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noob, with so much to learn
18wheeler
Member Posts: 19
i guess this isn't the 1st post of its kind.
so, i'm new here, and just wandered in, as i like a game of poker.
now, i thought i had a rough grasp of the game, you know, i know the best hand order, i get the whole small, big blind thing, check, call, raise, re raise, oh yeah, good ain't i
clearly not. i am pretty rubbish to be honest, but love to play the game. so i'm here with a view to improve. watched some tutorials, which helped, now have a grasp of the 10 hands to play, and how relevant position is, so managed to grab some of the very basics. obviously like everyone i'd like to improve, so, for a real beginner, where is the best place to start? 2p/4p tables? dym? russian roulette?
how much time to people put in on a daily basis with online play to get better? at the moment, i get about 1-2 hours a day on here, budget depending of course, as i have a limit, and for now, won't go beyond it.
i realise now, there is soooooo much more to learn, but i have abit of spare time on my hands, whilst nursing my dad through an illness, so do i keep plugging away here, do i need to read a book or two to help.......
thoughts and comments appreciated it, cheers.
so, i'm new here, and just wandered in, as i like a game of poker.
now, i thought i had a rough grasp of the game, you know, i know the best hand order, i get the whole small, big blind thing, check, call, raise, re raise, oh yeah, good ain't i
clearly not. i am pretty rubbish to be honest, but love to play the game. so i'm here with a view to improve. watched some tutorials, which helped, now have a grasp of the 10 hands to play, and how relevant position is, so managed to grab some of the very basics. obviously like everyone i'd like to improve, so, for a real beginner, where is the best place to start? 2p/4p tables? dym? russian roulette?
how much time to people put in on a daily basis with online play to get better? at the moment, i get about 1-2 hours a day on here, budget depending of course, as i have a limit, and for now, won't go beyond it.
i realise now, there is soooooo much more to learn, but i have abit of spare time on my hands, whilst nursing my dad through an illness, so do i keep plugging away here, do i need to read a book or two to help.......
thoughts and comments appreciated it, cheers.
Comments
IMO, the first question that anyone playing Poker needs to ask themselves before even sitting at a table is "Do I need a Bankroll or Budget?" - What I mean by that is how seriously are you taking the game? Is it just a bit of fun, or are you looking to make money (even if it's only a small amount) from it?
If you're a recreational player who just wants to play a tournament for fun once a week when you come back from the pub on a Friday night, for example, then you need a budget - This is basically a limit to the amount you allow yourself to take out of your bank account every so often and spend on Poker, without it affecting whether you'll be able to pay the bills at the end of the month. If you have a budget, then spend it as you wish, it doesn't matter if you spend all your money that you deposit on a buy-in for a large tournament and the chance of winning a few thousand quid. Of course, you need the discipline to turn the laptop off once you've spent all your money for the night, rather than re-depositing.
If you're planning on making money from the game, no matter how much or how little, you'll need a bankroll. I don't know how good you are at Poker and how much experience you already have, but to begin with, I would recommend depositing money that you can afford to lose but still not putting a large % of it on one table or one tournament. Chances are, you will lose that money, as most players do when starting out.
The most important thing in Poker (if you're taking it seriously) is Bankroll Management - basically how you spend your money. You can be the best player in the world, but if you sit down at a cash table with all of your money and somebody gets lucky against you, that's it. Game over, you've lost all your money. Most other players are better at this than me, but as a basic rule of thumb, if you're taking the game seriously, you should never have more than 5% of your money at a table at one time, usually even less than that.
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For new players, there's what I believe to be a common misconception that DYM's are the best place to start.
You'll probably hear people on here saying that "DYM's aren't Poker", and the reason for people saying that is that they play (or should play, in theory, although some players don't understand this) completely differently to most other games because of the prize structure. They'll throw up crazy situations from time to time where it's correct to fold Pocket Aces pre flop when nobody has raised, or not calling someone's all in even when you're a 70% favourite, and other things which sound totally backwards in most situations, but in DYM's, may be the correct thing to do mathematically.
I think it's better to just get used to playing ABC poker, and then go from there. For that reason, I'd hold fire on DYM's for the time being, myself.
In my opinion, the best place to start is 2p/4p Cash. FYI, in Poker, especially on poker forums, we usually refer to this as "NL4" or "4NL" (NL = No Limit, and 4 = £4 max buy-in on a regular table) At this level, you will see a lot of bad players, and you can simply sit there, folding until you get big hands then raise big when you do, and they'll all still call you. If you go to the top of the page, then "My Sky Poker --- /> Poker School", you'll find in there a guide to beating small stakes cash. If you do what it says in that guide, you will make money over a period of time. To give you an idea of how much you make at NL4, I only make an average of 78p per table per hour at them stakes, so playing at NL4 isn't going to make you a load of money, but doing the basics right at that level will net you a nice tidy profit, and most importantly, it's good practice. The key to Poker is practice, practice, and more practice. Keep playing and you'll become a better player. The other thing to remember is you can not bluff at NL4, because a bad player won't understand that you're trying to represent a strong hand and will just call because they've got a pair or something, not even thinking about their opponent's possible hands.
