The learning process in poker

Many people have asked me over the past few months how I went about learning the game and knowing what I do now. Well firstly, my method of learning the game wasn’t optimal and in fact…..one could actually consider it to be bad. I started my educational process at a time when the internet was in its infancy. This meant that I didn’t have access to the vast number of information outlets that people have today.

No coaching sites, no software to help me, no tutorial websites and no televised poker. I had one avenue and one avenue only and that was through poker books and on the job experience. But to highlight just how far poker players have come, the mediocre players of today would actually be better players than many of the professionals of ten years ago.

This is why online poker and poker in general has grown up. But in a way that is great because the interest in poker now is even greater than what it used to be. But the problem with attempting to learn poker from any source is that essentially you are trying to hit a moving target. Poker is forever evolving and this can be seen clearly in how the games are changing.

But the poker sites themselves of course are also responsible for contributing to the way that poker players are evolving. The introduction of multi-tabling, rakeback, SNG’s etc have all contributed to how online players have evolved. Even sign up bonuses have an effect on how people play as essentially people could easily be seduced into playing tighter poker simply because they want to clear the sign up bonus.

So it is clear then that the poker sites themselves have had a big hand in the evolutionary process of the online poker player. But when you attempt to learn poker on your own like I did then you basically have no one to tell you that what you are doing is wrong. Or that what you are doing doesn’t suit your personality or that what you are doing will shortly no longer apply.

So what happens is that you end up learning a mish mash of information that while useful, can leave you with more questions than answers. This is not how most educational processes work of course. This is why most schoolchildren are tested on a regular basis because regular testing is a far better approach than being tested at the end of the process.

This is why any learning must be dovetailed with actual playing experience otherwise you cannot possibly know that what you are learning is adequate or not.

If I were to advise anyone now on how to learn poker, it would be to specialise first and foremost. It is far easier to be an expert in a narrow field than a wide one. Specialising is the first step and you make it your goal to learn as much as you can on one form of poker…..this is what I did when I first started. With me it was limit hold ‘em but that was purely because limit was the number one game online at that time as the software to play no-limit wasn’t around.

Then you need to play as often as you can so that you can correct any flaws in the learning process. If you can do that and test yourself regularly and often then you will find that the road to making money in poker will be a lot easier than what you ever imagined that it would be.

/ Carl “The Dean” Sampson

Popularity: 1% [?]

Related posts:

• Nomation Process for 2011 Poker Hall of Fame Open on WSOP.com The WSOP announced today that fans will once again have a hand in the process of selecting a member of the 2011 Class for the Professional Poker Hall of Fame.  Starting today and continuing through August 14th, fans can go...
• Worldwide Online Poker Cash Games Down 22 Percent A couple of weeks ago, the three largest US serving online poker sites were indicted by the US Department of Justice. Since that time, traffic on these sites have dropped significant. However, now it appears that the sites indicted were...
• Disadvantages to Playing Online Poker There are many advantages to playing online poker.  At the same time, there are some pitfalls to playing online. If you are a live player looking to switch to online, you may want to take these into consideration before making...
• Poker Question Time : part 1 In this article I would like to digress slightly from previous articles and answer a few e-mail questions from certain readers who have contacted me through my website www.pokersharkpool.com regarding playing poker as a career and the viability of that...
• Sitting with an online poker pro Playing poker for a living in the online environment isn’t anywhere near the same as it is playing live. There are so many differences that skill in one will not necessarily transfer to another. The easiest transition is to go...