Hey there, I'm looking to put a lot of time into studying the game and would like to know your opinion on the most important elements of it.

I normally play live 1/2 and micro stakes online, slowly building a bankroll. Been playing for about 2 years now, but instead of reading more vague books I would like to dig deep into concepts on my own and try to fix some leaks.

I plan on spending my time learning how to calculate pot odds and equity on the spot better with more accuracy, maybe get into reverse implied odds, stacks sizes etc. I know these are basic concepts but truly mastering them would help anyone's game. I also thought maybe to dive into building and perfecting ranges, learning how to effectively label opponents and put them on ranges.

Another thought is to mostly keep playing but put a lot of time into hand analysis, how I played it and why. Maybe play around with programs like flopzilla and get an idea of how much equity I have in spots I put myself in.

I plan on studying all of the above, but am not sure how to prioritize. Any feedback will help, and let me know what aspects of the game you think are most important to master in order to become a winning player, thanks

I'd start off with slowing down. You're throwing around a lot of terms in ways that suggest you don't really know what they mean. For example, calculating pot odds is easy. When facing a bet, the pot odds are (pot + bet)/bet. In simple terms, if the pot is X and someone makes a pot sized bet, the pot odds are 2:1 [(X+X)/X].

What I would do is go back and read one of the books you bought. It doesn't matter much which one. Take it one concept at a time. Go on to 2+2 and read the stickies in the introductory forums on that concept. Spend a week or two just learning more about it. Then start applying it to your game. Once it has become part of your game, rinse and repeat with the next concept. Post hand histories where these situations come up or post in hand histories of others which seem applicable.

Don't talk yourself into, "That's easy, I know everything about it I need to know." That's how you got yourself in the position where you've played two years and aren't a winning player. Be aware that you probably will need to change some habits and ideas you thought were "fine" but are costing you money.

Here is how to calculate your equity on the fly without using your phone (To make it easier we are gonna pretend you spooked your opponents cards when they were being dealt and we know his exact hand):

step 1. Count your outs, we have a flush draw on a board of 5h 10h Ad against our opponents top pair (Ac 4s), we have 9 hearts left to complete our flush.

Step 2. We have 9 good cards with 44 cards remaining. 9 goes into 44 just under 5 times, 5 goes into a hundred 20 times so we have a little under 20% equity to hit a our hand with the next card.

To convert that to fractional we can say 20 goes into a hundred 5 times so we have a 1 in 5 chance to get there and so this is 4/1 (note its not 5/1 because the 1 is part of the fraction, which is a common mistake for people to make). If we are going to get all our money in now (either because we believe he may fold his top pair certain % of the time or he has bet all his stack and we are trying to figure out if its the right price). Then we can simply double the 20% minus a little bit because 9 doesn't quite go into 44 5 times so it something under 40%

The quick cheat: we have 9 outs so we can simply times it by 2 to get the % of times it hit on the next street, 18% to make our flush OTT and simply double it to see for the river 36%, well you may ask what is 36% as a fraction? well how many times does 36 go into a buck? a little under 3 times id say (36 x 3 = 108) so you have a little under 2/1 chance.

Pot odds: same hand as above to keep it simples. the pot is 122 he throws in his last 65 do we call? well 122 and 65 make 187, 187 divided by 65 (its 65 for us to win 187 incase you're getting lost) is ummm. 65 uh 130 umm 195 so it goes in a little less than 3 times, so you are getting a little bit worse than 2 to 1, now pot odds are 36 divided by a hundred also a little worse than 2/1. seems about breakish on the old even, go on then I call!!!

