Hello,

I'm pretty much completely new to poker. Used to play casually years ago, but that's it. I'm only 20, so I can't play at my local casino, so I downloaded an online poker client, watched some strategy videos on youtube and started playing. I threw $25 onto my account and started grinding $.02/$.04 no limit holdem tables. My first day, I lost $14, but I've been playing all day today, and have made most of it back.

Anyway, my question is, how do I get better? What resources are available to me as a player?

Define get better? If you are new to poker it would be advisable to study poker's basic concepts and learn how and when to apply different strategies and tactics within the strategy. You might start by reading "Holdem Poker" by Sklansky.

I am too a beginner, but what I have found out so far:

The basic concepts in online poker are Bankroll Management, learning to pick good starting hands (these two are quite easy).

If you want to become good at poker - learn to analyze your sessions. Once you have finished a session, (or later) check out your stats, biggest pots that were lost and won. (Holdem Manager or Poker Tracker are useful tools).

Check for patters that would indicate your weak spots.
Did you see the flop to often? you you limp too much? Were you aggressive enough? etc.

Remember, making the right decisions, even if you lose some money, will bring you money in the long run. While poor decisions that brought you profit will make you loose money in the long run.

I hope it was helpful.

honestabe, we should practice together. I have been playing hard since January. I have resources read three books, Sklansky, Brunson 1 and 2, and also The Theory of Poker. I just barley break even and would love to play with someone who is WANTS to progress to the next level like me. PM me if you are interested.

For a real beginner it will be impossible to analyze the sessions at the very beginning.

I would proceed as following:

1) Learn the basics (rules, etc. pp)
2) Learn the game basics and essential concepts (pot odds, odds, probabilities that matter like: what is the chance for me to make make a set on the flop with my poket pair? There is no need to learn what Delta and advanced ICM are in the very beginning)
3) Learn the strategy. This is were the confusion usually starts. Eventually you shall learn two kind of main strategies:
- basic strategy (this is how you play if you don't know your opponents)
- adjusted strategy (this is how you play if you know how your opponent plays)
Do yourself a favour and learn the basic strategy first and use it intensly.

Once you are aware of the basic concepts, you start with playing 1 to 2 tables. You need to focus. Try to think about your style of playing while you are playing, but don't look back at start the equilation programm for a hand that lies in the past; you are a beginner and therefore need to focus. Do the math afterwards.

Also, you will be insecure in lots of situations. That's normal.
You might get unlucky (setup or getting sucked out). That's normal.

@honestabe: message me
Here or via Skype(Jay Buckley) and we can go over some stuff, love to help out.

If I had to be honest I'd say I'm probably a break even player, but that's largely because I end up getting cooled so much (at least in my view) that it cancels out what I'd normally be winning. I'm probably not "the best" player on this forum but I know what got me to where I am now when I was at your level. I played a lot on pokerstars, and then when that was banned, I switched to bodog. I usually played microstakes. That's your best bet for practicing your mathematical plays. I would recommend playing straightforward TAG for the most part. Don't call loose donkeys with QT suited just because you "don't believe them" this isn't a reason to draw, and against loose players it usually isn't a good idea to draw in the first place. Stick to tight preflop guidelines and don't overplay hands like KQ, KJ etc. because I guarantee AK/AQ are going to punish you for it. Small pot poker is always acceptable. Go with made hands and let loose donks hang themselves. You may run into a situation where you made a questionable flop call, such as with 77 on a Q94 flop, because you thought you had a possible read, but then you realize after the turn card completes possible flush draws, that it looks to your opponent from your behavior that you actually were going for that and you can easily represent a made flush when you're pretty sure he doesn't have it. When you have a strong read and a good situation like that to bluff or get a little loose, go ahead and do it, but do this sparingly. You should generally be comfortable with these types of plays and know when the time is right. You'll be wrong occasionally, but that's why I recommend sticking to microstakes. If you have to lose at least it won't be much more than a couple bucks.

if you've just starting of then tournaments gives you the best bang for your buck.

