How many do the research

This is my first thread although i have been visiting the site for three to four months. I don't know if the answer is out there already or not and i'm missing it, but would anyone have any idea of how many people in the online or b&m sites have done the research that is preached about here. As far as the poker community goes, how many are reading the books, visiting the sites, getting the knowledge. I've just about finished SSH and have been to this and other sites since i got involved four months ago, and am now just going to make my first deposit at party poker. Am i just another fish coming in who thinks he might know a thing or two, or would I be considered a top 5%, 15% or 50% that has done the homework. I know this has nothing to do with the skill, or winning but how many have the "book smarts" at this time. thanks.

I'll wager you've done more research than most. Now you need the experience to learn the discipline and the feel necessary to beat the game. Good luck.

Welcome,

As stated you have probably done more than most. You just need a couple hundred years of experiece. Books are fine but you need to apply that stuff to the real world.

I can say however that the books do help. I don't know if its coinincidence or what but I recieved both of Harringtons books for Christmas. Read them twice and since then have not had to redeposit into any of my accouts. Have had a + BR for awhile now. Though it flucutates I play now with confidence, can take the loosing session knowing its variance and enjoy the play.

As a noobie the one thing you should definately do is keep stats. I started doing this in NOV. and it has helped trememdously. YOu get to see where you are doing well in and where you are doing bad. Don't just track your BR like I did for over a year. See where you are making money and where you are leaking.

Good luck

Thanks, so far i'm hearing what i needed to. I have been playing online on the free tables to get used to the software and the speed, and i know the game is very different because they don't respect the free money. I've been trying to treat them like small stakes limit, (where everyone goes in to see the flop) and get onto tables with guys that have huge stacks (if you can call them that), and try to separate them from some of it. Kind of like being short stacked and trying to recover against aggresive players and have done very well. 18000+ in my free account at one time, never starting at a table with more than 2000. i know there is alot to learn i just wanted to know if i was truly getting an advantage against most or if i'm looking for fish in a pool of sharks, where everyone jumps on the few easy targets and scares them away. Kind of like, whats the pot odds on a fifty dollar poker book, should i raise and get another book or is everyone in and holding pocket flopturnriver forums.

Make sure you play at the beginner tables for as long as they let you (45 days?). You will be up against players who have never read anything but saw Celebrity Poker a couple times. However, keep in mind that Harrington doesn't play against newbs so they may be difficult to read at first as they have little concept of betting correctly.

As Monty advises, stats are important, invest $55 in Pokertracker - its pretty much cricuial and youll never look back.

Id estimate 5-10% are students that study the game. About 10-20% of players seem to have the winning styles (TA's, SLA's and UA's etc) though some of these will develop the style naturally, some will have also researched.

Good luck, keep within your BR and study your game and your ops and 'the' game and you should be fine

The best teacher is experience, but it's also the most expensive teacher. Books are relatively cheap, forums are free, hand selection is the most important thing and it can be memorized. Spend as much time preparing as you feel comfortable with, then start at the lowest limit ( Don't bother with play money, it'll only mislead you ) . I read alot of Sklanskys' books back in 2000 before I put my chips on the the table in a B&M 2-4 limit game. I might have had a little begginers luck but I started winning right away. One thing I did notice was how poor the experienced players hand selection was and how often I had them dominated pre-flop. One thing in the book that I did too much as a begginer was semi-bluff at low limits. You can value bet a draw on the flop if you have alot of callers, but only the nut flush draw or an OESD ( using both of your cards ) on a rainbow flop, and do it in a way that builds the pot, don't shut out other players, you won't take down many pot without a show down. The freecard play usually works well in low limit, if I've got a big draw and the button, I'll cap the betting on the flop if i have to in order to avoid the big bet on the turn.

I would recomend playing Limit for a while before playing NL, download Poker Tracker to monitor your progress and analyse your play. Start out super-tight, only play AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, 88, AKs, AKo, AQs. Call 1 raise with QQ,JJ,TT,AKs,AKo. Call 2 raises with QQ or AKs. Always reraise with AA and KK. You will make a small profit and watch alot of hands, try to guess what everybody has while you're watching the hands and see how often you're right. After 20,000-30,000 hands you should be reading the players better and feel more comfortable, then you can start playing a few more hands like AQo, AJs, KQs, or in late position 77, 66, AJo, ATs , you can also play hands that do well in multi-way pots in late position with alot of limpers like KJs, QJs, QTs, JTs, 55, 44, 33, 22. Just know when to fold TP when you're playing the suited connectors like QJs, you're playing these hands to win big pots with the nut straight, not to make top pair. Whenever you move up in limits I'd recommend switching back to playing just the top hands until you're comfortable with the change in the game.

