Goals and Learning

I'm reading a lot about setting goals and learning approaches ... I'm really keen to develop a plan and some definable goals to work towards. Two questions:

(1) How did FTR's that have gone from noobs to successful players in a few years approach their learning? While I appreciate that everyone ahs a different learning style ... I'd love to hear how some winning players attacked overcoming the knowledge void. Sure playing thousands of hands to build experience is the key ... but does a building block approach work (ie focussing on particular aspects at a time - say learning to calculate pot odds on the run, or developing reads, etc) ... or is there another way?

(2) A more specific question ... BB/hr. What do people aim at as a goal for this stat?

Thanks in advance!

Well for me I began playing at $2NL and still am. Up until adopting a very tight-strategy as of late I was a break even player but I now feel I'm a winning player. I've been playing for 6 months. For me at my level I try to aim for 30BB/100 but then again I'm playing with crack addicts. I think one of the most important things to for being a beginning player is to learn to develop patience and to be able to lay down mediocre hands. I try to alternate my play between tight agressive and counterplay(tight-passive till river by Aok). Poker tracker is also always good. Other than that just read a lot and you should yourself, and your bankroll impove rapidly.

I still consider myself a newbie.

How I've approached it - it's kind of integrated, it's kind of building block... because you will always run into various situations at various times. AT first though you can reasonably control/limit the situations you see.

You should always be calculating pot odds, or at least ballparking it, to know if you're making an obviously right or wrong call. You can do this on hands you're not involved in - make up a hand for yourself ...

Say you "imagine" yourself having a flush draw on the following:

Pot is $5, flop is


And one of the people in the hand has bet $2. You should be able to count outs, calculate pot odds and determine whether or not this is a call if you were involved in this hand...

You should get an idea of reading opponents, get an idea of different types of opponents and how they play in a specific situation (what does a pot size bet from a very passive player mean? this guy calls everybody down even if he's holding 9 high!). All of this would come with general experience. In the above example, (highlight to read) it's technically a fold by pot odds but your reads might tell you this player has a pattern of betting weakly when trying to buy a pot...

At very first however the biggest things you can learn are patience and discipline. Learn how to play good cards (and perhaps more importantly, realize what good cards really are - QJo in EP is not a good hand), and have the patience and discipline to wait for them.

Learning how to play good hands at first reduces the number of decisions that you have to make, and it also generally makes decisions easier to make.

As you get more comfortable with this, open up your hand selection, especially in position... take it from there.

2) don't worry about BB/hr (incidentally a better metric is BB/100 hands) or winrate right now. Get to a level where you're breakeven + and with the right practice and study you can work on increasing your winrate.

Thanks ... good advice. I was just reading some stuff on Howard Lederer's site ... he says it took him two years to regulalry beat $6 limit! I have no problem being patient at the table ...I guess I need to extend that patience to the learning process, and not expect to be able to absorb it all in a month or three

Good point on the BB metric. I've invested in Poker Tracker and am starting to build up a hand history

Also on a good beginners run ... 3 from 3 1st places on UB $1+.10 single table SnG

Read the posts on FTR epsecially HH and strats forums
Go and get some books.
Read the webpages online and watch some TV poker.
What youll notice is the same ocurences eg TV always has PP's vs overcards all in preflop. While this dosnt work for cash games it begins to show the recurrent situations that you need to learn and that stop you losing cash when you dont need to.
The key point early is to make good decisions which can be difficult without a lot of experience. Newer players concentrate on bb/100 where this isnt important. It isnt about making the cash per 100 hands its about making the correct decisions. Once you do that the bbs/100 will come automatically.
Also, learn about what constitutes good tables and players you want to play against. This is key to make sure you make money consistently. If you sit at poor tables you will eventually make poor moves etc.
Go learn limit! The way that you have to play in limit holdem will help imo for you to understand why people bet when they do and what cards people are playing and why. This for me was key to putting people on hands and understanding what they play. Therefore you can improve your post-flop play which will be a big advantage.
The two key things to learn are pot odds/implied odds and position. Once you can 'abuse' position against poorer players you will make a lot more cash.
BB/100 is not a particularly important stat imo. While seeing a big number is good for the ego just make sure you are beating the game. Its more important to be making good decisions and plugging leaks then your bb/100 will go up anyway.
try to play all the games available, mtt/sng and ring. Learning how each plays will add to your knowledge of poker plays and moves. Helps post flop etc again.

I havent played limit yet ... I've been considering it ... but I have my poker books on order and I think I'd like to read som on limit before I jump in there. Playing plenty of NL and SnG.

New experience last night ... took and hour to increase my buyin by 50% ... then lost it all in two hands ($3, lol) by making two really poor decisions postflop. Best three dollars I'll sepnd I reckon, taught me a lot of lessons. I was tired, and looking back I was playing only my cards and not what my opponent might have.

In my opinion there's one key to becoming a winning player. I preach discipline alot. However, until you know what to be disciplined about, that's like telling someone who doesn't know which way to go to "run faster". The only path from NOOB to winning player is to become OBSESSED with poker. The minutia, the little insignificant details, the odd hand, the weird way of looking at something at everyone else takes for granted. When it gets to the point where you see someone ask a question on this board like "how do I play pocket Jacks" and think of 30 different variables that you would need to know before answering that question, then you've got the right level of obsession.

