Does anyone have any tips on how to teach FR NL holdem to a real beginner. I know this is the beginner's forum, and most of you aren't really completely new to the game so that's why I am designating this as a "real" beginner.

I'm currently trying to teach someone how to play and I think pretty much everything on this forum will be too advanced and I need to figure out how to teach the most basic strategies.

Or would you suggest to them to start off at limit first and then move onto no limit once they have the basics down? At this point I am still trying to explain the concept of equity/odds and why you should fold 92o preflop even if you only have to call 1BB and trying not to be results oriented when you fold that and the flop is 992. At this point they basically know what beats what and are taking some wild guesses at what their opponent might have and running breakeven at 2NL.

Also, which books or sites would you recommend for helping with this? Thanks for any advice!

The first thing to do is to teach them that playing less hands will win them more money. At the low levels they dont need to play tricky poker. just wait for good hands in position and play them strong. I think the main loser for any beginner player is that they play too many hands that get them into trouble. Ie KJo in early position, medium suited connectors etc.

Teach them the basics of position. dont play any other hand UTG than AA/KK and build more hands into later positions. Dont limp when first to open a pot, raise or fold. Dont slowplay big hands.

Give them the basics of ABC poker, then build from that.

Books... Harrington was a good start for me. Im sure others could give you a better choice.

A good book would be Ed Miller's GETTING STARTED IN HOLD'EM.

It starts off with Limit followed by No Limit.

That might not be a bad way of doing things.

Good Luck.

Hi Josh

Is he not ready for the setmining strategy we discussed last May? It's in the archive, can repost if you need me to. I'm guessing you've moved beyond it

I hate teaching poker so I would just throw a bunch of books at your friend

When you say a real beginner are you talking about someone new to card games? This can be real tricky - they will have no concept. If you are talking of a card player that is new to poker then you need to just teach him the game (i.e. what hands beat what) and get him on a site with play money. Just a bunch of games for him to get a feel for poker.

Once a player knows how to play poker then add strategies - you know, starting hands, position, bet sizes, odds, etc. However, be gentle and add these slowly. There are a ton of good books once a basic understanding of the various concepts are understood.

Here's a new concept I want to throw out: No books for beginners.

Sorry 2+2.

I've read a ton early on, and I regret that I have relied so much on books. Not because the knowledge was bad -- in fact, much of the knowledge was good.

The problem with books is that they tend to encourage and/or appeal to a certain disfunctional mindset.

That mindset is this: "Tell me whether to do A, B or C in situation X, Y, Z."

Well, that doesn't sound so bad, you might think. But really, that mindset isn't to far from this: "Tell me what to do so that I won't have to think, process information, or work hard at the table."

That's the problem with introducing books to beginners: It makes people lazy.

Poker skill is mainly a way of thinking, not a body of knowledge.

Knowledge is easy to communicate and obtain. A new way of thinking is difficult to instill and apply.

Therefore, unfortunately, most books present good poker as a body of knowledge, not as a process.

Granted, HoH and PNLH encourage an active mindset, but the reality is that most people will read them passively -- much like reading a calculus book without working out a problem. You will have a vague notion of what is correct, but you won't be able to execute it fluently when you have to.


If there were a "process-oriented" book, it would be just a few pages, with a few instructions for the player to execute at the table.

One such line would read:

"Before you make a bet/raise, ask yourself: 'What hand do I want to call/raise me, what do I want to fold to me, and based on my observations of this opponsent, what outcomes are most likely, will this pay off if I'm right, and what are the costs if I'm wrong?' "

It will also say:

"If by the end of the hand, you guessed wrong about some aspect of the hand, take time to figure out why you guessed wrong and how you can make the right decision in the future."

and,

"On the other hand, if by the end of the hand, you guessed right about some aspect, take time to figure out how you could have extracted more profit from your correct guess, and how you can extend your insight to other situations."

Finally, the "book" will say:

"If you're not willing ask yourself these questions every hand and every session, then you'll never really be any good regardless of the quantity or quality of the of books you read. Period. Sorry, there are no easy answers but there's easy money if you're willing to work hard at the table."



So, if you really want your friend to be good, and you're willing to spend time with him/her (I'm guessing "her"), then the best thing is to go over hand histories with her and you can ask her what she was thinking at each point in the hand. If she can't remember what she was thinking, then that probably means she wasn't thinking. And that's a problem that no book can fix.

If she is willing to think, maybe you can just assign her homeowork: Have her send you hand histories of her biggest wins/losses. Have her interspersed her commentary, describing her thinking at every decision point as well as her commentary on notable actions by opponents. The simple act of doing this would make her a much better player, with or without your input.


Let me know what you think.

Hey Sputum. I have moved on from the set mining, although sets and fullhouses still make up by far the majority of my profit . He might be ready for that.

