I have spent no telling how much time and money on books, training courses, videos, etc. and none of it makes ANY sense to me. If anything, I’m much WORSE than when I started. I don’t understand position, ranges, when to bet or check, nothing. I don’t seem to do anything right. Should I just give up? If not, where do I go from here?

Post some hand's (omitting the outcomes), explain your thinking process and what you were considering during the hand. That will allow some of the guys hear to see where you might have some blind spots and help you address them.

Have you read the books?
Have you watched the videos?

Did you take notes?
Were you playing a game on your phone while "watching" the videos?

Did you pick a subject and try to apply it while playing?

If you want to get better, pick something specific and study it.
If you don't understand, ask questions.

Don't come in here saying you don't understand anything. First of all it's a lie, you probably understand a lot of it already.
More importantly though, we can't help you with general questions like these.

If you want to improve, you need to ask SPECIFIC questions.


For example:

"I don't understand position"
We can't help you with this.

If you would say: "I don't know what hands to play from the BTN."
Then we can give you specific advise.

Or "I don't know what hands to 3bet from the BTN vs the CO."
Again, we can help you with that.


Honestly though, you need an attitude adjustment.
Have you ever heard of fixed mindset vs growth mindset? Might be a good place to start.

Sorry to have bothered you. If I knew the right questions to ask I’d ask. I don’t know how to post hands nor do I know even where to find them. It’s not specific situations I have trouble with. It’s ALL situations. Again, sorry to have bothered someone of your obviously great esteem with my stupid questions.

you came in asking for help. jumping on yeodan because his help had some sharp barbs in it is probably not going to help get you answers.

poker is hard. the most common reply (it stings as well) in BQ to this sort of question is "some people can't take the book skills to the tables. They simply can't" (personally, while I was a winner during the Golden Years of online poker....can't honestly say I would be a winner now)

If you are having trouble using your book smarts.... you are not alone.

My opinion is....perhaps consider spending money on a coach. If you don't have the money to afford a coach....save, save, save until you do.

This is the beginners forum. I don’t see the point of jumping down somebody’s throat for asking a beginner question if you’re truly trying to help. You’re right about one thing though. I don’t have A CLUE how to take what I study to the table.

I wasn't trying to attack you at all.
Notice how I posted 5 questions and you answered none of them?

I even gave you two very specific and very good subjects to focus on when starting out.

Again, adjust that attitude, you'll never be good at anything acting like that.

If you think Yeodan was "jumping down" your throat with his answer, then maybe you don't have the right temperament for poker. His response was a pretty mild "here's what you need to do".

OP, I'll start by framing the discussion for one of your questions.

I don't understand position

Poker is a game of incomplete information. "Position" describes where you sit in the information chain.

The more people who act before you, the more information you have to help you decide what to do.

The more people to act after you, the less certain you are of how strong your hand might be.

SB is the worst position, BTN is the best.

DUCY? (Since learning poker is an iterative process, this requires you to answer with a follow-up question).

I understand the NAMES of the positions. I don’t understand how it’s possible for anything short of a supercomputer to process which hands to play in which situations. Nor do I understand why SB is supposedly the worst position. I know they’re first to act postflop, but they’re also next to last preflop. Why is one more important than the other. What do I do when what I think is the best hand gets called? Should I play drawing hands at all? I don’t remember the last time I had the correct pot odds to call. How do I play marginal hands like J10o or unsuited aces. I just don’t understand the game AT ALL. The answer to every question seems to be, “it depends.”

SB is the worst because it’s last to act POST FLOP.

There are 3 post flop streets and only 1 preflop street.

Also the pot is much bigger post flop so u have the advantage in the big pot.

GL

I assume you meant first

Think of it like this:

75% of hands play themselves, because they're junk and you fold them all the time
10% of hands play themselves, because they're good and you raise them all the time

The other 15% of hands are in the middle, what you do with them isn't going to be a huge mistake either way. Up front with lots of players to act? Facing a raise? Maybe fold the worst of these. Later in the action and folded to you? Probably raise all of these.

That's not so hard, is it?

It’s not really necessary to memorize, computer-like, all the starthands from all positions. What’s important is to realize that you should open with a much tighter range of hands from early positions than from late positions. The type of hands you open matters as well. You ask how to play hands like JTo and unsuited aces, for example. The best answer is for the most part, don’t. Fold them PF, especially from early positions. Obviously, you’ll correctly open the hands that you’d intuitively expect. You’re not folding AKo or AQo from any position. Position matters for more marginal hands, though. For example, IIRC (and someone please correct me if wrong) in a full 9-handed table UTG AJo is a fold, as are 22-44. As you move to better positions, these are the type of hands that get added into your opening range. AJo from MP becomes an easy open, for example. On the button, you open just about all Ax combos.

