If you could do it all over again?

So, basically I'm asking the very experienced online poker players, knowing what they know now, how would you go about learning how to become a great Texas Holdem player as quickly and efficiently as possible. I love the game and I seem to be somewhat of a natural at it and I would like to make a little money online. What steps would you recommend to me to become very good quickly?

I have already played for play money on pokerroom and Empire and have hundreds of thousands of dollars and it’s become very predictable and a bit boring. I have also played several games with friends and colleagues and I do very well but they are not all that great. I have read the information on several websites. Oh, and I have been working my way through this forums threads as well and I am thinking about buying a book.

What books should I read?
Where should I play?
What should I keep in mind?
Should I start with limit or No limit?
What sites should I visit?
What's a good starting strategy?
Any other advice?

I have already played for play money on pokerroom and Empire and have hundreds of thousands of dollars and it’s become very predictable and a bit boring.

Well for me all the time I spent playing play money was worthless aside from the fact you learn the basic structure of the game. No one plays anything like that with real money. Basically that would be practice playing with a table full of complete maniacs which is a very rare occurence when real money is on the line.

Are you looking to play NL or limit?

If you are playing limit I recommend reading Holdem for Advanced players I believe it is called by Sklansky and also Small Stakes Holdem by Sklansky.

I play NL exclusively and havent come across any great books yet and havent really heard of any recommended. I think the majority of great books were written on limit hold em but maybe not.

Where should you play?

All the party skins when you start. When are playing with real money for the first time you are sort of emotionally attached to it and you need those deposit bonuses to offset that. You can think well shit as soon as I play a few more hands ill get 100 for free. Then you can make a few bad mistakes and still probably come out at even or a little better. Helps a lot to learn the game I think because you play how you know you should instead of playing maybe too tight because you are risking your cash now. When you clear one bonus on Party - move to empire - then to another - then to another to you got em all. They all over 20% bonus up to 100 which is phat. Only 500 raked hands to clear each one.

What should you keep in mind? Um not sure on this one. Keep in mind that you are gonna get bad beats and celebrate them. Bad beats mean you made the right play and got your money in with the best of it. Don't get discouraged by them. They will happen and happen over and over. Its why you make money. Just smile and say man I'm glad that dumb ass is playing online poker. Also keep in mind in a ring game you are not playing like the WSOP guys and the WPT guys. It is not a tournament and you dont have to make moves. You can be patient and wait for premium hands and have nothing to worry about. Also dont play tournaments like they do either. You are only seeing the action hands in those things and im sure there are countless folds that are never aired. Look at some stuff on the main site about hand groupings and stuff for the ring games. They will help a lot.

Should I start with limit or no limit?

Well I started with limit and sat down at the table and lost 11 bucks in about 5 minutes. I said damnit this sucks and quit right there and bought a book and found this site. This site at the time stressed NL and basically thats all we talked about so I went back playing NL and that one table is the only limit I have played my whole life. I believe NL easier myself but there are lots of people on here that would dispute that probably. I guess I cant even really say its easier or harder since my limit experience is like 20 hands or something. Also there are a lot of people that believe SNGs are easier than ring games in terms of being profitable. The problem is you cant clear deposit bonuses playing SNGs. So my recommendation is party skin NL ring games getting bonuses at all of em. When you come out of all that you should be a profitable player if you have read a lot on this site including the main page. Its not hard at all to beat the games.

One more thing. Specialize. Dont play both limit and no limit. Pick one and get great at it and stick with it. Youll do better.

Originally Posted by BoondockSaint

I play NL exclusively and havent come across any great books yet and havent really heard of any recommended.

Not a big Doyle fan, then?

Welcome, Lucid.

1.The Saint is right that play money experience in Poker is like Halo2 experience in Special Ops.
2. Numerous competing strategies can and will work. Pick one to use for awhile, and make mental notes of when and where it succeeds/fails and why.
3. Play as much as possible. Absolutely no substitute for experience. Also try to find live games if you can. Sounds like you've got a friendly one going -- try to find a less friendly one.

Not a big Doyle fan, then?

Well hell yeah I am. I just never heard any talk about the super system if thats what you are talking about. Does it focus on NL. I just assummed it was limit it was written so long ago when NL games were scarce. At least scarce enough where you wouldnt write a whole book on it.

I was thinking I would buy the Sklansky book and basically follow it to the letter at low stakes. I was also thinking on my first hand or two that I would call even if I had rags to try to disguise the fact I was going to play tight. Are there any alterations or additions to the Sklansky strategy that you might recommend?

I was also thinking on my first hand or two that I would call even if I had rags to try to disguise the fact I was going to play tight.

This will only work IF:

1. You can get your hand to showdown cheaply.
2. You win the hand, other wise it will be mucked anyway.
3. Somebody is paying attention. - usually not very likely.

I would suggest not doing this.

