You wake up and... remember nothing about poker

[1fineday]

[ QUOTE ]
hmmm pretty much

1. Read 2p2.

lol, i remember when i first played poker i knew about 2p2 but wouldnt read it coz i was too newb to know how to get out of flat mode, and flat mode is crazy retarded so i was just like [censored] this im not going to read 2p2.

Then i woke up one day and wasnt a newb, started reading the boards and my game pretty much skyrocketed.

Of course, i did have the help of coaching sites like CR and now LP but most of my improvement came from here i think.

[/ QUOTE ]

And what if you had to write a note to yourself, what would you write? "Read 2p2, visit CR and LP"?
That's all?=)
I really very much want you, guys, to write what EXACTLY you should do to improve the most effectively.

Maybe you spent plenty of your time on site XXX, but it didn't really help you, but when you read a book"YYY" it increased your level very much, so if you had to learn for the second time, you would just read this book

[DJ Sensei]

oh god i'd have to get a real job

[LucidDream]

I'll give you credit OP, very creative "feed me/teach me poker" post. Just play alot of hands, review them, post hands that gave you trouble, study the game on 2p2 and other places, and just think about the game alot in general. Other than that your question is too broad to answer w/o typing out insane amounts of info. It just takes time.

[DJ Sensei]

serious answer:

1) if i had money, i'd go straight to a solid coach and have a lot of sessions to get me off the ground running. And I'd balance my time about 60% playing/being coached, 10% reviewing my play/posting hands, 30% studying other posts/videos/books.

2) if i had to restart my roll, i'd split my time more along the lines of 50% playing, 20% studying my own hands, 30% studying other forms of poker learning


But i'd also make sure that poker was still fun and not too important to the rest of your life for as long as possible, the sooner you see it as work, the sooner your growth as a player will slow down (unless you have a sick work ethic/motivation)

[Choparno]

This is actually a pretty good post OP. I don't know that I would actually get better any faster the second time around though because so much of your improvement is just a matter of experience.

To that end I would probably just write myself a series of reminders such as:

*Focus only on your decision-making
*Review every session
*Analyse difficult hands
*Game selection
*Read/post in strategy forums
*Gain experience and have faith in your ability

[jfish]

there are better ways of phrasing a post like this so it isnt completely baseless and hypothetical, but /nit.

1.) i would post and read hands a lot on 2p2, ive been doing this for nearly 2-3 years now and it helps heaps. take some time out of your day to really read posts properly and reply to them the best of your ability, youd be surprised at how much this improves your game.

2.) play a lot, dont set any number of hands goals. just make sure you are able to concentrate on all decisions and are never autopiloting. 1hour of solid 1-2 tabling play increases future ev quite a bit, 10 hours of solid helps a bit more, 100hrs even more etc etc. we never stop improving.

3.) find out whose posts are worth reading on 2p2 and try to figure out why certain posters post the responses they do. try to analyze their games and look at the big picture of gameplan ALL THE TIME. balance balance balance balance!!!

some people say balance isnt important, theyre dumb.

4.) irc used to be good but its pretty ssnl garbage these days so i wouldnt necessarily recommend hanging out in there, talk to people on aim and stuff too.

you can get a coach but the list above is >>> getting a coach.

[jfish]

also always be cognizant of:

1.) your opponents hand range
2.) your own hand range
3.) the line of balance between vbets and bluffs for either range.

[dagreez]

like lucid implied, what i think you're asking for, in a way, are the important realizations that you (the 2+2er) had along the way of their poker career, and then are hoping to realize these for yourself and shortcut the poker learning curve.

while this may be beneficial in a big-scheme-of-things way, answering your question works to cut corners, bypassing the inherent value of stumbling and realizing things for yourself by trying things out in your own way. what you're asking for is a copy of what the best players do, and then are hoping to recreate yourself in that form instead of building yourself up through the stumbling and learning process called grit. Grace without grit is different than grace through grit and here's why.

If you stumble along whatever path you're on, you will make mistakes that you will learn to correct. Now, as you learn from and pass these mistakes, you will see that others are making the same mistakes that you once made, and will be able to profit because these mistakes were exactly what you once did and thus can easily see them. Now, if you bypass this grit of mistaking and the learning that ensues from that, you will have more of a theoretical knowledge of the game instead of an experiential-based 'feel'. This 'feel', I'll argue, is what you're ultimately after whether you know it or not. It's similar to the difference between a computer playing poker and a human playing. A computer can simulate adjusting to ranges and such but it can't actually feel the subtleties of change in the dynamics of a game. You'd have to write a program for the computer that takes into account how if a player all of sudden starts playing a different style, like because of tilt, then you (computer) has to open up it's range or adjust somehow. stuff like that that is almost impossible to simulate, but a human, who is in tune with their 'feel' can do it quite easily. Subtle elegance, grace through grit. You don't wanna skip any steps IMO.