You will also want to identify regular players at this level, as they're waiting for big hands, just like you should be, and will be doing it on several tables at once. To do this, simply go to the lobby, use the "Find a player" function, and if they're on more than 2 tables at once and not playing many hands, they're probably doing what I described here - Sitting tight, waiting for big hands, then taking advantage of big hands when they get them. simply click on them at the table, a yellow sticky note comes up, just write "NL4 Grinder", or "NL4 Regular", or something that will make sense to you if you see them again at a NL4 table a later date. This is useful because if an NL4 regular raises, you know they've got a big hand, or sometimes if you see them just call for 4p, you know they've usually got a small pocket pair and looking to hit a set on the flop. Most regs at this level will make it obvious that they've got a big hand because most people still don't pay any attention and only look at the 2 cards in their hand at this level.
If you don't fancy low stakes cash, then there's also Deep Stack tournaments. Why Deep Stack? Because of the structure (12 minute blinds, and they only go up a little bit each time, too - there's a lot of filler levels in there) you will almost always get an hour or two of Poker out of these, even if you don't make it into the money. If you make the money, then you've probably got 3 hours of play and your money back plus a bit extra, happy days! The other benefit is that most of the Deep Stack tourneys on the site are only £1.10 or £2.20 to buy in, so it's not going to break the bank, and once you've entered, that's it, you don't have to pay anything else, so the most you can lose is your buy-in. At £1.10, even if you go out early by making a mistake, it's probably worth the £1.10 to make that mistake, see what you did wrong, and learn from it. The problem with these tournaments is if you can only play for an hour, then there's no point signing up for a tournament when you can only play the first hour of it as you can't cash, so you'd be better off playing cash if you can't play long sessions.
Something to consider, if you're available on Monday nights, is the Forum DTD - There's a thread in General Poker Chat with all the details. If you're brand new to the game, I wouldn't recommend multi-tabling just yet, however, it may still be worth looking at the thread and deciding to just enter 1 of the 3 tournaments that are part of it every week. You'd have to play all 3 to enter the actual forum DTD competition, but there's no reason why you can't just play 1 of the tournaments and enter another if you get knocked out early.
You will probably have at least 1 or 2 regular forum posters on your table, and if you have any questions about your game afterwards, then people will be more than happy to help out if you post any hands in the Poker Clinic - If you're on the table with another regular forum poster, then they might have picked up information on other players who were on the table, or information on you, which will mean they can give better feedback on hands, or maybe even tell you if you're doing something wrong and what you can do to change it.
Hope this helps as it's taken me forever to type, lol.
I presume your totally new to the game
Only play with money you can afford to lose
Depends how much money you can play with but a nice learning format is the sit “n” Go
Read up on the internet regarding the basics, so much out there you can learn without buying books – google is your friend
Good learning site is this:
http://www.thepokerbank.com/strategy/
just have fun
very informative!
hope that it is appreciated!
devon
evilpingu, thanks very much for taking the time to explain all of that.
i started hold em a while back, we were on a tour, on the roads of europe for a year, so we had a poker night going, it was very social, but was a great night and got me hooked.
since i'm now going to be uk based for the foreseeable future, i've started to watch alot of the poker related tv stuff, and am kind of hooked
right, its now clear to me that a bankroll is whats required, this is the way i'm interested in going, i want to be more than a social friday night post pub player. i have alot to learn, i know, so the 2p/4p is where i shall start, and progress from there, (no bluffing though) i have tried a few dym since recently joining the sky site, think i'll give them a miss for abit
thanks again for the tips, very helpful. i'd already watched the sky poker tutorials, and learnt alot off the back of those, basics really, but stuff as a noob i'd missed, what to bet, when to bet, position and the like. so, practice it is
devon
devon
ps. wish your dad well
Forget about DYM's, unless you understand the dynamics of the game
Just play straightforward sit n goes and some MTT within your budget
If your going to be playing cash then just stick to the 10 top starting hands
Keep it simple and tight
If you going to play DYM, then have a read of jonh connors blog on DYM, you will find it in the blog section
Most of good luck and have fun with it
Most noobs dont bother coming on here till they have played for a couple of weeks, got lucky, and start to think they know it all.
They then find out the reality of the game, appear in the forum to moan about their bad beats, and graduate to claiming its all fixed.
By then its too late for many to ask questions and study the game.
Having said that the best learning is gained from playing the game and analysing your own performance honestly.
Good luck
Thats just my opinion. For what its worth though my advice for improving your game would be to go through your hand history after a session. This can really help identifying any weaknesses in your game. Anyway enjoy the game 18wheeler and good luck.
for the immediate future, i'm going to get a bankroll and go 2p/4p,(big spender eh!!!)
i'll work on the 5% max rule and see how it goes from there, whilst watching the sky tv poker whilst i'm at dads, as well as checking out alot more on these forums.
i think i get the concept of dym, i was happy to let others battle if i had nothing, i wasn't there to have the biggest stack, i was there to finish top 3
i'll avoid dym's for now and concentrate on my basics.
had a mini tourny at dads last night, 5 of us payed 2 quid each, and we had a cracking few hours of fun, and the good news is, i walked off with the tenner, so, i may have learnt something already.
right, off for a game, nose round the forums, and learn some more of the slang, wet hand etc, ta!
but trry and have fun while you play because it is
for a good guide though Dohhhhhh has done one - if you go to My Sky Poker tab and click on Poker School. on the left side there are strategy articles and they are called Beating Small stakes.
good luck, see you on the tables
well i setup the bankroll yesterday, went to a 2p/4p table, stuck to my 5% limit as suggested.
played the correct way, not bluffing etc, started with £2.50, hour or so later finished on £4.00