In my experience I have found that you have to try everything. Books, videos, forums, observing others playing, being observed, skype chats with many, skype chats with one and figure out what twirls your beanie. We all learn differently so we have to find out what way we learn best.

For me it was books, forums and watching others to start out. As mentioned the HOH series was my bible and then I moved on to more specific books related to mtts.

I HATE being watched though, if someone is watching me to learn from me I'm ok, but if I know my backers/coaches are watching me in real time.... ewwwww.... but fine with us going through my HH's together.

When considering coaching I think you need to come into it with a solid base ie. after reading and digesting a good portion of the hoh books and being able to apply the concepts on a basic level at the very least. People who offer coaching need something to work with so what you bring to the table is very important. The biggest thing with coaching for all parties involved is you get out of it what you put into it.

When considering a coach you need to talk to them first, just because they are an awesome player doesn't mean it will be a good fit. Find out what their method of teaching is and see if that is in line with how you learn. See if you click in general and communicate well. Establish what each party expects to get out of the coaching and how that will be measured.

All of the above mentioned ways of learning are negotiable, reviewing our own play is not negotiable. You haaaaave have have to review your own play, how else are you going to know what mistakes YOU are making so you can fix them? You will be surprised what you find when you start learning and reviewing your own play.

Tracking software is a priceless tool also, the information about your game it gives you allows you to tweak things and watch stats change as you do it effectively. In my experience it was a pretty sharp learning curve using hem or pt3 but well worth the work you put into understanding it and using it as a tool to learn.

If you play on fulltiltpoker and earn a good amount of points a month then do this:

http://www.trulyfreepokertraining.com/

You get cardrunners for free, deffo worth watching the cardrunners sng vids for someone like you!

lol at bogan trying to teach you anything other than how to eat a cake

http://www.pokertrikz.com/videos/85-6-cxzj51fkqh8p93g0/

(The video page is here but it has so much spam it actually starts freezing my browser so I posted a direct link to the naked video)

Stick to one format and learn it. At first, learn a basic but profitable tag style. Always try to practice good bankroll management (100+BI's for the level you play unless you are shotting the next level). If you are profitable and not broke, you are always learning. Learn the exceptions to the standard plays one at a time and you will grow as a player.

After you think you understand the basic strategy, you will come across spots where you are pretty clueless as to what to do. Use the forums, your poker friends, etc and ask questions about the replies if you don't understand why someone wants to do something different than you think is the correct play. Accept that not all of the advice you will get will be good, but learn from it, think objectively and you will profit.

Regarding developing a basic profitable style, personally for sngs, I would suggest AMT's Last Man Standing series on DC which is the best video primer for sngs imo (not sure if they still have a free 7 day trial, but likely you can just sign up for this and download the videos then cancel). The Moshman book is good (don't listen to the hate, I disagree with much of this book, but it is certainly a viable micro sng strategy and the objective is to become profitable), as well as this free online book.
http://cvsng.blogspot.com/2007/11/partial-sng-book.html

For SNGs, HUD, SNGWiz (or ICM Trainer) are all very much needed once you start breaking out of the smallest sng games (probably need at about the $6 level imo). You will have to study and run hands in Wiz or it will be hard to win at a decent rate. Before you can afford to buy software, using an equilibrium push fold strategy when you are under 14bb is a good starting point. I'd suggest this one.
http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sn...alculator.html

Remember, walk then run. Basic profitable strategy, then try to learn when it is time to use more advanced plays.

HTH

The guy that was patient enough to teach me to play also showed me the FT Poker Academy. It's been a great way to spend 15-20 minutes learning, which is about as much as I have at any one time during the day. Now, if I can just put all this stuff into practice

Poker Stars, too, has a school, they have courses and tests, including a Sit and Go course. You access it from the main screen when you are signed on to Stars. Also free, also with forums.

I'm a little confused about this thread. Are we assuming that there is something fundamentally different about the process of learning to play poker, when you are a woman? Or are we merely having the discussion here in a female-positive environment to make things go more smoothly for OP?

No, there's nothing different about a guy or a girl when learning poker. So feel free to use any strategies mentioned here, I promise you won't get cooties

(I'm thinking you're a guy, feel free to correct me)

I'm going to disagree dependent on the age of the person learning. A lot of XYs start playing poker as adolescents. One of the differences in development between the genders is that a female develops abstract reasoning processes in mid to late adolescence. Males lag behind a couple years, sometimes more.

I believe this is one of the reasons it is so common for a male player/poster to insist there is a "correct/incorrect" play for a situation, generally citing some mathematical formula. Female players are more able to see that the action choices have more elements of consideration, they grasp metagame issues more quickly.

That being said, women, by selective forces, tend to be more risk-averse while men tend to be more "kill or be killed." These are generalities, of course, and there is after all variance in individuals without which evolution could not function.

I just wanted to disagree with the idea that there's no difference in learning. Maybe after age 25, there isn't. I do believe there's no difference, after physical adulthood, in ability to achieve.

Play play play. You said that you forget everything you learned by the next time you play, so thats probably your biggest problem. Yes studying, reading, coaching etc is good and necessary but theres really no substitute for practice. Im not saying all you should do is play, and not study, but I would say that you should be playing atleast 33% of the time, and once things start clicking play atleast 50% of the time, once youre consistantly winning study 25% of the time and etc.

Poker is not rocket science, especially at the lower levels, however it is time consuming and requires commitment - you definately get out of it what you put into it. I have somewhere around 8k games (SNGs and MTTs) between all the sites and im still constantly figuring things out from experience that isn't necessarily teach-able.

FWIW im a male and my biggest breakthrough to understanding +EV poker was paying a coach from this site and just playing and figuring things out. If youre overwhelmed by the knowledge on 2p2 (as I was) and having a hard time *REALLY* understanding what poker books are saying it may be easier to simply have someone "tell" you what to do. You also need to find a coach who will "tell" you what to do as well as why you need to do that in terms other than "His range is XYZ, you have X% equity, easy fold are you dumb?"

Not this. Super-boring.

Are you just trying to win the 4L and Skype games Made? If so, cease any and all paint-huffing and NEVER, I repeat NEVER listen to Jackitos...pretty much gtd success.

Lmfaooooooo