You become better when you learn to exploit situations/players and avoid being exploited. To exploit, you need to understand when someone is doing something exploitable and then know the best line to make the most of it. Examples - Bluffing too much against a calling station turns his weakness into your weakness. Paying off a set-miner turns his weakness into your weakness. Trying to take someone off top pair if they can't fold it turns his weakness into your weakness. Taking the opposite lines would therefore be outplaying them. When you start outplaying your opponents, then you are getting better at poker. Signed Mr. Obvious.

I first played on Full tilt, where I deposited 50$. The lowest cash games there were NL10, so I was severely underrolled and eded up breaking even thanks to the bonus. Once I had cleared my 50$ bonus, I was down to 6$...it just seemed the money would never go up.

I played full ring at that time, and was just too tight/weak. I would only raise good aces and JJ+, and play fit or fold from there. I'd limp in with small pocket pairs, and only play when I hit my set.
What happened was that I'd lose lots of small pots where I raise and miss the flop, and when I did hit the flop, I wouldn't get any value because I was so predictable. Same thing with PPs...when I hit my set, I would only win a 4BB pot.

Once I realized I sucked in cash games, I started playing SNGs and I was able to with those with relative ease, getting my BR to about 120$.
Then I heard about Omaha, and how people sucked at that game. I played at .10/.25 at a game I barely knew, and lost big pots with second nut hands like a donk. I wanted to chase my losses so I continued playing at .10/.25 until I had some bad beats and went busto.

So what made me become a winning player? BANKROLL MANAGEMENT!
When I deposited 50$ into a stars account, I fixed some very strict rules to follow. I'd play only .02/.05, and quit once I was down a buyin, or up 2 buyins. That way I'd only need to win as many sessions as I lost session to be a wining player. I played mostly 6max PLO as a nutpeddling nit and got my BR up to 200$, playing pretty standard.

Then I decided to give a shot at 6-max HE just to spice things up, since I all my attemps to win in that format had failed miserably. I knew I had to play more agressively than in FR, but had no notion of what hands to play to go from 10% to 20% VPIP and PFR. I also didn't have a clue about how position related to starting hand requirements.

I watched some CR videos, played pretty conservatively at first, and then added some bluffing, a lot of agression, some mixing up of my game, etc...and ended up becoming a winning player at about 12PTBB/100 over 10k hands. I moved up to 10NL when I reached a 300$ BR, and then got a staking deal for NL20 where I'm playing right now with a 5PTBB/100 win rate.

To make a long story short, the key to being a winning player is:
- Pure Poker skill: Know which hands to open with, in what positions, what flops to cbet, when to bluff, when to value bet, etc....these all come with experience.
- Financial and psychological skills: bankroll management, DISCIPLINE (knowing when to stop, being able to keep your A game even when losing), patience, being able to detach from the financial aspect of poker (don't say to yourself I could've bought my gf diner at a restaurant instead of losing that 40$ pot!), etc.

You have to put into practice all these different skills if you want to be a winning player. The hard part is not going busto while learning them

some of the biggest things for me and im sure almost everyone has these problems:

1). Putting your ego aside.
2). Don't tilt.

And im still working on both lol...

I think learning how to learn is critical, and for each person it's different. Recognize your strengths and weaknesses and then attack them.

For me I'd say the following have helped a lot:

1. Cardrunners vids - I'm naturally risk-averse / weak-tight. I'm always thinking about the monsters under the bed or whatever that phrase is. Watching people play poker aggressively has been a huge help.

2. Grinding - For me I risk "paralysis by analysis" because sometimes I get too caught up in reading/watching vids instead of playing. So for me, putting the hands in has gotten me back on the right track.

3. The psychology of Poker - in a general sense (not the book itself which I have not read). I've read both The Poker Mindset and Your worst Poker Enemy and they both have helped with perspective.

I'm interested in knowing if blogging has helped anyone? I want to start but I'm afraid it might be a waste...

Porn...

Here are the things that make me a winning player. At the same time, things I believe people in general do not do around here.

