Poker Tips for Newbies! - I even told my girlfriend

Recently both my girlfriend and my brother started playing poker online. I've been helping them a few steps of the way, but I noticed how de-centralized newbie advice on forums was. So in an effort to help I'm creating this discussion to see if I can give them a place to go when they are looking to improve their game. Here is a few tips I've written for the newbie, I would love it if people added to them!


It was not long ago that I was just starting out, playing online poker in my spare time. I had been playing cards since I was four: my grandmother taught me poker at a young age so I would learn to count. Soon I was in the principal’s office for running a poker game while I was supposed to be playing go fish with the other kids. Not my fault they were too stupid to bet their lunch money.

Anyways, in the past three years I have joined the online poker community and succeeded in establishing a moderately successful level of play. Right now I want to give newbies some tips on how to approach the game, as well as places to get advice.

1) I want to point out that no matter how much you succeed early in your online poker career, it does not mean you are good. I started with $50 on party poker, and turned it into $500 in the course of 10 days. I thought I was the best on the site, and just pulled my money out and spent it. Later what I learned is that I had just gotten lucky, after reading lots of books, I realized that I was chasing cards I shouldn’t have been, and hitting them at an amazing rate. I wasn’t playing well, in fact I was awful but had gotten lucky. Winning isn’t always a factor in analyzing your play, only consistent winning is.

2) When you win, do not expect to keep winning. After my $50$500 week I began to run low on cash. I bought in for another $50 on Party poker, and expected to have the same results. I made money ($25). Lesson here is never depend on poker money. Put an amount aside, (I recommend starting with $200) and play with it for as long as you can. If you do things right, you’ll never need to add anymore money from your savings.

3) Why will you never need to add any money? Because you will have bonuses. The idea of a bonus, as I see it, is to learn to play the game with a safety net. If you lose a lot of your money at the table, the bonus will either make up for losses or still give you a slight profit. There are already too many places on cardschat.com to talk about bonuses (including its own section). A good place for advice is bonuswhores.com. They also have a place to show you the order in which you should play certain sites, based on their bonus and your bankroll.

4) You will need books and tools to play the game. The first is read David Sklansky’s “Small Stakes Hold’em”. In addition, you should get a program called poker tracker. What this program does is save the hands you have played and creates data out of them. This shows you trends in your play, and trends in others play that you can use to your advantage. It also keeps track of your bankroll. A good way to get these books and programs is www,boogster,com If you sign up through them, they give you points on top of the sites bonus. These points can be turned into online poker gift certificates (act just like cash after a few hands), or the points can be rewarded for books, computer programs, and electronics.

5) The last thing I have to say is about bankroll. The number #1 lesson is to not play past your ability. You should have [300 x (the big blind)] in order to play at that level. So if you are playing .25/.50 you should have $150. There are tons of good posts about bankroll on this forum, please search and read them. Also, there are tons of misconceptions about poker playing ability. Please do not think because you are getting beaten by people with 2/7 and 2/9 at .25/.50, you should move up to $1/$2 because the players will be better and not play hands like that. You need to learn to win at the lower levels, because it’s the people at the higher levels who should be still playing .10/.20 that you will take the most money off of.


So it’s just a little advice. I hope it helps a bit. Create a discussion!

tips for newbies-

-dont play cards with one big one and one little one
-dont play cards like KQ or AJ to a raise/re-raise, fold KQ, KJ in EP at a full table
-dont try to slowplay much if it all
-dont limp too much, come in for a raise preflop if you're gonna play a pot
-Dont go broke with just top pair/top kicker
-notice the style your opponets are playing
-know the way the other players perceive the way youre playing


im sure i can think of some more i'll post later

Read read read some books on poker. There are people that have played for a long time, and had good success that have been willing to share their winning strategies through books.

Learn pot odds and implied odds. This can mean the difference between a losing or winning poker player. The main principle here is learning how many outs you have at any given point.. and how that relates to the size of the bet to you, and how much money is in the pot.

When you're just starting out only play "Top 10 Hands"
AA, AK, KK, AQ, QQ, KQ, AJ, JJ, KJ, QJ.. once you are comfortable playing with those hands, then start adding more hands like AT, KT, QT, JT, TT, suited connectors and small pocket pairs... but DON'T add them all at once.. slowly add them to your hand selection, and keep track of how well you do with them.. If you do well, then add another hand. Do this until you have a good selection of starting hands which you can consistently do well with. This strategy is especially important for playing online.

Learn to identify the types of players you are up against. One of the most important things about playing poker is being able to identify what possible hands your oponnent has. If you know what types of hands a player raises pre-flop with, or just calls pre-flop, then you can use that to your advantage in how he plays the hand post-flop.

DO NOT bluff! At least in the early going, and certainly not at the "Micro" tables. IE. $0.01/$0.02 ->$0.05/$0.10. This is a strategy that you will want to learn after you can play a good "straight" game. It is an important aspect to poker, but if you don't have a good grasp of the basic game.. bluffing will spell disaster for you.

Hello WilliamJames and welcome to Cardschat.

Very nice and well thought out first post - and there's more information in an article in our strategy section - Advice for Beginner Poker Players.

Also feel free to create an introduction thread.

quickie:
when you are at a table, regardless as to whether you're still in a hand or not, try to guess what a certain opponent has from the beginning of a hand and see how right you are when he shows it down. This is a great way to practice your hand reading skills.

another quickie -

when you look down at your cards that you have been dealt, an ace is a beautiful sight, but if your other card is something low - throw it away! this takes some discipline at first, but it goes along with what spore said about only playing premium hands.