As for how many players have read the books or done some research, I'd guess 40% have read at least one book and 10% - 20% play by the book.

Good Luck at Party Poker!

...also consider that the body of cash NLHE literature is pretty mediocre to poor right now.

...also consider that the body of cash NLHE literature is pretty mediocre to poor right now.

Is that to say that most people that have read one of the books, probably walked into indigo and purchased the wrong books, i.e. Hold-em for dummies

Originally Posted by Trainer_jyms

...also consider that the body of cash NLHE literature is pretty mediocre to poor right now.

Is that to say that most people that have read one of the books, probably walked into indigo and purchased the wrong books, i.e. Hold-em for dummies

Reading Hold'em Poker for Advanced players then sitting down at a 100NL table will put lots of very particular and common holes in your game.

That being said, the NLHE literature out there is seriously lacking. It's taken considerable effort on my part to find answers to very fundamental problems and there still is a short list of problems I haven't found an acceptable answer to yet.

Originally Posted by SinkRox

(TA's, SLA's and UA's etc)

I never heard of these terms, I will take a guess to what they mean. I know the first one.
Tight Aggressive
Slightly Loose Aggressive
Ultra Aggressive

Lol, I have no idea. Explain.

Agreed. i've learned alot from yours and other posts so far in this and the beginner forums. I would hope i've learned enough to stay within my BR and stay off the higher limit and NL tables and proceed with caution. I'm not expecting the books and the forums to be the be-all, end-all of how to winand quit my job to become a full timer, I am more concerned about finding an edge that others are not willing to put in the time nor effort to get. If i'm researching enough material and applying it properly over time am i gaining the advantage or are they all going to catch up with a bigger starting BR than I can have at this time and learn the hard way, and still be able to beat me over the long term, or is the investment that I am making by not rushing in, blowing my measly starting BR, going to be a better long term investment.

understanding equity and pot odds is a large portion of beating the "deck". Beating the players takes experience and feel

When I started I read SSH and the parts that I paid attention to were preflop starting hands and pot odds.

You should hopefully do okay for a while...just play pairs and AK at those beginner tables, and you'll probably walk away with a profit and some valuable experience.

It's nice to not be on a severely limited bankroll like many beginners; hopefully this is the case for you.

Anyway, if I could give any advice to a beginner it would just be to play tight. You'll be hard to beat that way, and you'll get experience just watching other players.

GL.

Originally Posted by IOS

Originally Posted by SinkRox

(TA's, SLA's and UA's etc)

I never heard of these terms, I will take a guess to what they mean. I know the first one.
Tight Aggressive
Slightly Loose Aggressive
Ultra Aggressive

Lol, I have no idea. Explain.

Yep, an article on the styles can be found here quite a boring article but some important info regarding players types, and roughly how much of a winner/losser the types are.

the three biggest lossers (you want 2+ of these on your tables!) are:
XL (Xtra Loose)
CS (Callint St)
SM (Showdown Muppet)

Originally Posted by Fnord

That being said, the NLHE literature out there is seriously lacking. It's taken considerable effort on my part to find answers to very fundamental problems and there still is a short list of problems I haven't found an acceptable answer to yet.

Hey, this is exactly what I've been thinking. I've never read any books and I've been looking around for a long while with no luck on a good book to NL ring play. It seems like with all the literature out there, there would be something...let me know if you find a good book.

In answer to the topic, honestly the best way to learn is through experience. Reading books should help you not totally suck nuts when you first sit down, and help you understand common ideas like hand selection, c/bets, pot odds and implied odds. However, this doesnt mean that after reading several books you will even be a break - even player. Take that other guys advice and play at the beginners limits for as long as you can, or pick another site that offers $10NL. If you've been reading books and trolling this site, you should find that you will become a profitable player fairly quickly, but why risk more than you have to while you are learning.

Originally Posted by Fnord

...also consider that the body of cash NLHE literature is pretty mediocre to poor right now.

Have you read PL and NL poker by Reuben and Ciaffione?

i went to a home game the other day, i knew absolutely no one, it was a 24 player tournament...based on what i saw there, about 6 players including myself really had a good understanding of the game, the rest, well...not so good, and almost everyone was talking himself up, i was quite amused...

Originally Posted by Les_Worm

Originally Posted by Fnord

...also consider that the body of cash NLHE literature is pretty mediocre to poor right now.

Have you read PL and NL poker by Reuben and Ciaffione?

It's the best out there and it's still lacking.

Originally Posted by underminedsk

Originally Posted by Fnord

That being said, the NLHE literature out there is seriously lacking. It's taken considerable effort on my part to find answers to very fundamental problems and there still is a short list of problems I haven't found an acceptable answer to yet.

