Watching online poker

As i'm new to poker I was wondering about something and since I just joined here I thought I would ask you guys

(apologies if this is in the wrong section I am new to this kinda stuff)

So...............

do any of you guys watch any online poker to improve your game?

I have been watching todays freeroll and some of the games on fulltilt.

I am looking at the lower levels as that is where I will have to begin and trying to get a feel for the levels of play involved

do any of you guys do the same? and if you do what stuff did you learn from doing it

inti

I'd say that you'd get wayyyy more benefit from posting one hand that you played and want feedback on compared to watching a good few hours of people playing.

id only watch like well known successful players that have a long winning track record or known to play well. not really the well known tv personalities but the ray davis type players ie theyre really good but the average poker player dont know who they are.

i wouldnt watch lo limit stuff, ur probably not gonna get the best ideas on how to play there. ur probably more likely to see things u shouldnt do lololololo.

There are very interesting final table replays on PokerStars with exposed hole cards, very instructive. I think often are good players involved and itīs a nice training. This way you get a feel or the card distribution, the game flow and so on.

I agree with onemorechance, in that you would probably learn a great deal more if you posted a few hands in the "Hand Analysis" section, than you would learn from watching tv shows. I enjoy watching a few hands of the Poker Stars replays, it's interesting to see how people play during a tournament, their bluffing and folding frequencies, etc. You can definitely learn something from all three, undoubtedly.

At low levels, I personally feel that trial and error is as good as it gets. Provided you can afford it, I'd recommend depositing between $20/$50 or so and getting stuck in at the tables. $1 Sit n Go games and 0.01/0.02 ring (cash) games buying in for $1 a time (which is 50x your BB). Don't have any disillusions of turning your first deposit into thousands, just put a small amount on to experiment with (and ultimately, probably, to lose). Try Tight Aggressive and Loose Aggressive styles, see which one works for you. There is absolutely NO substitute for getting stuck in, winning a few hands, being on the losing end of others and LEARNING. Make mistakes - just don't make them twice.
Of course, you may slip straight into a comfortable style and find that you can grind a profit at these stakes immediately; this usually takes a while though.

Watching poker online (especially watching freerolls) is probably the worst medium available to improve your game. You don't see the cards unless you get to an all-in showdown, so you never know if someone made a genius play or a donkish over/underbet. The only way you would learn anything which would potentially improve your game is if you could see everyones cards, study strategies (preferably focusing on a small selection of players), and effectively steal some moves to impliment in your own game.
The replays of the final tables on pokerstars are ok as they show the cards of every player, but the players are usually hugely stacked and often playing very tight as the cash involved is enormous. It just plays out like an uber-tight, high stakes deep stack SnG.
T.V. poker is a good way to learn IF (and this is a big if) you get to see EVERY hand.
Most of the TV games (like WSOP coverage) only show highlights. Even when focusing on one table there will usually be a hand counter in the top corner, and if you check that out you'll see that often dozens of hands fly by unseen, showing only 5% or so of the action - just encounters where a lot of chips change hands or players get KO'd. Basing your game on these televised tourney is a mistake, it'll make you way too aggressive as they make poker appear to be an action packed game, when the truth is that its 80% waiting for a spot to pull the trigger, 20% action.
Its understandable that the shows edit this way, focusing on the action gets ratings and ratings mean Poker stays on the television, but even so I look at them as fun to watch, not great to learn from.

The Full Tilt academy is a pretty good medium (if you haven't already joined it). There are video's available to anyone to watch which let you see pro's playing through a tournament and talking you through every decision. You see their cards, hear their though process and watch the results - IMO (which is never humble) its the second best online teaching method after hiring a personal coach/ghoster.
Of course, Cardschat comes a close third too! :-)
Posting a few hand histories here will get you a couple of arse kickings, and a lot of helpful advice. (the arse kickings stop after a short while)!
Best of luck - and stop watching freerolls, get involved!

By the way, I hope this actually helps and isn't just page of nonsense!
Welcome to the forum buddy.

if you really want to watch some poker plays. Watch past games on Poker Stars replays of tournaments. You can see every ones hole cards, and watch how the hand develops, Watch the WCCOP series when they start up.

Learning on televised poker is trouble, as it's a different situation. You're either at a shot stacked final table (WPT) or all the boring stuff is edited out (HSP, WSOP, etc.) or people have to be exciting to get invited back (HSP & PAD) or there is some other gimmick going on.

The best way to learn is to educate yourself. There's a lot going on and so many things change depending on the situation. For example, sometimes you fold A/K pre-flop, and sometimes you call a shove with 6/4. It's all situational.

Reading Harrington on Hold'em is a great way to understand the various stages of the game, and the implications of chip levels and table image.

It's sort of like algebra. AB+C = D
You won't ever know the value of D without knowing the values of A, B, & C. If you know A, B, & C are all low numbers (a range of 1-10 for example) then it's best to know what A & B are as they have a greater potential impact on D, but still you need to have a fairly good idea of each factor to understand what D can be.

My point is, just watching other people without cards revealed, it'd harder to figure out what's going on. And if you're watching freerolls (where play is bad) you might even come to wrong conclusions.

That is, winning the hand doesn't mean it was a good play in the long run, so you shouldn't necessarily make the make that same move just because you saw it win somewhere else, in another situation.

I found what you can learn in the FTP class rooms help alot. That why i still go and read and watch what they have to offer

Don't just watch people play to improve your game because that isn't going to work. If you do watch people play you're going to want it to be a dedicated coaching video where they are explaining the game theory and reason behind the decisions. If you just watch someone play you're going to invent your own reasons as to the thought process behind their decision and 99% of the time you're going to be wrong.

Watch COACHING vids or don't watch anyone play online at all outside of an entertainment value.