To the New, Aspiring Player

[QTip]

Things for the new, aspiring player to understand

Because of ESPN, Rounders, hearing stories of professional players, etc, the gap between fantasy and reality for new, aspiring poker players just seems to grow.

I’ve spent enough time now with newer players to notice some patterns to make some observations that may be helpful to the thought process.

A reading of the psychology of poker is a good thing. However, in a nutshell, people play for different reasons. Among these are: money, competition, a challenge, entertainment. For most people making it to this forum, the reasons for playing are probably a mix of these with the heaviest ingredients being money and competition.

It’s common for people to come to this game with many delusions. I’m not going to take the time to begin making an incomplete list, but here I can give the cure for almost all of them.

1. You won’t get rich quick.
2. You’re not half as good as you think you are (severely understated).
3. To consistently make any money worth talking about, it takes more work than you’ve imagined (severely understated).
4. To consistently make any money worth talking about, it takes longer than you’ve imagined (severely understated).

For most, a combination of the following things will take place:

They will have completed playing 5,000 to 10,000 hands and think they’ve accomplished something. Sticking with the “piss in the bucket” analogy, when speaking of limit holdem, this number of hands is a few molecules of urine on the floor of the Sahara Desert.

In these few particles of salty waste, a mix of the following results and deductions will have taken place with possible varying degrees…all of which are about equally likely for any person.

Results:

1. They’ve made a ton of money relative to the limit played.
2. They’ve broke even.
3. They lost a ton of money relative to the limit played.

Deductions (not necessarily correlating with the same numbered result):

1. I’m a highly skilled player.
2. This game is all luck.
3. These players suck so bad, I can’t make any money. No one respects my raises.

The new, aspiring player will have to go through most of the following stages:

1. They suck, but don’t know they do.
2. They realize and expose ignorance.
3. They start to learn some things.
4. They start to misapply things they learn.
5. They start to know some stuff they don’t know and repeat steps 3 and 4.
6. They start to know they know some things and recognize what others don’t know.
7. They start to think they’re good, and rinse and repeat.

Advice:

Luckily for those just starting this game, they’re not relying on the game for income. So, I offer this advice.

If you’re not dedicated to hard work and study, just accept that you’ll lose money and if you persist in playing, play for entertainment value. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief.

PLAY LESS!

When you’re just starting, it doesn’t make sense for most players to be playing a ton of hands. If you’re not studying at least twice as much as you’re playing, you’re doing yourself a HUGE disservice. Read and reread the books everyone here talks about, post hands, discuss hands, do math, think about hands away from the table, etc. There are plenty of things that go on in a 100 hands or so, that will give you something to think about, post and learn from.

When I started, I was reading about 3 hours a day, averaging about 30 posts a day and playing about 2 hours a day. It was about 3 months of this before I felt like I was a small winning player in the party poker 2/4 game, and I’m not a slow learner.

STOP MULTITABLING!

Most likely, you’re not even thinking about half the things you should be thinking about even if you’re playing only one table. Playing four and more tables when you don’t need to is only going to stunt your growth. Plenty of things generally happen in a hundred or two hundred hands that you'll have plenty to think and post about.

UNDERSTAND THE GAME

If the best limit holdem player in the world sat down with 9 people who just learned how to play, the expert would think nothing of losing money for huge stretches of hands. When we speak of huge stretches, we’re not talking about hundreds of hands…that number of hands is salty waste. This thread may help you start to understand the game a bit.

It’s a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.

Good Luck,

QT

[MrWookie]

Good stuff, man. It's been a while. You should drop by more often.

[Aaron W.]

This very nice post goes well with your other very nice post which has tons of excellent links buried in it that will take a long time to read through.

I really want to emphasize this paragraph (my empahses added):

[ QUOTE ]
When you’re just starting, it doesn’t make sense for most players to be playing a ton of hands. If you’re not studying at least twice as much as you’re playing, you’re doing yourself a HUGE disservice. Read and reread the books everyone here talks about, post hands, discuss hands, do math, think about hands away from the table, etc. There are plenty of things that go on in a 100 hands or so, that will give you something to think about, post and learn from.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's especially solid advice in light of this recent post (which was a little confusing - most people answered the question in the subject and not the question asked in the poll).

[Jake (The Snake)]

I think it's quite commendable that you take the time to give back. Good work man.

[ESKiMO-SiCKNE5S]

this was amazing...

i think on about my 3rd round of the rinse and repeat stage. just starting to realise i suck again [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[adsman]

Great post dude.
I'm just starting to realize what others don't know which probably means I'm due for a rinse and repeat. Wonderful. Can I go on my downswing now?

[@bsolute_luck]

Thanks QTip. very much appreciate the time you took to think/write this up.

[RustyCJ]

Thank you for this post. I started playing online poker about 2 years ago, I played off and on over the course of a year but haven't played much in the last year and I've taken poker up again recently, I now have time to read and study.

What hasn't hit me yet, and I know it's out there, is the feeling I'm moving up to the next level, that I can begin to understand the reasoning for my actions while I play.

I've been good at many strategy games I've played, poker is so different because of the variables and unknowns.

In high school I went from not knowing how to play chess to "this close" to state champion in less than 15 months. Mostly because school was easy for me and I had lots of time to study my chess books. Night after night I would repeatedly go through my books and set up the board in front of me and play out the scenarios in the book. I think the books helped me see board positions and at the state tournament I saw mate in 6 with only 3 or 4 pieces gone from the board. I was proud of myself - still am can you tell? haha

I'm going to have to patiently wait over the next several hundred thousand hands for the feeling to hit me that I'm not just a newbie anymore and I'm actually starting to "get" what I'm reading and apply it with my own game.

I know it wont' be easy and I'll be back to read your post time and again, thank you very much.

[bottomset]

nice post

[nomadtla]

My boss has heard my tales of online limit "fun" and see's how involved I am in it and he wants me to help him start learning to play online limit HE so he can make a little extra money. This will go in my list of things he needs to look at before he even gets an account on any site.

Thanks QTip