Reverse implied odds. If you play against certain guys you will notice they almost always have the nut flush when it gets to showdown and all the money is in the middle when another dude (almost always a weaker player) also has a flush. This is one example of reverse implied odds. suited connectors are good hands if your good at letting them go when you recognise you're beat. Avoiding gutters that are not to the nuts is another example of reverse implied odds. chasing draws in multiway pots when your draw is not to the nuts and you could easily be against a draw and a made hand is another bad idea born of the principles of "reverse implied odds"

Stack sizes: Know your opponents stack size when facing a bet or when you are contemplating the size of a bet or even if you should bet at all. If he doesn't have much left compared to the pot size is he ever going to fold might be a question you want to ask yourself, You may ask yourself "if I bet now am I committed here because there is not much money behind? If effective stacks are very deep (600bb for example) and you are oop in the sb against a good player, you may ask yourself "should i 3bet my QQ from the sb here and get into a position against this guy where I could be playing an enormous pot? or on the flip side you are only 35bb effective you may just be asking yourself the best way to get all the money in the middle come what may.

A lot of things you will learn yourself as situations arise and you reflect on them, if you know the basics of calculating pot odds/equity/stack size then finding ways to figure out peoples likely holdings is all that is left.

If you play like a nit in your 1/2 game you don't have to understand too much at all beyond what is considered the basics, once you become an expert poker player (if you can't find a bigger game) it will become apparent its best to be a total nit in that 1/2 game

OP I don't really prioritize in the way that you mean. I know that there are a whole bunch of things that I need to learn, so I just take them one at a time, breaking everything down into small pieces.

If I have a priority, it's probably fixing leaks. I just pick an area where I know I'm weak, and that's what I concentrate on for a while.

Here are some of the many pieces that I've broken poker into:

1. Hand ranges. If I want to play 15% of my hands, I need to know what hands are in the top 15%. I looked it up on an equity calculator and made flash cards to work on the memorization. I did the same for other ranges as well.

2. Odds and outs. Same as above. I looked them up on pokersyte.com and made flash cards.

3. Tells. I got Mike Caro's book so that I would know what to look for.

4. How to play suited connectors. There are lots of videos on this topic, just type "suited connectors" into Google or YouTube.

5. General approach to playing and improving. I subscribe to a poker coaching site and I read a lot of books. Also. when Maria Ho did the commentary on the Heartland Poker Tour, she often talked about situations where pros and amateurs would play it differently, and she explained why. Every morning after I play my block of evening tournaments I get on 2+2.

6. Check-raising. I just found out in the last month that I'm not looking at this the right way at all. When I'm ready to attack that topic l will get on Google and see what I can find. I'm sure that a lot of pros have talked about it in their blogs.

7. Self-Discipline. This one is a big deal for me. I have ADD and I can easily get distracted or sidetracked. I play or study in my office, with the door shut. When studying I sometimes wear earplugs so that I can block out every possible distraction, aiming for as close to complete silence as I can get. No TV, no music, no phone, just silence unless I'm watching a coaching video or gathering other video information. The only exception is that cats are allowed to sit on my lap and purr.

To make sure that I'm honest with myself about how hard I'm working, I track my time on a spreadsheet, in quarter hours, just like I'm punching a time clock. I break my time down by Playing, Studying and Adminstrative, and I try to make study at least 25% of that time every week.


I don't try to learn poker as a big picture, I take it piece by piece and maybe someday I'll put most of the puzzle together.

We don't know anything about what've already learnt and your current ability so apologies if this sounds a bit basic but...

I think you are wrong here. Knowledge can be broken in to three areas.

You know what you know - Pretty straight forward
You know what you don't know - Looks like you got some grasp of this.
You don't know what you don't know - This is the doozy.

I believe you need a solid grasp of the ABC's before you start talking leaks and areas to concentrate on and I think you get this from reading 'vague' books. If you read a couple of books and pick up one or two tips from them the time has been worth it's weight in gold. Once you are full comfortable with that THEN you can go looking at advanced areas to learn. I learnt using the basic books and they helped no end.

You've got plenty of time and it doesn't take long to read the books. I'd say go back to basics and read them. What harm can it do? Lose a bit of time? Couple of bucks on a book? The end result is you pick up tips that make you money.

There are various things in your post that make me think this and picking one example..

It's not as simple as that. Playable hand range changes with position, opponents, chip stacks. It's not just a matter of looking at a chart to remember ranges. The vague books will cover all this for you.

That's my thoughts on reading your post. Hope they don't sound too condescending and kudos for you to want to put the effort in.