That's it. It's a simple path. The obsession will get you all the answers you seek. Without obsession it's just a hobby, with obsession comes the secret keys to the kingdom. What does that obsession look like... Read Every post on every board, think about every opinion, look at every situation, submerge yourself in poker. Don't try to find "the answer" or "the tip". Saturate yourself with poker information until it's oozing from your pores. And stay that way for a couple months. That's all it takes. I promise. If you think you're doing that now, you're not. Do it 10x as much.

good luck

Hehe thanks aok. I certainly have found the passion for it I feel like I'm learning something every time I play.

From my experience

1. Read a lot, articles, books, and mainly FTR posts
2. Post hands that you had trouble with
3. Discuss the game with friends
4. Pick your game - spend a short amount of time playing different varieites - Sng, MTT, no limit, limit, pot limit, and then pick your game. It does not really matter which one your pick, but stick with one to begin with. There are a lot of subtle differences between the varieites of holdem, excel in one of them

Originally Posted by TLR

1. Read a lot, articles, books, and mainly FTR posts
2. Post hands that you had trouble with
3. Discuss the game with friends

To add a bit to what aok and TLR are saying:
these 3 are important, but just as important is how you read, why you post, what you discuss.

I haven't done this yet, but I'm going to:
Get a spiral notebook, name it "My Poker Problems" and start categorizing the various situations that can come up. e.g.:
-Section 1: "Offsuit hands out of position". These are notorious leaks. If you post/read/talk about any such hand that is instructive, put what you learn on this page.
Skip a few pages and go to
Section 2:"Cold calls" and do the same.

I've wasted many conversations with Molinero and others that amounted to "I played this hand, and this happened, and it kinda sucked but what can ya do?" This doesn't count as study.

Again good advice thanks ...I'm pretty much doing those points.
A good example is this hand last night.... the villian here was actually a friend of mine. We had a vigorous debate afterwards ... he regarded it as a bad beat for him. I was really surprised he went with me after my post flop raise ... to me it was obvious I made a hand, whereas he put me on TPTK. I know I should post this in the hand history forum but I'll put this one here in the context of this topic - reading, posting, analyzing and learning.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (8 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

UTG+1 ($1.76)
MP1 ($5.04)
MP2 ($1.75)
CO ($2.53)
Button ($2.85)
Hero ($4.64)
BB ($4.99)
UTG ($3.32)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9, 9.
UTG calls $0.02, 1 fold, MP1 raises to $0.13, 2 folds, Button calls $0.13, Hero calls $0.12, 1 fold, UTG calls $0.11.

Flop: ($0.54) 7, 9, 3 (4 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, MP1 bets $0.6, Button folds, Hero raises to $1.2, UTG folds, MP1 calls $0.60.

Turn: ($2.94) A (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 checks.

River: ($2.94) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $1, MP1 calls $1.

Final Pot: $4.94

Results in white below:
MP1 has Jd Jc (one pair, jacks).
Hero has 9s 9c (three of a kind, nines).
Outcome: Hero wins $4.94.

i'd bet about $2 on the turn

Using your example as an analysis - what should you have done instead of minraising the flop?

Why was the minraise such a bad play?

Originally Posted by LeFou

i'd bet about $2 on the turn

You don't fear pocket AA with the villian opening with 6xBB bet and raising strongly on the flop?

Originally Posted by chardrian

Using your example as an analysis - what should you have done instead of minraising the flop?

Why was the minraise such a bad play?

Sorry not quite with you here ... are you saying my $1.2 was minraise becuase he bet $0.6?

If so I guess I didn't see that as a min raise, $1.2 is 60xBB

AA is more likely to let you know about it if you bet than if you check. If raised big there, you can often find a fold considering the hearts.

So I'd bet $2, and if raised I would fold unless I was getting 5 to 1 (for the boat). If he has AA it would obviously get ugly when i hit a boat

Originally Posted by Buzz

Originally Posted by chardrian

Using your example as an analysis - what should you have done instead of minraising the flop?

Why was the minraise such a bad play?

Sorry not quite with you here ... are you saying my $1.2 was minraise becuase he bet $0.6?

If so I guess I didn't see that as a min raise, $1.2 is 60xBB

Umm - yup. When you raise the minimum amount possible, that's called a min-raise and that's exactly what you did. It doesn't matter how many times the BB it was.

You had an opp who did exactly what you wanted by making a pot-size bet. You then asked him to bad beat you by giving him incredible odds to call and your minraise gave you absolutly no information as to what hand he held - does he have the flush draw, a str8 draw, an over pair, TPTK??? The A on that turn worries me much much less than the third heart does.

Push that flop - and you double up.

OK I understand. Yes it was the A on the turn that worried me as well, hence the post turn check.

There we go, I've fulfilled my "learn something every day" requirement already and its only 8:30am

Couple of points about the hand

1. You say MP1 is a friend of yours - what range of hands will he raise 6BB preflop with ? If he is a tight player that only makes this raises with PP JJ+ and AK you should fold preflop.

2. Villian raised big preflop and raised big on the flop, the 0.6 raise on the flop is 1.5 pot size, it looks like an attempt to buy the pot - the hand range I would give him credit here are PP TT+ and AK/AQh.
So when the A of heart hits the board I dont think you should be worried too much about a flush, the only hand you should be worried about is AA, and I would be willing to pay the AA here. However what you should be worried about now is an overpair with an heart, and the last thing you want to do is give villian a chance to complete the flush on the river - I would push the turn

3. On a sidenote, villians call on your flop reraise was a bad play on his part with the overpair, he should have raised or folded, but calling does not make much sense here