What advice can you give to new players?

[CriesuaID]

Be patient and don't make a big bet to try to recover any losses you may have.

 

[korbal29]

study and learn the game ,there are so many skills needed to be a winning player. Also you will need to get rid of the bad habits you will pick (tilting, drinking and substance abuse, etc) along the way. Its very hard to make an easy living

 

[uri73796]

Take poker seriously or throw it to hell

 

[Jedrey]

Be calm, don't give ALL in too often .. unless you have high cards lol.
And lastly ... Play, play, play and play ... just as you learn

 

[NickeLine22]

Never limp!)))

 

[monkey23]

learn how not to lose...the winning will take care of itself.

 

[HolePairs]

bankroll Management. You need to focus on this 1st. If you aren't playing the right games and buy ins for your bankroll you are setting yourself up for disaster even before you begin

 

[antonis32123]

Patience , Good Bankroll Management acccording to the rules the pros and this forum advertise , deep study of the game every week some hours and some hours game so as to improve , total control of tilt or else take strict measures to deal with it , choose the best games where you havean edge you can be best at all , see where you have more profit

 

[vano02]

speaking in a sense of someone who would be almost entirely new to poker i would separate things into two scenarios.

If you want to play for fun and as a hobby - study all of the hand rankings and engrave them into your brain. Second, learn all of table positions - followed by CONSTANT study of all of your proper opening ranges. Third, do a little research on proper bet sizing and what it has to do with your stack depth. Fourth - dive on in and enjoy yourself - only play the stakes you can afford to lose.

The second scenario would be for someone looking to take the game seriously and try to generate some income from it even if it is only played as a hobby and recreationally.

First - if you dont know the hand rankings, table position and proper opening ranges -- study that hard until you have it down packed by memory. These are the basics, to further grow your game you MUST know these.

As you begin playing - practice good bankroll management. Never invest more than you can afford to lose as a whole. For MTTs I would recommend 100-150 buy ins of your tournament level. For cash games around 50-60 buy ins is generally acceptable for a minimum. Secondly practice good game selection - this means find the best bang for your buck structures, the softest fields - find a few games you can crush and then play them relentlessly!! I would also advise any new players to begin their journeys in the micros - the lowest level you site (or sites) of choice has to offer. If you cannot beat the worst players in the fields - moving up will only cause you to hemorrhage money. Consider it a right of passage. By all means if you can afford to dive right into $22 and $33 MTTs - have at it, but if you cant beat those little $1 games - the mid stakes fields will eat you alive. This is just the harsh reality of things.

Moving on - - Once you have the basics down -buy yourself holdem manager or poker tracker 4 -- you will need to log your hands to evaluate your play and move onto other steps to improve your game - which leads me to my next point of advice -- dedicate at least 2 days a week to studying the game.

Little point of tracker program advice - I wouldn't worry about using a HUD unless you have a pretty decent feel and understanding of the game -- trying to look at and deduce tendencies from stats will do you no good if you dont fully understand what you are looking at and why it either is or isn't important. I had pt4 for 2 years before I ever used the HUD and even today I only utilize about 6 stats.

To study and improve - you will need some sort of source to find out what is generally acceptable and what is not -- you're already here and this is a great place for most of that content. So, when you begin to study - make a list of 3 - 5 things you would like to improve on im your game -- keep them next to your PC while you play and work on those points hard until you have them down to your liking. Cross something off the list and move on until you have something new you would like to learn/improve on. We cannot evaluate our play and SEE what we are doing without the tracker programs - so this is a MUST have tool for anyone looking to take their game seriously.

Soak up all the content you can, dedicate yourself to becoming better at this game. If you do not commit, you simply will not succeed. This game is not for everyone and will test your mental fortitude on the daily basis - if you are not ready to handle that, perhaps you should play moreso for fun. The swings are real, and they happen to EVERYONE. So make sure you mentally understand what you are getting into. There are tons of great books on poker mentality and tilt. I firmly do not believe there is a "one size fits all" solution to tilt - we as humans are unique and each individual differs from the other. We may be cut from the same cloth, but we are not all the same and so I don't believe that the same solutions work for 100% of everyone else. This will be trial and error for you to find out what works best in your case.

Lastly as you improve and you imurse yourself in this game - when you finally do start winning -- and if you work hard enough, play correctly and follow the basic math (ie:: getting your money in good over and over) -- then you will win over the long term - take those winnings, be prideful and invest in yourself!! Buy another piece of helpful software like ICMizer for MTT players, or Poker Snowie for the cash grinders, etc -- these tools will only help you become even better over your journey. If you feel like you have learned all you can on your own - get coaching or sign up for a training site. Coaching was personally the best thing i ever could've done for my poker game..

Investing in yourself doesn't always have to be new things to help your poker game grow - buy yourself something nice once in a while. Buy a new monitor, a new pair of shoes, a new pc, a nice dinner, etc - its nice to reap the rewards for all of your hard work, you should be able to enjoy some of it. After all, you earned it!