The other aspect to this is that your opponent’s ranges will depend on position as well. You can use this fact when deciding how to respond to their actions. For example, suppose you have a hand like QTo in the BB. If raised, should you defend? The answer might well depend on who raised. If it’s a 9 handed game and UTG raised, I’m folding QTo. If the button raised, I’m calling (and maybe 3 betting with some frequency). Do you see the difference between the two situations? If so, explain why you call the button’s raise but fold vs UTG.

For more general advice, as a beginner, play the absolute lowest stakes available (but NEVER play money). Generally this will be 2NL on most online sites - $.01/$.02 blinds with a $2 maximum buy in. Start by playing tight, aggressive poker. This means fold a lot, and I do mean a lot. If you are playing more than about 25-30% of the hands you’re dealt, you’re playing too many hands. Generally as a beginner, something like ATo+, KQo, A6s+, suited broadways, and pocket pairs are the hands you should try to stick to. Fold all others. (As discussed before, in later positions, play more of these; play less from early positions).

When you do play, raise. The “First Commandment” of poker - never limp preflop. Always raise to about 3x the big blind when you are going to play. Add 1 bb to this for each player that has already limped. This has several advantages. First off. you might win the pot immediately with a raise; that cannot happen if you limp. Second. when you limp, you are basically announcing to your opponents “I have a marginal hand, not a very strong one.” Good opponents will take advantage of your limp (as you should be doing to other limpets) by raising and putting you in tough spots. A final advantage is related: when you raise, opponents are more likely to fold if you bet the flop. You indicate strength by raising; you often (but not always) should follow up your raises with a bet on the flop, a continuation bet or “cbet” as it’s called. This is because it’s tough to make a hand in hold em; if neither you or your opponent make a hand, you usually can win the pot with a cbet.

For post flop play, probably the most important concept to learn is dry vs. wet flops. A wet flop is a flop where there are many possible draws that your opponents (or you) might have. Flops with consecutive cards or the same suits are wet. Kh Qh Th, for example would be an extremely wet flop. AQ makes a straight. Qx has a straight draw. Any two hearts make a flush. Any hand with the ace of hearts has a nut flush draw. I said above you don’t always want to cbet — wet flops are bad for cbetting. Dry flops are just the opposite. Very few or no draws possible. A flop like Kc, 7d, 2s, for example, is very dry. There are no flushed or flush draws possible. No straight draws are possible either. If you raised PF, this would be a great flop to bet, whether or not you actually have a king.

Other than cbets feel free to play pretty much straightforward poker. Most of your bluffs should be when you have straight or flush draws. Mostly you should be betting when you have a hand (generally top pair, good kicker or better) and checking and/or folding when you don’t. Do not hesitate to fold a hand even if you raised PF. Hand values change with each street; play them accordingly. Especially at very low stakes, your opponents will call too much and bluff too little. This means that the straightforward approach should work for you.

Finally, don’t be too focused on results. I can almost guarantee you will lose foe a while. All beginners do. That’s why you are playing 2NL; it’s a cheap way to learn and improve. Even once you do improve and become a winning player, that doesn’t mean you will always win. Even pro’s have stretched, sometimes weeks or months at a time, where they do not win anything. If you are playing well and making good decisions, you will win in the long run. If you raise AA PF and someone makes a bad call and beats you, that’s a good thing. That’s where winning players make their money (eventually).

Well, as a general guideline this is true, especially for the target audience of this forum, but I can think of plenty of spots against certain players where I would limp. A subject for another thread really.

Re: the bolded: They key is not to memorize what hands to play when, it's to understand WHY you play certain types of hands differently depending on how much information you have/don't have based on what has happened in the hand prior tp you having to act.

In some ways, learning fixed limit poker first allows you to internalize the basic concepts of poker tactics without worrying about losing an entire buy-in on one hand while you're learning. You also don't have to concern yourself with "how much should I bet/raise" since that's predetermined in limit in addition to being a very nuanced part of NL.

True, but I was simplifying for a poster who claims to be a total beginner. You can’t go too wrong with just never limping pre, especially when opening.

You are spending too much time on theory as it seems which causes confusion.

You are not sure yourself what exactly do you want to learn, correct?

Try the following:

1) Choose one poker format that you like (i.e. HU Cash, 6max, SnGs, etc.). The easiest format to start with if you like cash games is playing HeadsUp. That is what I am doing and still doing three years later.
2) Study preflop. What to open, what to call, what to 3bet. Start simple: which position opens which hands?
3) After studying, apply this knowledge on the poker table and be willing to loose some money.
4) After playing on a poker table, review your hands and see if you opened the right hands from the right position. FORGET ABOUT FLOP for now - we need to get preflop right.
5) Repeat until everything sinks in.
6) Study flop and see what to bet and what not to bet.
7) Apply it on the table. FORGET ABOUT THE TURN for now - we need to get flop right.
8) Repeat.

See? Now you have a study routine as well as a practical use. Did that help?

I think that an individual approach is needed for each person. For example, personally need to first read a book / watch a video and only then start playing. And my friend just can hear the rules of the game and immediately starts playing. Don't just generalize everything.