I've been playing on and off for around 8 years with big breaks. Currently just mucking around with it. Wanted to share some things I have learned over the years with some new kids.

1.) It truly is a horrible, stressful, soul crushing game and should NEVER be the soul source of your income or your soul purpose in life.

2.) You need the belief you can make it to keep you going through the harsh times because without it, you will quickly burn out!

3.) It really is about finding worser players than you! Bumhunting is the aim of the game. You want a skill edge so combine studying with searching for the most terrible players you can and you will have your edge!

4.) Never underestimate the value of having a default strategy with default ranges when starting out! Having a great default strategy AND STICKING TO IT WHEN READLESS is a must in this game!

5.) Quality, then quantity! There's no point in reinforcing bad playing habits or poor decision making for the sake of volume. Learn to be skilled, then learn to play volume. Regular breaks are a must when "learning" to allow you to grind at a high quality! Get good at good decisions, then increase the volume over time!

6.) Find more folds, find more value, find LESS bluffs. Just do it!

7.) Enjoy the ride! When it no longer is enjoyable... it is time to quit! I've been most profitable when I focused on my wellbeing and ensured I enjoyed playing whilst I play. Forcing volume and forcing yourself to play leads to losses.

8.) Maths is DEFINITELY worth studying for the game but learn to apply it properly combining it with reads and psychological assumptions!

and finally....

9.) Forums and training sites are MAINLY entertainment. You will learn very little from forums! Focus on improving reads, ranges and betting through private study of handhistories and the use of equilab. Just do 1 hand a day and gradually build a habit.

I will have offended people with number 9; meh... it's true though.

I ain't no expert, but I've been around for a few years and have learned some lessons over this period. Hope it helps...

4) is so true, changed my game a LOT!

Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk

That depends how you use them...which is pretty much the same of any training resource. For sure you can waste an ocean of time spraffing with trolls in BQ (which may of may not be entertaining, depending on how sad you are) or you can engage with better players with better knowledge; find out the best videos and books; follow some research lines; find the best software, and most of all study tons of hands and see how loads of players approach the game.

never heard of equilab and stuff like that until I started out on 2+2, so it kinda makes my point for me.

thoughts on 1): This is true of anything that one finds themselves to be talented at, but does not "truly" enjoy. It's how I feel about working in IT. I hate it, but I'm good at it and it pays the bills. During my few years as a poker pro, I was happier than I'd ever been, despite making less money than I currently do.

It's the difference between doing what you're "good at" and following your "passion", unless one is fortunate enough to have those two things line up together. I'm a gamer at heart, so I never (or rarely) thought of poker as "work", but my life no longer affords me the luxury of doing it for a living.

^^ agree

It's a weird thing to put in a post with "wisdom" in the title. Wisdom is usually heavily biased towards an objective reality. That quote is as personal and subjective as it is possible to be.

I'm mystified as to why anybody would spend 10 seconds having anything to with what is basically a recreational activity when they clearly dislike it so intensely, and that includes projecting their personal views about it.

Go figure

nice share OP - mostly agree with your breakdown. curious if something in the game (big win, big loss etc) brought about this introspection or is it just random timing?

Nice list, but i am surprised, that lots of "study and hard work" didn't sneak in the top 10.
Most (myself included) ppl i think have a very wrong picture of how much actual study and work it takes in all areas you listed. Especially in the beginning.

Most of this is accurate (which I've got to say, surprises me a little given the author).

Subing because of dan.

Is this thread the exception that proves the rule?

10) Don't overestimate the amount you know about poker. Always be selfcritical of things, never assume you are 100% correct and others are 100% wrong, unless you can back it up with math. Drop the ****ing ego before you get into poker if you ever want to get good. Literally no-one has got good who at the start thought he was pokergod.

11) Respects the time and effort of others talking strat with you.

These two are genuinely significantly more important than the entirety of the OP on their own. Even if Linus, sorry, someone, is a dick, any advice is gold dust.

great post.

Good post and good advice, however I will add that I disagree with this:

Forums, training sites, videos etc. will teach you how to THINK about poker. You can't just study without knowing HOW to study.

12) it's 2016, poker's dead.

No, they teach you how other people think about poker.

In the grand scheme of things, there aren't really a lot different meta approaches to poker.

I think you'd be surprised. The skill cap in poker is very, very high. A player's understanding of everything that goes into making good decisions is inevitably a tip of the iceberg scenario.

Yeah skillcap is pretty high, that's true. But even then, pretty much all good players (at least in NL) seem to approach the game in very similiar way to certain degree, because well, math is math.

rule 147: never discount the spew factor for unknowns by 100%.

Just today, the very first hand I've ever seen this guy play, he open shoves 30 big blinds in a tourney with 32o.

9) aint true i've learned so much from arty, bob, answer20, and doctor877 it almost feels like putting in work/studying just posting some strat here and there.

Preciate the advice man just verifying some of the points you've listed because i've experienced the same the past year believe it or not as a 18-19 year old trying to make it live.

I look back at those days where i left calgary/edmonton stuck 900 bucks sleeping on the crappy seats in the greyhound terminal MANY TIMES... having a strong mind is key tho and realizing that focusing on playing your A-Game is more important then money. Because money will come... And now things are better these past couple months since... Not sure if i regret poker or not but we'll see eh?

Points 1-3 are the live poker struggle for a lot of us...

Agreed, this site has definitely helped me

I pretty much completely learned how to play on these forums. (Harrington on Holdem was pretty good back then too for tournaments.)

The forums definitely aren't as good as they used to be. Players have gotten much better at the game, but you don't see people breaking hands down completely on the forums as well as they may be able to nowadays. Also, you don't see people just out of no where starting threads with cutting edge or at least top of the line ideas and advice for how to play certain spots.

Game got tougher.



There is still some good stuff here though. And even the stuff that is out of date could give a new player a decent base and improve his game immensely.

Dunno Lego...maybe WE have adopted a more retracted stance and don't "fit in" with the current crowd. When I started here around 2006, there was an amazing group of posters that really got your mind swirling if you listened. BUT, we all looked back fondly on the pokey/baluga era stuff that was our (very elevated) baseline. And those guys always spoke reverently of the first posters on the new 2+2 internet thingy.

I read strat posts now in Live Low-stakes NL and the Small Stakes Limit areas. There is a current core of good strat writers....so while poker may be dead, 2+2 strat still seems to keep trying to push the bar higher.





YMMV

Should threads like this be allowed when it's fairly safe to say OP has had no success in poker?

"Never use poker as your sole source of income". What a load of crap. If you can make $100k/year from poker then why wouldn't you?