Oh and personally I'd completely forget the tells until you've got your basic game right. You've got enough to think about than a pretty woolly area of the game, particularly if you are playing online.

Thanks for the advice, the books i got are Sklansky' theory of poker, essential poker math (great for begginers on learning odds) and a few 1/2 live cash game ones by redchip. Yeah slowing down and hammering down the basics is always a good idea, i guess ill do that, opposed to increasing study load.

Thanks for the reply. I know how to calculate simple odds fairly accurately, my problem are multiway pots with different stack sizes, and sometimes big bet sizes into huge pots takes me a while to figure out. I usually go by the rule of 2 and 4, and take away a percent or two. Ill deff start looking into these concepts you outlined to make sure my grasp is solid.

Watching videos, commentaries and hand analysis really do help. I also listen to poker podcasts when commuting such as redchip poker, that seems to improve my game a bit. I heard the book of tells is really good, ill check it out though like it was said, beggineres shouldnt focus on that as so many things going on that need more attention. It is fun when you pick up on obvious ones from nervous live players or older people who really dont care about hiding them.

Thanks for the advice, seems to be a common theme of revisiting the basics and i will do that, starting with rereading books.

You quoted the OP, then my post. Regarding mine:

No, you don't sound condescending, but I understand what you're getting at. This is the beginners forum and I didn't want to get into the "everything is situational" discussion.

When I learned that you can be profitable by playing in the top half of your opponents range, I realized that I didn't know anything about ranges, for example, I had no conception of what a top 10% or a top 30% range would look like, so I decided to learn that.

I understand that Equilab didn't give me the 15 Commandments. When effective stacks are deep I play a lot of speculative hands. Norman Chad said that Daniel Negreanu has suitedconnectoritis. I do too, even though 65s is not even close to a top 15% hand. When the blinds are weak I will open from the button with 50% as long as I can get away with it.

I have no illusions about how good I am. I know that I don't know a lot of things. I subscribe to a coaching site and I read a lot of poker books. After watching a recent coaching video I realized that I have to rethink my approach to check-raising. 25% of my poker time is spend studying.

I'm not sure that I agree with you about tells. I played mostly live last year, in charity poker rooms licensed by the state of Michigan and there were an awful lot of players that had obvious tells. Some would actually complain that they were tired after playing an evening tournament for five hours! They were telling me to play small ball and drag things out while they were struggling to stay awake. I got some very favorable chops that way.

You quoted the OP, then my post. Regarding mine:

No, you don't sound condescending, but I understand what you're getting at. This is the beginners forum and I didn't want to get into the "everything is situational" discussion.

When I learned that you can be profitable by playing in the top half of your opponents range, I realized that I didn't know anything about ranges, for example, I had no conception of what a top 10% or a top 30% range would look like, so I decided to learn that.

I understand that Equilab didn't give me the 15 Commandments. When effective stacks are deep I play a lot of speculative hands. Norman Chad said that Daniel Negreanu has suitedconnectoritis. I do too, even though 65s is not even close to a top 15% hand. When the blinds are weak I will open from the button with 50% as long as I can get away with it.

I have no illusions about how good I am. I know that I don't know a lot of things. I subscribe to a coaching site and I read a lot of poker books. After watching a recent coaching video I realized that I have to rethink my approach to check-raising. 25% of my poker time is spend studying--I track it by quarter hours.

I'm not sure that I agree with you about tells. I played mostly live last year, in harity poker rooms licensed by the state of Michigan. There were an awful lot of players that had obvious tells. Some would actually complain that they were tired after playing an evening tournament for five hours! They were telling me to play small ball and drag things out while they were struggling to stay awake. I got some very favorable chops that way.

Don't play with cheaters who pocket a card for later use.

In the pot odds part aren't we getting a little less than 3 to 1, not 2 to 1 ?

I would hate to know I've been figuring pot odds incorrectly all theses years.

Yes it should be 3:1

And to answer the title question, the most important thing to learn is hand reading. If youre a very good hand reader it can make up for deficencies in other areas