I know this is long and probably a bit ranty - but overall, I hope it comes across helpful. Thanks for reading - good luck at the tables!

Edit::: One more final piece of advice -- variance is real in cash games and tournaments. The way we overcome variance is to put in proper volume.. Speaking from an MTT perspective - you will need to play about 100 games per month to overcome variance. The more volume you put in - in general- the better your chances of beating variance should be. I work a full time job mon-fri and I work about 2 Saturdays every month -- I average 200 games per month - this brings me to my point, that it is entirely possible to have a job and be able to achieve this, you just have to really want to do it.

What an excellent post! Thank you. I’ve been getting into PLO CG more seriously recently, starting at the micros. It’s such a good university, not in how to play, but how not to. Adjustments will be necessary when moving up in stakes but you really get the hang of fundamentals, starting hands especially, and bet sizing. As PLO is very swingy it’s also great for training the mindset and experiencing downswings showcasing the importance of BRM. Everything you say, basically. The hardest part is to practice what you know in theory. A lot of players, sometimes myself included, think the first and the latter go hand in hand. More often than not, they don’t. Again, great post. And great encouragement!

 

[bruno1234poker]

Never give up!!! Try again and again and again!!! Each hand is a lesson.

 

[No Bologna]

No Bologna

Prepare yourself for alot of all ins and bad beats. Other than that, have fun!

 

[funkymoney]

don't lose patience with bad beats. Play a steady game and take risk depending on the situation of the game

 

[azforlife]

Poker is a game of cards but really it is a game of tests, test of discipline, test of character *with other Poker players/integrity, test of skill, test of emotional intelligence, test of risk tolerance and assessment.
So it's you vs YOU vs THEM

 

[Zeke67]

Patience grasshopper patience!!!

The one piece of advice I would give to someone who is just starting to play the game and who wants to enjoy playing while constantly learning/improving is to be very very patient!! You WILL lose many hands where the ‘odds’ say your so far out in front that you can’t possibly lose!!! If you are really playing ALOT and trying to absorb as much information as possible in a limited amount of time you will see some very strange run outs!! Most of which cost you quite a bit of money. But that’s poker. Be patient and keep your cool. As a young player you will hear, “He’s on tilt!!” Try to keep your emotions under control. Emotion really has no place in a poker game because it tends to cloud your judgment. Try your best to be very very patient with your emotions in check. If you are making poker game play decisions based on your emotions you are in a very bad place that can only get worse. You want to keep your personal feelings out of your game play. So my advice to any new player to this great game is be patient and keep emotions OUT of your decision making progress!!

 

[Nathan Williams]

The big 3 for beginners are learning the right strategy, game selection and tilt control.

For strategy I suggest TAG, tight and aggressive. This means playing a tight range, playing attention specifically to your position at the poker table and remaining aggressive after the flop.

Tilt control is something that begins away from the tables with a solid diet, regular exercise/meditation and sleep. You also get better at it with experience.

Game selection is the holy grail of success in poker. If you aren't playing against bad players (worse than you), then you won't win, period. You need to make sure that there is always at least one clearly identifiable "fish" at your table.

These 3 are the most important in my opinion. But I also recently put out a video with my top 14 best beginner poker tips for 2021:

 

[Mityamoriss]

Be patient!

 

[deeznutzz]

You don't become good poker by playing poker. You become good at poker by studying poker.

 

[pribalt49]

I would like to advise new players, before starting to play for money, first play play money for 2-3 weeks or play freerolls, and then just start playing for money starting with a small amount.

 

[Argylegreg]

Don't put more money in your account than you can afford to do without.
Do expect to lose
Do expect to say to yourself "you called with that!" When your kings get busted by someone holding 8,3 off suit.
Do expect to get frustrated.
Do expect (with online) to start believing it's rigged.
When the fun stops, stop.

 

[Elfina777]

Advise new players to play wisely, lose only the amount that you can not worry about, if you lose with a strong card, luck will surely come.

 

[Zirkzee]

Beginners often play too many hands. Just because you have an ace doesn't mean the hand is good. You also need a good kicker. Otherwise you will lose a lot of money just because your opponent has a better kicker. Pay attention to the position. It is much more profitable to play in position than out of position. Because of this, you can play more hands in late position than in early position. When playing a hand, you should play aggressively. No Limit in particular lives from aggression. Don't inflate pots with bluffs. Only bluff when you have a drawing hand or when you make a continuation bet.

 

[uri73796]

play cards and don't bluff

 

[Fushicho]

Never look at the suit of your cards pre-flop.

 

[sharipov8090]

It all depends on what goals you set for the game.You can slowly get into the truth of the knowledge of the game by studying its sides in the courses without spending a lot of time.And you can fully devote yourself to the game and delve into it so the time of day will not matter to you.It all depends on you and your desires.All information about the game can be found here on the website.

 

[avangard555]

Connect the program for collecting statistics, play, collect a database of hands. And leave an application for training in any poker school. All ... Then all the work will be done for you. It is unrealistic to develop in modern poker without training