Are there any alterations or additions to the Sklansky strategy that you might recommend

Well since I have so little experience with limit not really. But if you dont buy both books buy small stakes hold em I think. It focuses more on the types of people you are going to run into. Holdem for advanced player is more for higher stakes where people dont see near as many flops.

Originally Posted by BoondockSaint

Does it focus on NL. I just assummed it was limit it was written so long ago when NL games were scarce. At least scarce enough where you wouldnt write a whole book on it.

Nay, not the whole book. About 20% of it. But it's the absolute best section -- the one Doyle himself wrote, and follows upon Bobby Baldwin's section on limit HE, which is basically Doyle-style limit play.

I was pretty fond of the simplicity: Instead of 8 groups (or more?) he basically uses:
AA/KK/AK/QQ
Other pairs
Suited connectors (plus Axs and Kxs which he plays much the same)
"Borderline" hands (KJ, AT, and whatnot)

Can't recommend it highly enough.

Where to begin? I advocate practice with play money. It helps you navigate the interface and get used to the basic mechanics of online play. Being a winner in play money is at least a start to moving up to real thing. I had never played poker before and practiced for a couple weeks on play money tables.

Read the Holdem books by Ken Warren. He has some limit advice and is a very easy read with lots of information. There are not a lot of NL books out there that I consider great.

Bankroll: set up a Neteller account or someting similar and wire them some cash. Make sure you have a big enough stake that you don't really care if you lose but you also can afford to make a comback and not play with "scared money."

Suggested start:
LIMIT $1/2 400 Big Bets or $800.
NL 10 xs maximum buy-in. Eg. Party $.50/1 NL with $25 buy in...$250 or more.
Some sites have micro limits as low as .05/.10 games but i've never played them.

Start out with ring games. Play tight/aggressive strategy and learn the tricks of the trade. There is no substitute for experience.

Don't play over your head at limits that you can't afford. Don't chase losses by moving up limits.

Avoid the SNG tournaments until you get some ring game experience. SNG's add another level of strategy as well as a big dash of luck. You can pick up some bad habbits in SNG's that will hurt your full ring game if you are not careful.

Once you get used to the full ring game....try some 6 max tables. You will need to learn a few more tactics to play short handed which will come in handy when you eventually move to tournaments and find yourself playing for the $$$.

If you have a big enough bankroll to absorb the initial loss that you will most likely take, soon you will see things turn around and you will make some money. Then you will have another bad streak and lose your profits, then you will have another even better run, and if you stay within your means you should make a steady profit.

You can read all the posts, and books and advice you want. There is no substitute for actually playing. It is also very important to follow the advice that is out there. If you read it and understand it, and then ignore it then you are wasting your time.

Good luck.

First of all, I would like to thank everyone that responded and gave me incredibly useful information. Second, this site is amazing. This forum/website is the most useful poker resource that I have found on the net. You guys rock!

Every poker room that I sign up on will be through this website and I will try to contribute to this forum after I get some experience under by belt. Thanks again and if anyone else has anything else to say I would greatly appreciate any bit of advice you lay on me.

The $105 dollar six month poker education for cheapskate limit players:

Buy SSH and read it. Flip through other books at the bookstore and see if you pick up any other good points. A lot of these books just have the same damn thing over and over. Read posts at 2+2 and FTR. BUY POKERTRACKER NOW - if you are serious about poker.

Deposit 50.00 at PokerStars
Play .05/.10 limit until you win 300 BB
Play .25/.50 limit until you win 300 BB
Play .50/1.00 limit until you win 600 BB - do this at Party
Play 1/2 .....You can get to this point in less than 6 months. I did it in 5.

The whole time you are playing, post hands, make tweaks to your game, etc.

There is no reason you should ever have to spend more than 50.00 to play poker the rest of your life.

Oh yeh, play money is a total waste of time. Do it to have fun, not to learn poker.

Originally Posted by BoondockSaint

Not a big Doyle fan, then?

Well hell yeah I am. I just never heard any talk about the super system if thats what you are talking about. Does it focus on NL. I just assummed it was limit it was written so long ago when NL games were scarce. At least scarce enough where you wouldnt write a whole book on it.

Oh...yes. About half of Super System is no limit. There are large sections on limit, draw and stud....but a huge portion is Doyle's take on no limit. I did not get tremendous insight from it...but it did get me to be much less passive with my play - definately worth owning and reading once or twice.

Originally Posted by Lucid

Any other advice?

Keep pushing yourself to move up in stakes.

Currently re-reading TOP, and HEAP. Is Doyle I a subset of Doyle II? Buy II, but not I? Should one or both be my next read?

I have a feeling that there is a definite risk of becoming too 'poker book smart', and therefore suffer from not knowing how to put principles and techniques into real application. As an alternative to more reading, I was thinking it would be a better investment of time to spend that time playing thereby gaining concrete, hands-on experience.

Thoughts/Suggestions/Recommendations?