Hey, this is exactly what I've been thinking....let me know if you find a good book..

Yeh PL and NL poker by Reuben and Ciaffione has some good theory, one of my favourite books I like to re-flick thru every now and again.

Also, I only bought Theory Of Poker about a week ago, nievly thinking I would be aware of pretty much all the concepts and knowledge in the book - i thought id buy it anyway after a big tourny win. Well, so far Ive only read the bluffing chapter and its opened my eyes alot... and wow theres a hell of alot more info in this book - gonna take quite some time to digist.

The best books I've found for NL are actually limit books. SSH and ITH do an excellent job in my opinion of disecting and analyzing the flop. Two of the key strategies both of these books have taught me is finding hidden outs and discounting outs which made a drastic improvement in my game in a very short time frame.

Thanks guys for the advice. I'm not trying to be ungrateful at all but I have been paying attention to where to play and I have no delusions of grandure when it comes to making a huge BR in three weeks. I was just wondering more along the lines of, when you go to B&Ms or online MTT's, how many players are ya figuring in to be knowledgeable to the point that they play the game, not just try to hit the river for their third flush of the night after calling with 68s. How many know how many outs their are for the other players. Would you figure on average that most of the players in the money of a MTT, say 40 or so out of a thousand have visited this or other good sites, are getting good advice or have read a selection of the better books and will be a harder take down. How many at the lower or higher limit and NL tables out of ten are students of the game, not just bankrolled by a student loan or an inheritance and aren't building a BR, just started with one. Thanks again for the advice, I can't wait to get to the point that there is no answer for the questions or leaks I have instead of finding another answer in every single page or post. And finally, whats my next book after SSH?

I hear SSH is a great book. I have a friend who was a really LAGG, and really didn't know what he was doing.

Then he read SSH, and he made a ridiculous leap in his game.

It is for limit, however. There are some good concepts like pot equity, protecting your hand etc. but I would imagine limit books to be quite dangerous for starting nlhe players. I would recommend reading theory of poker, reuben&ciaffone, and harrington on holdem 1.

Well, this is my 2 cents for whatever you may think it is worth...

Most do not do the research (as in reading the books/forums) before playing the game although many will play for 'play' money before making their first cash deposit and making the switch to 'real' money. I personally found the 'play' money games to be very unlike real money NLHE until you get to the higher money tables. The lower limit 'play' tables are full of people that know they can receive $1000 again as soon as they bust on a garbage hand that they went all in with. Once you start playing at the higher 'play' stakes, the players generally worked hard to get to that level and play more legitimate hands to keep their bankroll growing.

That being said, I think you have done what you can to be in a favourable position to make your first deposit. I think that what you may want to do is start @ PokerStars with their .01/.02 NL games. From there once you are making a little scratch, move up in levels. What can I say... I had to learn in the school of hard knocks and I paid the price. It cost me a few hundred dollars and a few thousand hands before I started to get my game. I built up a decent BR at one point and lost it all in a matter of hours one day 'cause I did not know when to stop once the bad day and tilting began.

Experience is what gets you the final table... Experience is what tells you to hold em or fold em...

I would break it down as follows and people will disagree I am sure but you might as well hear my opinion...

50% Skill - 40% Luck - 10% Balls to call - This is what wins... If you have all the skill and some of the balls you can go far even without luck but unless you are among the poker elites you need a degree of luck......

Thanks, that's the kind of answers i've been trying to hear, great avatar by the way. First deposit comes next thurs. and will definitly keep the reigns on for a while, i don't have the disposable income of many. That's kind of my point, should i be spending my meager extra $$ on instruction or experience?

I took a similar path or reading a few books before starting actually playing, and I've found that experience really is a necessary teacher. I felt like I understood the concepts in the book, but it took a while to see how those concepts applied to real-game situations. In my last few months of playing online, I've had dozens of, "oh, so THAT's what he was talking about!" moments.

On top of that, knowing how to play and actually doing it aren't the same. I've had quite a few times where I look at my hand, know it isn't good, but then look at the pot and think, "awe gee, I'd REALLY like to win that", and end up calling to the river only to lose. Then one time I catch a runner-runner and try to convince myself I made the right decision to call, and start looking to catch runner-runner. "Well, I think he's got three of a kind, but if the next two cards are both hearts, I might have a shot at this..."

So, good job for doing your homework before you start, but I'd still recommend starting out at the lowest levels, wait till you have some success there, wait just a bit long to make sure it wasn't a fluke, then repeat at the next level, one step at a time. Don't worry, the $50 NL tables aren't going anywhere, they'll be there when you're ready.