How good can a bad player ever be?

[greggg230]

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In this case, I would get him out of NL and into one of the fixed betting games.

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[WordWhiz]

Natural talent is way overrated. Expertise comes from hard work. Someone with a desire to learn, reasonable intelligence, and a tonload of hands will eventually be pretty darn good.

[Flip-Flop]

I think you overestimate skills and underestimate these "issues" that you assume you can somehow avoid.

There are absolutely no such thing as "I never tilt" and "tilt never affects my game".
Only a dude with extremely short poker experience can say a nonsense like that.
The best and most disciplined Pros in the world tilt on regular basis and some of them have BR management and gambling issues.
You can only try to minimize the negative impact of these issues and how you deal with them affects your win rate. [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[AaronBrown]

Poker is a very simple card game, so almost anyone can master the cardplay pretty easily. Most players don't, but that's not what you're asking about.

Another essential skill, but reasonably easy to master for most people as long as the stakes don't matter to them, is mildly deceptive play. You obviously can't give your hand away with your play or tells, and to be pretty good you also need to mix things up a bit.

There are two things that make poker hard. First is playing for meaningful stakes. Suddenly simple cardplay decisions seems complicated, and you can't stop your hand shaking slightly when you see pocket Aces, and you torture yourself over what you did on the last hand. Second is trying to win, as opposed to not lose. If you're satisfied with being a very small winner on average, in boring games for you and others, it's something most people can accomplish.

[Boise123]

This has been an ongoing debate I've had with a friend. He thinks that with 6 months of living expenses, a modest bank roll, a box full of poker books and no distractions (like a job). He could move to Vegas and grind out a living within the 6 months. He is not a winning player on line and I don't think he has cracked a book yet. Can he make it?

[Dromar]

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This has been an ongoing debate I've had with a friend. He thinks that with 6 months of living expenses, a modest bank roll, a box full of poker books and no distractions (like a job). He could move to Vegas and grind out a living within the 6 months. He is not a winning player on line and I don't think he has cracked a book yet. Can he make it?

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I can't speak for the Vegas games, but generally live is much softer at equal stakes than online.
Could he do it? Yeah, probably. But it's not a risk I'd take. He's inexperienced, and at that stage, any bad swing could break him.

[AaronBrown]

No, I don't think your friend could do it. Not because being a low-level poker pro requires exceptional talent, like being an NBA star, or years of intense dedication, like being a scientist; but because of the way he says it.

Grinding out a living in poker requires initiative, discipline, focus, self-reliance and most important, self-knowledge. A guy who blames "distractions" like a job and wants to be given a bankroll and living expenses, and thinks what he needs can be found in books when he can't find it in himself (and has never opened the book), sounds as if he has none of those things.

There are plenty of people walking around who could be pros, but they wouldn't ask for any of the crutches your friend wants. If someone said "if I trained for six months, I could run a marathon in under three hours," I might believe him, even if he were out of shape and had never run seriously. But if someone said said, "if I had a cool-looking outfit and full-time masseuse, and a bunch of cheerleaders to encourage me, I could do it," I'd guess not.

If your friend said instead he could be a superstar poker player, that's different. It's easy to see there are WSOP winners without the qualities I mentioned (think: Stu Unger). But being a celebrity and playing great poker some of the time is not at all the same thing as playing good poker all of the time without the cheers.

[Boise123]

AaronBrown

I agree, what I have told him is tht I don't think he has the work ethics or the self discipline to make it. However if he was focused and had the drive is zero to hero doable in 6 months.

[AaronBrown]

Zero to profitable grinder in six months is certainly doable. With a good coach and pupil it would take less time. And starting from zero is probably easier than getting an everyday poker player to unlearn bad habits.

Focus and drive are essential, but the one other thing is self-knowledge. Most people are bad poker players because they don't really try to get good, not because they lack the brains or nerve. But all the trying in the world won't help you know yourself. Most people, and they're probably wise, would rather go through life with comforting self-images than be good poker players; but you can't have both.

[eMbAh]

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Poker is a very simple card game

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As soon as the player/you realise this is not the case, he will become good