Improving As a Player

Poker is like a hot air balloon in a sense that if there is a big hole in the balloon we have several options. We can do nothing about it and gradually come back down to the ground (most likely breaking our face). Or we can work on it slowly and attempt to patch it up, eventually fixing the hole and lifting up higher.

If you are unable to put the above together it’s pretty simple. By making no effort to fix our leaks and study, we are constantly playing poker with holes in our game which does not sound like a lot of fun. However, if we dedicate ourselves to improving as a player, we are able to patch the hole up one step at a time and work on becoming a successful poker player.

This was me about a little over than 1 year ago asking for a freeroll password. I am nowhere near a good player which is why I’m not writing a strat post, but I feel that I have improved a tremendous amount since the times that I was worried about when CC was going to release there freeroll password?!?!? and really want to help out younger players in pointing them towards the dedication and right path that needs to be taken to become a good player.

Always focus on improving as a player and make that your main goal whenever you discuss any form of poker. I find setting out a specific schedule on when you will study/review hands very satisfying and highly recommend it because it will sort of force you to work on it. For example, I normally play from 9:00am-11:00am, browse CC and look at HH's after, then study whether its watching a video or reading a book after midnight. Obviously it will depend on your social life and but it can be easy to balance your life with poker. Various options are given to us for free that we need to take advantage of to get better and I will list these options and hope others can add on to more ideas:

1) ) Read x amounts of HH’s every day. A key concept is that you must work out the hand yourself by going through each street and assessing the opponent’s ranges. You don’t necessarily have to post but make sure to read what the better players have to say and compare that to your answers.

2) Read x amount of articles on http://www.cardschat.com/f49/ or on 2p2 located here http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69...hreads-430489/ and review and work on each new concepts each week.

3) Join a study group or contact people on skype who are constantly talking about poker. The more you talk about it, the more you will learn from it. If you want to join a group pm me and ill give you my skype.

4) Get a subscription at a poker training site and make it an effort to watch a video each night or every other night. Watching a video will open up your eyes to basic spots you thought were standard but weren't, or just opportunities that your missing by folding too much when there was a chance to steal the pot.

5) Make it an effort to read a certain amount of books in a month whether its ranging from 1-5 books.

6) Analyze you hands through your HUD database and get out pokerstove (http://pokerstove.com/) and put in ranges and see if your making mistakes or not. This will help you with hand reading since your always trying to assess what your opponent could have.

I'm sure that there are tons of more options but these are the one's I can think of on the spot. Poker takes a lot of dedication (ask some of the really good players here and they will tell you) and it is extremely important to put in effort on improving. Otherwise, playing with a bunch of leaks likely won't end on a positive note.

tl;dr

I like the post and enthusiasm you have throughout it buddy

7) Always find ways to maximize the value of your premium pairs.

Great post Tyler..you are an asset to this forum

Great post Tyler, the only thing that I would suggest is to not overload yourself. I know a lot of people that when they are "studying" poker, they will try to absorb so much info in such a short period of time that they really aren't learning from it. I remember a couple years ago commenting on someone's post because they were watching poker vid's from a training site, while making notes from previous sessions and playing a session, ALL AT THE SAME TIME! You will not get anything out of this type of thing. Reading more than one poker book in a month probably isn't going to allow you to really absorb the pertinent info in it, you should probably rather read through it slowly a couple times and play sessions in between trying to implement new strategies.

At the beginning of Dusty's book(Treat Poker Like a Business) he talks about how video training sites should be utilized over time. You will not get anything out of watching 30 vids in 30 days unless you are playing some long sessions every day after watching each video. You just won't be able to utilize the information that you learned in the video if you're watching 4 videos between sessions.

Everything you said will in fact help you start to become a better player, but I think it should be spread out over a larger period of time.

Ya that's a great point and something I forgot to state in my original post lol. Of course don't do all of these or else it's just like not studying at all. Pick a couple and stick to it for a hole month and see where that takes you

thx tyler
great points that I have to put to use,
i try to absorb alot/play lot, but
-I dont study HHs often
-got my 1st book, but have barely touched
-no HUD with little understanding of what their numbers even mean
-had chances to skype/study- but dont
i better get more serious- cuz Im almost at the point of tilting all my long hard earned winnings away(again)
sure glad i love coming to this forum, only thing thats helping me

Awesome post.

Good stuff. I'd add one thing at the top though. It's to figure out what your poker goals are. They can change over time, but fairly early on, if you want to become a really good player who makes meaningful money from poker, it's going to take more commitment and effort than if you just want to be a winning low-stakes recreational one.

bump

me likey

I lol'd so ****ing hard

If somebody had told me this a couple years ago I would have thought, "yeah right, don't sweat it cause I can handle it." As a poker buddy once told me when I tried to pull the "I'm just a newbie compared to everyone else who has decades of experience on me.", he said, "I'm not buyin that crap - I don't know anyone who puts in the hours studying like you do."
It's true but after about a year and a half of being a sponge I just recently reached a point of no return. I had so many books and vids going I couldn't remember anything, let alone apply it at the table. It became very counter productive. I had to shut everything down and go from about 20 hours a week live to not playing at all waiting for my mind to clear (it's been 4 weeks now). Just starting to get some clarity and focus back.
One big change I've made is to focus on ONE teacher at a time. This brings some continuity of thought and paradigms of play. Understanding what I do now, it was ridiculous to think anyone could jump around back and forth from Gordon to Harrington to Sklansky to Miller to Gaines and then add magazine articles and assorted videos - many times within a single week.
By limiting myself to studying one teacher/author things make much more sense and elements of play build on one another. Not to mention getting the all important teaching tool of repetition of concepts being presented.

Good quality post Tyler - get this man a free roll password!!!

Good point..Last poker book I read I would read a couple chapters then go and play for a bit then read a few chapters and back n forth like that until the book was finished.

TYLER,INTERESTING HOT AIR BALLOON-LEAK THEORY,NEVER EVEN THOUGHT OF IT THAT WAY,YOU GOTTA POINT THOUGH ABOUT STUDYING TO GET BETTER.
THANKS FOR SHARING TYLER.... P.S.) WHATS HH? IM GUESSING HARRINGTON ON HOLEM? THE BOOK?

thanks , very nice info and post

hand history?

Yes, Hand History.

Cool... but what's the password?

This is a pretty solid study list. I agree with most of it and have spent many (way too many) hours doing a lot of this, specifically, HH review, database analysis, and reading/ watching training content.

About a year and a half ago I found the Leak Buster app for Holdem Manager which combines, simplifies, and makes quickly accessible a lot of these steps. It's basically a lifetime membership to database analysis and training content that points out and helps you correct your leaks, and gives you advice on your biggest losses and trouble hands. Saves me a ton of time now which I need, because all of the studying was beginning to burn me out.

To really know poker you have to put in the hours and hands. It's not going to happen overnight. The more hands you play the better you will become at different spots. gl all.

So you mean it's "lift right paw = allin"? pfff... no wonder then