Order of importance

1) Bankroll ( ability for deposits, withdrawls) Number one because without it there is no poker. It's what we strive to build.
2) Stakes within the bankroll
3) PT (unless you want to play $10Nl the rest of your life, you will need it to get better.)
3) Site (Bonus, Rakeback, Available tables at your stakes)
4) Table selection ( Do not sit at tables with players you can't beat)
5) Seat Selection at the table. This requires alot of discussion.
6) Starting Hands
7) Position in the hand
8)Pot Odds/Implied Odds. Learn these, they are fundementals at all levels
9) A hud. This will be discussed and for some like me, actually goes higher because without it, I have no idea about 4 or 5.
10) FTR. Believe it or not, without these guys, your going nowhere. Nobody is sitting at home and figuring this all out on their own, without friends, collegues or someone to give advice.

Ok this is up for debate. It's in the beginner section because it's rudementary and At $100NL, $200NL and up, things may change. We are discussing what a beginner needs to focus on. poker is not a "put $50 on stars and go pro". You need a thought process, You need to know what you are looking for. I think that position, starting hands, PT, site all need to be discussed. Some will think at the beginning, site doesn't matter. It does. I wasted a great deposit bonus with Party because I didn't know any better. I spent months grinding $5NL and $10NL at stars with no idea that position was as important as starting hands, even more so. We know who to thank. I was on FTR for 6 months and never posted a hand. Never went into No Limit Strategies. I posted 100 times in the commune before ever opening what I thought was so confusing a forum that I'm paying the price for it now. I have FTR last on the list but It's also first. Without it, there is no list, there is no poker. Your bust, redepositing like so many others. Start fresh. You have FTR. That's the real #1, but it is implied. This list takes over from that.

As I stated, it's not as simple as deposit, play and go pro. It's not just post a hand in the forum and what did I do wrong. You need to have answers to the questions. You will hear "It depends" alot.The answers you seek start ith the right questions and these important points are part of the question and the answer.

Sample. "I'm on Crypto $25NL, loose passive to my right reraises my Cbet and the board is"...... will give you alot more accurate info than, I had AA and the flop is KKJ, I raise villian reraises.... see where this is going. STOP SAYING VILIAN, unless you want to hear, was he... what reads... blah blah blah. Sop being lazy and telling us you have no reads, villians new, your new. Way to many hands with this tag line. Way to many, "why are you playing that hand from there...Too many,"why are you playing $100NL with only such in such a bankroll. Too many stupid answers, because there are such things as stupid questions.

Is the list close, what should the beginner look at, look for. What is the thought process. I'm posting this because I'm working on my thought processes. I've spent way to much time on the wrong things. i.e: starting hands, bonuses, 4 tabling, 8 TABLING, out of roll stakes. my thoughts have tobe changed and this is the start. AMIRITE???

EDITS>>>>
Ok, so by discussion alone, I was refuted in my philosophy about position and starting hands. I have switched them for now. I do warn beginners, learn position from the get go, but until it's actual able to be utilized. Until then just play the players.

I have added Pot odds/Implied odds. They are as important as any part of the actaul playing of the hands. Obviously a very lacking part of my game, recognized bythe fact I had not included it in my original list. I think they are as important or more important than some of the things above them, but I think learning the other things first makes it easier to learn and utilize them. i.e: What good is implied odds of Axsooted when you don't understand position and when to play it. They take a little to master too, so start learning them right away, with every hand you analize. I may need to separate these, or move them what do you think.

Originally Posted by Trainer_jyms

I have FTR last on the list but It's also first. Without it, there is no list, there is no poker. Your bust, redepositing like so many others. Start fresh. You have FTR.

FTR = Shania

Great post. I wish that before I deposited $50 at Party and Stars three years ago I had have read here or 2+2. Instead I just read ChipTalk.net and Scott Keen's pokertable forum. Awesome for chips and tables, but very limited for learning the game itself.

If I had have had this site or others more in-front of me I would have looked for a deposit bonus and tried to learn to work it. I wouldn't have played above my head (NL100 with $50BR). I would have though instead of insta-donk. I still donk a ton, but at least i'm a thinking donk now with a +EV and +ROI.

Beyond a good community to get ideas and criticism from, buying PokerTracker or PokerOffice is the best thing you can have to learn about your own play. If you get PT then you must have a HUD. I don't even think you can separate thse two from each other. It's yin/yang.

Just my opinion, but I think suggesting that a new player get pokertracker for anything other than analyzing their own play (ie. using a HUD) is bad advice.

A new player should be learning how to watch the action going on at their table and should be learning how to adjust to it. If you can't do that without the aid of a HUD, you are only going to go so far. It seems that way too many people on here have become reliant on their HUD as a substitute for real reads, and it can only hurt their game.

If you are using a HUD because you are an experienced player who is killing his/her stakes and you want to play more tables to make more money, then fine. But if you are just starting out and are using a HUD instead of learning to analyze the action, then to reuse an oft used phrase, you are only cheating yourself.

nh trainer.

for the thought process you talk about there should be a 10) analyze honestly your motives. its what made me think and adjust my game a lot lately. if your pt shows i´m too tight or loose or whatever, its elementary also to analyze WHY i play the way i play.