- Take notes. I do not mean notes on players at the table(although I do take those notes and you should too) I mean I have a notebook in front of me every time I watch a video, or review my game, or read posts. Any advice that I feel would help my game I write down. I find people overestimate the power of their memory. They watch a video, got 2-3 concepts and figure they learned it for life, often not the case. What usually happens is within a week you forget 60% of it.

- Have a pre-session routine. Too many times I have played sessions for reasons like: Zomg I have to put 3k hands today, I have nothing better to do right now, God im loosing so much money this week, I wanna get back up. Or I would play in totally weird states of mind, either depressed, frustrated, tired, or any other thing that makes me play my B game. Now, with a pre-session routine, I read my lil book that I talked about in my first pointer, I watch a poker video and take notes, I exercise to wake myself up, eat a healthy snak, etc etc. Mostly I exercise, shower, read my book and play. 80% of the time I have my A game on by then.

- Learn to analyze my own game. This is a big one, IMO the less you depend on others to tell you what you did wrong, the better player you will be long term. Do not ask questions, ask what you should be asking yourself in that situation. Learn the math calculations to determine your EV, your FE, do you guys know what g-bucks are? What about pokerstove??? To use these tools effectively, you need to know how to put your opponents on ranges, once you need to learn how to do it, the way you play changes too, what you look for is much wider.

- Look for different sources of information. " Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness" * Ghost in the shell
Is this the only site you read from? What about videos? MSN??AIM?? Books?? No one authority is the authority, this applies especially in poker, I am more likely to adapt my game to a new theory if I hear it from multiple sources.

Lastly, dont do stupid crap, that should help - your underolled? thats stupid....you c-bet 100% of flops, thats stupid...you know your tilting and you keep playing...thats stupid....
- You think your good enough - Wow thats the monster right there, GL with that.

"imo , no fn way. the stickies are not particularly informative, don`t cover many topics / cover the same topic to death, often incredibly situational etc etc
i wanted to 'delve into the wealth of sticky information' and was hugely disappointed"

This must be a joke? Not only the uNL stickies but also the SSNL stickies. Many of the Wells are pure gold and worth the price of admission alone. There's more info there than this thread with a bunch of people with 5k hand samples talking about what made them a "winner." Or 75pct. of posts in this forum that are coolers or bad beats. But hey I may be wrong I was once before. I need to quit wasting time in this thread.

just read fees book imo

I was a losing player for about 13k hands right when I switched from fullring to 6max(as in I can look back on my play and say it wouldn't have yielded long-term results). Before then I'd been a winning fr player at just 2, 5, and 10nl. I struggled a lot more than most people I've talked to with switching from fr to 6m, other than that brief stretch of losing play I've always been a winning player.

I wasn't really that good at poker and struggled for a while until I got my cardrunners subscription and pretty much tore through nl25 in just 12k hands even though I ran like **** in showdown pots, my non sd winnings were huge and I started playing a lot looser than most sources advocate when in position(48% vpip on the button) and tighter than most sources adovcate oop(9 vpip utg).

QFT that's what I've been doing the past 2 months working great so far

I signed up for Deuces Cracked. I started watching the "Turning the corner" series and then moved to "Moving on up"...

These series really helped the foundation of my game, "Unconventional Wisdom" is what really set it off.

Combonation of playing more hands, becoming active in this forum and joining cardrunners--esp the last two. Just the first couple of vids I watched really opened my eyes to my biggest mistake (making big bluffs too often). I didn't realize how infrequently the big winners actually ran crazy bluffs. Not that I was doing it at some insane frequency but much higher than I should .

Since my "wow I bluff a lot" relevation I've just been working on smaller things. I could improve more, and faster. It would help if I actually played anymore ldo.

def fees book, only way to go.

FWIW, I havn't read his book, but if i had to suggest any learning player 1 piece of poker literature it'd def be his book just from skimming through it

could anyone post me a link where to get fees book plz? thanks

It's in the stickies, I'll let you find it because you'll find other useful links there.