DS99, you make some REALLY good points about the learning process. Thanks for posting those questions that you need to ask yourself constantly, it's a good reminder for myself as well.

I was a little worried about him getting started off on play money because the play there is so rediculous with people shoving ATC preflop so I sent him a couple bucks to play on the 2NL tables and have been sweating him there so far. He's not completely new to card games if you count stuff like blackjack and crib and those sorts of games. He knows hand rankings but he doesn't always see other possibilities on the board beyond the obvious - ie. if the board is paired and there's a lot of action, obviously the person who has trips is in the lead

I actually would recommend a book, but it is much as dismalstudent describes. I use the "Smarter Bet Guide to Poker" by Basil Nestor to teach Hold Em. It's designed for limit (and 7-card stud), but it is an outstanding "what to think about" intro, and it's only 125 4x6inch pages long. It's an easy read, and a great intro. Since it isn't designed for NL, it doesn't cover bet sizing and FE much, but it's what I used to intro my non-poker plaing wife for two hours prior to her first game, a live cash MTT, in which she finished in the top 1/3.

I have that book and in fact, it is one of the first books I read, but I wonder if we are talking about the same book. The majority of the book, meaning the section that deals with specific games, is about Texas Hold'Em.

To the OP, I would suggest your friend rail you in games. That is what I did with the lady in my life although she was watching me play live and not online.

Second the recommendation for GSIHE.

Don't second the recommendation to play LHE, if NLHE is what you want to learn. But DO read the LHE chapters, very carefully. You need to understand domination, preflop/postflop advantage of hands, etc. The NLHE material builds on the general concepts that Ed chooses to illustrate through LHE.

And don't listen to greedy sharks on 2+2 who tell you to play deep-stacked before you're ready.

That's how beginners start to learn a new skill.

That's what separates the beginners who will stay beginners from those who will progress. The hopeless beginners think as you surmise. The beginners with a future see the rote robotic stuff as the first step toward thinking on their own.

Compare this mistaken thought: Piano is an art, not something for robots. You can't teach piano by teaching scales. (Stolen from Miller/Sklansky, sorta.)

No. No.

Books may give the lazy the illusion that they're astute, talented, or possessing initiative. That's not remotely the same thing.

I agree with all of this. But it's not an argument against using books, any more than child predators are an argument against using the Internet.

Link?

AKQJ10, you make really good points about books being a starting point. GSIH was one of the first books I read and found it helpful, so maybe I'll pass that one on. I played for more than a year before I heard of 2+2 or even knew that there were books out there. Probably would have been a lot farther along than I am now if I had found them sooner.

I have had him rail me before, but I find it tough to know where to start explaining what I'm doing while I'm playing and there are so many beginner issues to sort out.

For example, he wants to know why I would fold A7o UTG: "Forget the 7, I would play the Ace." There are a lot of things like this that you see all the fish doing at the micros.

Would it be best to make a list of these beginner mistakes and try to tackle them one by one? For preflop play so far, I've got him folding most hands and he's down to only wanting to open limp with gap connectors in MP at the worst. So I think he's starting to get an idea of what kinds of hands to play with and very very slowly starting to understand position, mainly because he doesn't like calling raises after limping in.

Post flop - we're still in the dark here. I haven't tried to go into huge detail here yet. He thinks he needs to bluff a lot to win pots at the micros, I told him to do the opposite. I tried to explain the cbet as well but I'm not sure how well that went over. He said that didn't make sense with what I was saying about not bluffing, so I think I'll have to come back to that later.

Thanks for the really great advice so far.

It was a PM discussion.
I posted a graph of 100k+ hands at NL25 with a 10+ PTBB/100 winrate in Nov 2006 and got a PM from a 2+2er asking how I did it (I think people could tell I wasn't very good at poker) I gave him the basics (actually it was all pretty basic)
Got the following response

Then a few months later

Which was a great feeling.

I posted the graph again in May 07 (can't help myself) and Josh PMed me so I also gave him the gist of it. Hadn't given it any further thought until this thread, recognised the poster and looked back into the archives.

It's not pretty, but it can get you a bankroll and teach you a little about implied odds along the way. Don't want to post it on the forum but PM if you want it.

Most of it is about Hold'Em, but it is limit. It also claims to be about "Seven-Card Stud, and Other Popular Versions," but it is just one chapter on games other than Hold'Em, of which over half of the chapter is about stud. Still it is a great "absolute beginner" book.

I find it hard to recommend a book to a beginner simply because beginners aren't willing to put in the time to read. They would rather throw some money on the 10NL tables and see what happens.

Thus, if the beginner shows interest interest in books and skimming 2+2, you've actually got someone who wants to learn.

Just a random thought I had because a couple of my friends ask, "yo teach mee how to play pokar!!!"

Hoping they strike him about the head and face rendering him unconscious and allowing you time to make a get-away?