Read

Play 5K hands

Reread

Play 5K hands

Reread...

and so on

Originally Posted by Lonnie

The $105 dollar six month poker education for cheapskate limit players:

Buy SSH and read it. Flip through other books at the bookstore and see if you pick up any other good points. A lot of these books just have the same damn thing over and over. Read posts at 2+2 and FTR. BUY POKERTRACKER NOW - if you are serious about poker.

Deposit 50.00 at PokerStars
Play .05/.10 limit until you win 300 BB
Play .25/.50 limit until you win 300 BB
Play .50/1.00 limit until you win 600 BB - do this at Party
Play 1/2 .....You can get to this point in less than 6 months. I did it in 5.

The whole time you are playing, post hands, make tweaks to your game, etc.

There is no reason you should ever have to spend more than 50.00 to play poker the rest of your life.

Oh yeh, play money is a total waste of time. Do it to have fun, not to learn poker.

how do the .05/.10 games at stars play? i think that sounds like a limit that would best suit my starting bankroll...but i dont really feel like playing a game where 5 people are in every hand till the river

Originally Posted by JJDylan

how do the .05/.10 games at stars play? i think that sounds like a limit that would best suit my starting bankroll...but i dont really feel like playing a game where 5 people are in every hand till the river

You should learn to beat those kinds of games first.

o All but the highest live limits play like this (or do sometimes depending on table conditions)
o A really good higher limit table online sometimes plays like this
o The strat to beat these games is straight forward and doesn't require a lot of reads or fancy lines.

how do the .05/.10 games at stars play? i think that sounds like a limit that would best suit my starting bankroll...but i dont really feel like playing a game where 5 people are in every hand till the river

They play real friggin loose and are a breeze to beat.

If there are five in the hand at the river, then you didn't play it right. Check raising a lot of flops will help with crowd control a lot.

Having said that, you will get lots of work on two things:

Playing draws. You will have many opportunities to check out pot odds, both actual and implied, and make decisions on gutshots and 2 outers. Sometimes the 5 cent game's pots are laying the correct odds, sometimes they aren't.

Reading players and jamming pots. Passive player check calls to the river when the third spade hits...now what? There are also 2 others in the hand and you are sitting on TPTK. Do you still think you're good? After you call this kind of action down 10 times in a row and realize passive players never bluff the river, you will start getting better. Most of these guys will telegraph exactly what they are doing. You can also have a lot of fun jamming the pot via check raises, etc. when you think several of them are drawing at you.

Making $$. It won't take long for you to move up to the next level. .25/.50 plays a little tighter than .05/.10 and the players are a little better, but that is the case every time you move up levels. Enjoy the easy picking at nickle limit, the BB's get harder and harder to come by.

Making BB's Is Fun.

Good luck. If you catch me in IRC, let me know and I will play some nickel limit with you. BB's are BB's, no matter what the level.

I'm a student of the Lonnie 6 month poker education program.

I started playing limit at the end of October. I purchased Winning Low Limit Holdem by Lee Jones and started playing at Stars. Lonnie came and sat with me at the nickel tables a few nights and answered questions for me in IRC, sometimes in real-time. No collusion of course.

After a little over a month in, I've run my $50 roll up to $278 and purchased PokerTracker and SSH with some that I have cashed out.

All that has now been put into a party skin (with rakeback affiliate) so I can start tackling .50/1.00 and continue to build a BR for higher stakes.

If I haven't said it enough.... Thanks, Lonnie!

Here is sorta a mixed tip. I started playing play money limit.
This is lame. Lamer than lame. You are better off using real cards, and trying to just figure if your two cards are better than your cats'.

HOWEVER, it turns out that NL play money SNGs are actually reasonable practice. Because people will actually fold to big bets (not even all-ins, necessariliy).

If you want to play NL tourneis, I would try the play money NL tournies on party for a while - you should be able to ITM ~80% of the time (heck, you can often take 3rd posting and folding!) , and win regularly.

If you want to play limit, then pick a bankroll, like $50 or whatever, and play a game that's like 1/100th of it (so, .25/.50 for $50). When you hit 100X the next limit, move up. If you are really killing a level (>8 BB/100), you can try moving up at 50xBB.

If you don't know what 50XBB means, read more first.

A last piece of advice that I've never had to use (fortunately) is to DROP limits if your bankroll takes a real hit, and you cannot afford to reload.

I.e, if you drop from $50 to $20 - you can't play .25/.50 anymore. It's too easy to go on a bad streak - even if you play perfectly - and lose 40BB in a couple hours.

Is there a 6-month program for NL?

Deposit 250 on Party Poker.

Enjoy the fish fest. Read the forum.

6 months later, cash out 50k.

-'rilla

If only it were this easy ....

I've tried this approach. Unfortunately, thus far, I am apparently one of the fish donating to your 50k.

Any other ideas? Like starting at lower stakes NL games and working up to the $25 PP games?