- Reading Super System (it might not be that useful but it was my first attempt to get better at NLHE)

- Reading Theory of Poker (taught me about EV, pot odds, semibluffing, and other stuff that is essential to being a winning player)

- Getting PT and PA Hud

- Signing up for 2+2

- Reading more advanced books like NLHE:TAP

- Reading all the stickies on this very forum

I've been the same for about 2 years. My aha moment is when I started to read other people's hands from there bets and moved on from there. Less videos, more reading and stay involved in the online community.

I am by no means a winning player in the long run. I can beat low stakes SnGs very easily but find them boring, and 10nl, but every time I move up I get bitch slapped. I can't really believe the difference in quality is that great but whatever.

But what made me a player who wins more (though still not a winning player) is:

Table selection/ finding the mark. Until a year ago I didn't even use a HUD. Now very quickly I can figure out who the idiots are and adjust to their play. At most NL10 tables there will be at least one 46/15/2 or something just waiting to stack off. Part of the reason I can't beat NL25 or 50 is there seems to be less lags and loose passives, or if they're there they always have it!!!

Value betting and check calling. I NEVER used to value bet thinly. If on the river I had a marginal hand, say second pair, or on a coordinated board bottom two, I'd be relieved when checked to me and just take a free showdown. Seeing what kind of rubbish people call down with I make more VBs. Also the concept of check-calling, thinking what I have, what they have, I never thought on that level. For example, if I bet he will only call with better and fold everything worse, but if I check he could very well bet worse. It seems obvious but I never used to think like that, which is still very basic.

I played a losing style for about 20k hands. Then I stopped playing, and 3 years later started playing what is so far a winning style at micro-stakes. I went from 18/12/2.0 something to 22/18/3.5

Three major changes:
+ Emphasis on position. I didn't use to steal from button or CO, I used to call re-raises from UTG with ATs, KQo etc. and check-folding the flop.
+ Post-flop aggression. I didn't Cbet except against very weak opponents.
+ Pot control and giving up. I often found myself in a big pot facing aggression on the turn or river with top pair hands.

What it took was a friend of mine sitting with one of my games saying a few comments like "Why did you play that UTG?", "Try to steal with everything as long as they let you" and "Bet now. Okay, fold now."

First aha moment - it's all about equity.
Second aha moment - OMG coaching works.
Third aha moment - damn it, it IS all about equity (and not just yours).
More to come.

There was another one, before those, I don't remember what it was though, so probably less significant.

Blablabla... tl; dr

Q: How do you become good in anything?
A: By doing it.

Still not a winning player?
Try playing a million hands

i dont consider myself a winner yet, but i am winning over a very small sample.

some ahas:
-adjust ur play to ur opponents' play. ex: 3bet light vs tags, thin valuebet & c/r vs lag's, steal/bluff vs weak-tights & nits, float weak tights & tags who cbet too much etc...
-selective cbets. cbet low on dry flops, cbet higher on wetter flops & only into certain types of opponent(s).
-Fancy play but selectively.
-Small hand, small pot & pot control.
-Big hand, big pot & turn leverage/bloating the pot.
-Think!!
-Take notes & get reads, don't let hud be a crutch.
-Read/post & watch vids.

I'm still not using these 100%, but practicing everyday and trying to incorporate all of this into my play, so it becomes second nature.

I think the exact same thing when watching CR videos nowadays, a while back it used to really suprise me that they did things differently, but now I rarely find a situation that an instructor plays that makes me think 'AHA, I never thought about that before'.

That's not being arrogant though, because I know that they are infinitely better players than me and that I really wouldn't play the hands in the same way they do in real time.

You are so so right about this. Like you said in one of your pokersavvy videos, a player does not become better because 'He learned not to stack of with one pair', the player became better because he learnt to accurately read his opponent's hand and evaluate his relative hand strength.

The key to becoming a better player is not 'Learning to 3-bet' or 'Folding TP to a turn-check raise', it's learning the reasons behind your actions and being able to analyse the correct course of action given your assumptions on an opponent.

Or more concisely, learning how to think better.

Playing a million hands won't make you a winner if you have fundamental flaws in your game. Cue FGators joke.