I'd like to give some advice to beginners

[AcidJazz]

From somebody who's finally seeing the bigger picture, I highly respect the way I went about learning the game over poker. Stick with low limits and play very conservatively. If you're going to make a mistake, have that mistake be that you folded to a bluff rather than won a hand by inducing a bluff. People will do the betting for you for the most part. As far as learning, its better to miss than to give.

The absolute most important part of learning poker is really learning yourself and understanding how people work.

Even though I may have been out of hands that I could have been in and won while I was learning, it's important to understand why you should have been in that hand.

I see poker players left and right judging their hands after the hand is over and what cards may come etc etc. It's ridiculous to do so. Your hands should be based only on the circumstances of that bet / fold / check. Always resort to your hands backwards and never forwards. Learning how to learn poker is the most important part of learning poker. That's what I see in people most often (this really goes for everything really).

Study the game. Play tight and loosen up as you learn. There are a lot of variables in poker. Add them one at a time and understand them as best as you can before you add another.

Study study study. 2+2 publishing knows their stuff.