My advice to you is to avoid to concentrate in a period of time only in reading/study poker or strictly only take practice.The key is to study first and then try to apply what you learn in the real game.Choose your mini theoretical sections that you think you need to improve and do what i said.Step be step, you ll see that you ll become better and better.
Tip: Dont fear to review something that you feel you dont understand well.For example,how to improve your post flop strategy at early game.Thanks for reading my opinion (same with Phil Ivey )

Practice in low stakes games. Check out training sites like Cardrunners. Lots of practice.... then study. Repeat for 10,000 hours. Try to lose as little as possible while you are learning. First you will have a grasp of basic concepts, later you will be thinking on higher levels. It takes time but you can do it!

I never watched strategy vids you should want to know exactly why a certain play works not just because a poker coach said it was +EV there is this cool series on DUECES CRACKED not really strategy tho more math Wilt On Tilt's Mathematics of Hold'em watch this a couple of times if you can master it you'll be all right

I'm not one you should take much advice from, because I'm a hack, but I have final tabled quite a few online tournaments and won some of them. I consider myself a pretty weak cash game player as well.

So anyway, I've been playing poker for 8 years and it always was my intention to work hard and become a very dangerous player, winning lots of monies. Anyways, dreams don't always come true, but if I could go back and do things differently, knowing what I know now, here's what I would do.

1) Be careful about what books you read. I didn't know this until a year or two ago but many, if not most poker books are considered to be pretty bad. My first poker book was "Poker For Dummies", which I found to be a pretty bad book to start with, or read at all. It taught me how to think like a limit player without ever mentioning that there's a BIG difference between limit, no-limit and tournaments. You don't limp with the same hands nor call or reraise with the same hands. They are very different games!!!

So basically, find out what the good books are via a little research and read those, that is, if you are interested in reading books.

2) Something that I never did was pay for training video's or coaching. I believe coaching from people who are currently successful at online poker is probably the best route because cutting edge poker strategy is always changing. I need to pay for some coaching the next time I get money from luck-boxing a tourney.

3) Learn about poker theory, the basics of poker, and what poker is all about. This is so you know what you are getting into. Many of the players who never learned those things are always angry when they play and claim that poker is rigged, because they aren't aware that poker is a GAMBLING game where your edges usually aren't as big as many new players think they are, so you are constantly going to be taking bad beats. That's poker. It's not easy, there is a lot of heartbreak.

4) Find out about rakeback and sign up promo's, something that I neglected. It's a constant source of extra money to help build a bankroll or just keep you going.

5) Invest in poker tracking software, such as "poker tracker", also something that I never did.

6) Don't fall into the trap of just playing and never studying the game.

Hope that helps.

Also, you need to know that there are big differences in optimal strategy for short-handed play vs when the table is full. When at a no-limit table with 9 players the optimum strategy will be extremely different than if you were playing in a tournament and there were only 3 players remaining.

For just no limit cash games, here are the breakdowns of "different games."

Full ring, which is 8-10 players at the table.

6-max, which is a maximum of six players per table. You would adjust your starting hands to play a little looser.

Shorthanded, which is anywhere between 3-5 players playing at the table. Once again you'd be willing to mix it up with weaker hands.

hu = heads up play, where it's just you against one other player.

And that's just for no-limit cash or "ring" games.

As you can see, poker has a lot of nuances for optimal strategy.

I wanna second the guy who mentioned bad books. One in particular is Hold'em Poker: For Advanced Players. If I followed the advice I read in there I'd be broke in no time because I'm not a fan of chasing backdoor flushes or check raising backdoor draws. I remember one part he stated (I'm paraphrasing this a bit) NOT to worry about full houses if you're drawing to a flush or made a flush on a paired board. That's the one thing that got me stacked with second best hands more than anything else did when I was starting off in online poker. I don't think it's a good idea to draw on paired boards, does anyone here think that's a good idea? Sure there might be occasional exceptions when you have a strong read on an opponent but you need to be seriously careful with that stuff.

Totaly opponent dependent. If you raise preflop and he calls with PP only chances are much bigger that he has a FH. Usually, espcially in heads up, the chances that a significant part of your opponent ranges is FHs is rather slim.

I do not know the book you referring too, but you should see it as some kind of basic strategy and this ofc is rarely perfect but a very solid base. In a heads up pot for example the chance a player haveing a FD / Flush is much smaller than in a 6way-pot. Adjust.

Btw.: if you never go for draws you shall fold ~60 to 70% on the flop and are very easy read- and bluffable.