Kinda OT: How to teach a total novice poker

[Clayton]

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you guys are all so gay

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nh claydog

[rothko]

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Ansky, I don't think you realize how hard this is going to be

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Why? I've talked to you about poker before.

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how did this zinger not get more love?

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i dunno i thought it was real good

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i thought it was good. also, mcgipps response only made it all the better.

[the alex]

I taught my fiancee over a year ago when I was still a cash player. She watched me play at my normal stakes and the micros only playing 2 tables at a time. After reading SSH and playing $10NL for a bit.

She read NLHETP and took off through the $25 and $50 games mostly on her own while reading forums, watching CR videos and playing around with PT. Now, she's playing the $100 games pretty comfortably.

I think SSH is great accompanied with shadowing to start. Then, CR with less shadowing and more going through HH's through the database replayer so you know where he's at to use his strengths and plug the leaks.

[KneeCo]

I agree that SSH is the best book to start off with even for NL. TOP shouldn't be a concern until later.

[McMelchior]

This is kind of odd.

A guys comes and says: "Teach me poker, oh Great Ansky". And he barely knows the rules.

Why?

If the man wants to play poker, why hasn't the man played some poker?

Only few teens with a wish to drive has their debut behind the wheel next to a driving teacher. Only few kids wanting to swim jump in for the first time in the breast-stroke class. Etc...

I mean, this guy has had ample opportunity to play free games, micro limit games, kitchen table games with his cousins ... yet he barely knows the rules.

Does he think it's an easy way to make money? If so, there's no way in Hell he's going to learn it ... there's no way to learn to play winning poker of any kind if you don't love the game, if you don't pine to win, if you don't want to spend most of your free time and all of your school or work time playing poker, reading about poker, discussing poker or watching poker on TV.

I think it's a waste of time trying to teach somebody to play poker, when there are so excellent beginners books like above referenced Jones, Gordon or you name it. Coaching him while he donks around after reading the basics is probably going to expedite the process, if he has any aptitude at all.

But first and foremost I'd try to help him find out why he wants to be taught a game, any other beginner just sit down and play?

[NoahSD]

Yuv,
Nice post.

Ansky,
This is gonna be really hard.

The real problem is that in order to play poker decently you have to know how everybody else will be playing. Just seems like you'll totally overwhelm him if you just sit him down and try to talk him through a hand, since so much of a good player's thought process is just basic subconscious stuff like just absolute hand strength and how strong specific lines are.

I'd probably just tell him to play on his own for a while until he's basically playing like a donkey himself and then teach him to play well. Obv this isn't the best way, but it's basically the only way I can think of that won't be totally overwhelming for him.

[Ansky]

McMelchior,

He wants to learn because he wants to make money.

He is generally good at winning at stuff, thought we are a pretty good matchup at Halo.

[timex]

I think a lot of people are overestimating how structured the learning should be. I really think that learning to play x hands in y position isn't as important as understanding why to play hands when. I started out playing poker and didn't really have any idea why I was doing things I was doing and sucked pretty badly. Once I started learning from Steve, and started understanding why to do things, I improved almost instantly by a larger amount than I had in my first year of play.

Basically, I think if you teach them more theory and reasoning before even teaching them what hands are good, they will be in a lot better shape.

[NoahSD]

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I think a lot of people are overestimating how structured the learning should be. I really think that learning to play x hands in y position isn't as important as understanding why to play hands when. I started out playing poker and didn't really have any idea why I was doing things I was doing and sucked pretty badly. Once I started learning from Steve, and started understanding why to do things, I improved almost instantly by a larger amount than I had in my first year of play.

Basically, I think if you teach them more theory and reasoning before even teaching them what hands are good, they will be in a lot better shape.

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I agree that teaching basic ideas is much more important than teaching how to handle specific situations. But, I think you need some base knowledge before you can apply anything like that--rough hand ranges for average players, absolute hand strength on various boards, etc.