Kinda OT: How to teach a total novice poker

[A_Junglen]

Tell him

"Don't do it, life is worth living"

and walk away

[Ansky]

[ QUOTE ]
Tell him

"Don't do it, life is worth living"

and walk away

[/ QUOTE ]

Somehow I doubt he will drop out of college, dump his girlfriend, and start 20 tabling .01/.02 in the dark all night long once he learns the basics.

[A_Junglen]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Tell him

"Don't do it, life is worth living"

and walk away

[/ QUOTE ]

Somehow I doubt he will drop out of college, dump his girlfriend, and start 20 tabling .01/.02 in the dark all night long once he learns the basics.

[/ QUOTE ]

It really depends on his characteristics.

[Bond18]

[ QUOTE ]
Tell him

"Don't do it, life is worth living"

and walk away

[/ QUOTE ]

Winnah

Seriously though i've tried this a little before it will be quite hard. I guess starting him off with SNG's might be easy as their pretty straight forward at LL and will give him some good basic experience.

[Foucault]

I'm surprised people are recommending SnG's, since so much of SnG strategy is completely non-intuitive ICM stuff that won't help very much in transitioning to other forms of poker. I'm going to be doing this in about two weeks, and I considered starting with Razz, since that is basically the simplest form of poker there is.

But if you're going to go with NLHE, I would give him a little talk about the objective at micro-stakes (flop TPTK or better and bet the hell out of it) and then turn him loose.

Talk over his decisions with him occasionally, and once he's got some experience doing this, then show him his PT stats and how he is doing better in position than out of position. Introduce the idea that he can play more hands in later position and talk about how the actions of others ahead of him influence how he should play his hand. Then turn him loose again.

Basically I like what OSU said about the need for him to learn by doing, but I think he'll learn a lot more quickly if he has a sense of what he should be trying to do. Not a starting hand chart, just a strategic guideline.

[josie_wales]

I think that Lee Jone's
'winning small stakes poker' was probably the biggest help to me once I knew the basics.

[LearnedfromTV]

One way to cover "a basic concepts" starting hand guideline without handing a chart is to say, after going over hand rankings (what beats what):

"Quads and straight flush are like impossible, so don't worry about them.

Full House, straight, flush, and three of a kind are tough to make and very strong when you do. There's a group of hands (pocket pairs and suited connectors) that make these hands more often than any others. Playing those hands when it's cheap or a lot of people in the pot is good. If you hit, play very aggressively.

One pair and two pair are the most common hands; what matters most with these, especially one pair, is how high your pair is and what your kicker is. So hands that can make overpairs and top pair top kicker, like AA, AK, KK, AQ are much better than hands that can't, like KJ. Generally you want to play these hands with as few people and for as much $ preflop as you can."

And then say something about position being extremely important, but that he'll have to learn that as he plays (and always point out position stuff as he watches you, you watch him...)

[skier_5]

I just remember, you should def get him to read Getting started in Holdem by Ed Miller. It explains the rules, hand rankings, etc, etc. It's a limit book for the most part but explains a lot of basic concepts like pot odds pretty well. It also includes some tournament and shortstack nlhe strategy.

[Yuv]

He doesn't need to know ICM calculations by heart to play micro stakes SNGs.

The thing about getting started is not learning how to be a winning player the quickest way possible. It's about getting hooked on the game enough in order to eventually put in the hours you need to get better.

MTTs and SNGs have something that probably 90% of the people love - a winner. It has some sort of define result. It's a set competition, with a limited time frame.

I might not be the greatest example, since I suck in general, but I think its really hard for most to start with cash games. It takes a lot more self control (knowing when to stop, when to keep playing) and can make people hate the game way too soon.

He doesn't need to memorize calling ranges on the bubble. Just teach him basic preflop poker, and let him have fun with the game a bit. Once he'll have some idea of what this game is about, you can move him to micro stakes MTTs and try teach him some basic post flop concepts.

Eventually, get him to cash, when he has a better idea of what to do.

[NHFunkii]

[ QUOTE ]
He doesn't need to know ICM calculations by heart to play micro stakes SNGs.

The thing about getting started is not learning how to be a winning player the quickest way possible. It's about getting hooked on the game enough in order to eventually put in the hours you need to get better.

MTTs and SNGs have something that probably 90% of the people love - a winner. It has some sort of define result. It's a set competition, with a limited time frame.

I might not be the greatest example, since I suck in general, but I think its really hard for most to start with cash games. It takes a lot more self control (knowing when to stop, when to keep playing) and can make people hate the game way too soon.

He doesn't need to memorize calling ranges on the bubble. Just teach him basic preflop poker, and let him have fun with the game a bit. Once he'll have some idea of what this game is about, you can move him to micro stakes MTTs and try teach him some basic post flop concepts.

Eventually, get him to cash, when he has a better idea of what to do.

[/ QUOTE ]

agreed