and you might get 3 bets from your hand.

Always ask yourself, "Why am I betting here, and why am I choosing this amount to bet?" Can you answer that question for every one of your bets?

Poker for fun is just for fun. Poker as a business is just like a business, it's all about the ROI.

Again, my disclaimer is that I'm painting a huge broad picture of poker.

 

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[snowbank]

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

So what changed? After 4000 hands, I'm still losing. (Not $1500, mind you!! But $100ish) Where did it all change for you. Since I don't have a "Bill", would you recommend a coach? (I'm already a paid member at Bluefire!)

Jill,

When I was starting to take poker more seriously one of the best things that helped me learn was having better players look over hand histories of mine where I thought I might have played wrong. I'd literally have 50 hands every session that I'd save to look over. I paid someone to look over hand histories of mine and write back their analysis on the hand. Then over time things started clicking because I wasn't making the same mistakes over and over, they helped me plug my leaks a lot quicker. You can do that for free by posting hands in poker forums, I just decided to hire someone because I wanted to progress faster. If you post a few hands/day over a couple months you'd be amazed how fast you progress. You've definitely gotta get the table time in though. 4,000 hands is like 1-2 sessions of poker for me to give you an idea of how small of a sample size that is. You won't be able to get a feel on if you're winning or losing until you play many more hands. Once you feel comfortable in a lot of spots, then you'll know, but whether you win or lose over 4,000 hands won't matter. You could have run bad and lost $100 from running bad. So maybe you're a winner, you just haven't got to the long term yet.

 

[PokerRich]

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

That is precisely what I am working at~ I've just started playing seriously. Currently @ 10/25 cent tables with an 840 bankroll, and will be taking a shot at .25/.50 cent when I hit 1k bankroll. If I drop down to 800 i'll hit the 10/25 again.

Side Question:

I was wondering if I am too agressive in 25NL 6max.

I am winning, however I am:

27.8% VPIP
25.2% PFR
6.4% 3Bet
47.7% Agg%

PFR/VPIP ratio 90.9
Steal Ratio: 45.8

over about 12k hands

My general strategy is I raise pretty much every time I am limped to, or folded to in C/O, Button, Small Blind, Big Blind. I feel that weakens my small blind/big blind and have been working on tightening up in small blind/big blind.

Where do you suggest I tighten up. Generally my UTG/ UTG+1/ is extremely tight. (PP, AJ/AK/AQ/JT/KQ/)

Mid is a bit looser

CO/Button is pretty much auto 4x raise unless i have been raised.

I thought about tightening up and aiming @ 22/19.

Basically, I know my PFR % is much to high, regardless if I am playing tag or lag, but I can't figure out how to lower my PFR, or will that just lower due to my playing less hands?

I always say you should let your play determine your stats, don't let your stats determine your play. If you are having success raising limpers with ATC then keep doing it. At 25NL, you can win with a wide variety of styles and I am sure you can be profitable with your stats. Personally, I am probably the most aggro reg in my games. I run 5% higher than any other reg and I love the action I get because of it. I feel I have a considerable edge over the vast majoirty of my opponents so I want to play a lot of hands aggressively. Do whatever works for you and is profitable.

As you move up limits, you will have to adjust as your opponents adjust to you. The main thing you will notice is that if you are still playing 26/24 you will be 3-bet a ton more than you are now but I wouldnt wotty about that until you get there. Take advantage of the passive play you are going against.

 

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[cmartin371]

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

Agreed! I have been pumped for this one. Rep up! Thank You!

 

[Yankees338]

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

Thanks, snowbank! Great info. Can't wait for the next part!

 

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[andviv]

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

biophase, how long did it take you to get to that level? What was your initial level when starting online? Were you a "decent" player? or never had played in your life before?

 

[NerdSmasher]

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

As many have said so far, great threat - I'd give you rep, but I need to spread the love some more first

I look forward to the how to part... I'll probably be testing it on Facebook. Lol

 

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