@pgil:agree. i think beginners should first start learning to see what information is avaiable, to absorb it instantly and to use it in the right way.
it cost me a lot of money, thinking "hey, now that gt+ is running, i can switch on my tv again...."

You guys are on the money. That is why hud was #8 and not #4 after poker tracker. I put right in brackets that poker tracker is needed pretty much right after you pick a bankroll and stakes to play. Without poker tracker, a new player is pissing in the wind. Anybody as a new player will not be able to learn the game, watch players and watch their own stats and get better all at the same time. The hud, as was stated, is strictly a multitable tool for more experienced players. There is no need to have a hud if your game is missing key elements like:
4) Table selection ( Do not sit at tables with players you can't beat)
5) Seat Selection at the table. This requires alot of discussion.
6) Position in the hand
7) Starting Hands
These are things a hud can't teach.

As for

for the thought process you talk about there should be a 10) analyze honestly your motives. its what made me think and adjust my game a lot lately. if your pt shows i´m too tight or loose or whatever, its elementary also to analyze WHY i play the way i play.

that is #3) poker tracker (it doesn't lie) and #9) FTR, we are here to help with the honesty, oh and we are honest.

So again I ask, is this list in an order that is right for the beginner. What would you change. If you are a beginner and you have your $100 on pokerstars, and are looking down at your 7)starting hand chart, and you start up a $5NL table without ever reading anything about 6)Position you have already fucked up and cost yourself time and money. Redeposit and Start again.

1) Patience

And for microstakes I'd move PT down with HUD and put starting hands before position.

Originally Posted by HalvSame

1) Patience

And for micro stakes I'd move PT down with HUD and put starting hands before position.

Ok, now see this is where I start to have my own personal battles. I did put starting hands before position when I played at the beginning, re: AoK's 19 hands as 1 example. At this moment in time, 6 months since my last deposit, a total of 121K hands in PT ($1,762.12), I still look at my cards before position when multi-tabling out of habit. I am trying to get the basics to be a one time do it in this order and learn it. I think that with learning position first, the starting hands become evident as well. If you start by raising ATo, KTo and QJo in every position, you may be alright at $5NL, maybe even $10NL but when you get to $25NL and up you are going to get served if your standard is to raise any of these from UTG in a game with 2 or more competent players. Yes the starting hands are important, but with no regard for position it will hinder your progress. When you learn the basics, They are the foundation of everything you learn after that. In golf, you learn to hit it str8 right from the beginning, You don't grip it and rip it, then fix balance while ripping it, then adjust grip and keep pounding the ball, then fix the posture while nailing $300+ yards your fighting the one inherent flaw all the while still letting the student hammer away at the driver. Yea you can do it, they can learn, but everything you teach is hampered by the fact that you have to teach the basics again before every lesson. If you just teach grip, balance and posture, the student will smoke 90% of golfers. Then you learn to rip it, while gripping, balancing and keeping good posture.

The end result is that everyone that works at it will learn to play with all of these points. But the focus from the building of a game from the foundation is what I'm after. Not protecting someones nickels at the $2NL table. We are trying to build a $500/$1k player from the ground up. Not helping someone beat the micro stakes for $50 in 10 weeks.

You can't really make a list that some beginner can follow to become a 500/1k player.

I'm not really going to continue with the starting hands/position discussion because you're really right; position is more important as you move up in levels. But I believe that the most important thing for a beginner is to build a bankroll and move up stakes, and I believe starting hand charts is enough to achieve this.

More points for the list:
* Hand reading
* Reads on opponents
* Adaptability (is this even a word? )

Position is more important for decent players because they have the skills to exploit it. Good cards are more important for beginners because they won't yet have the judgement to make the most of position.

at micros up to 10 or 25NL i´d put Starting Hands before Position. since most opponent play nothing but their cards u don´t have the positional advantage u have at higher stakes. u wont be able to steal a lot of pots in position, only very few opponents will respect a raise from utg more than one from button and so on. how often does the action go like limp-raise-reraise-call-AI, and how many ppl are sitting at 10NL tables buying in short "b/c its easier to go AI"

between 6 (now starting hands) and 7 (position) i´ll put a 6 1/2 "pot/implied odds". especially the implied odds concept is essential for setfarming, which will make you move up to 25NL all alone.

I changed them. One reason I have myself for doing so, is in the book NLHE T&P Sklansky explains leveling players. Without actually getting the book and quoting, Always play one and only one level above the players at your table. If your players are at level 0, (playing only their hands), don't play level 2 (what do they think I have in my hand). Play level 1, (what do they have in their hand). When your opponents move to the next level, level 1, move to level 2. When they get to level 2, (what do they think i have in my hand), move to level 3, (what do they think I think they have in their hand). And so on.

So with all that being said. Beginners should play level 1 which is their opponents hands (hand reading) and learn possition for when the players start paying attention to your hand

site should be higher. I agree in general with the rest but i feel position is less important in small stakes games because strong hands get paid at 25nl regardless. Limping AJo oop isnt a big leak whereas overplaying AJ in lp might be but thats certainly open to debate.

table selection should be much lower on this list. its important, but not more important than starting hands, postition, pot/implied odds, etc. a good player should be able to adapt his game to the table.