How does one go about becoming a good poker player without losing tons of money in the process?
Figure out which sort of Poker you want to play. Then:
Read books. Dave Sklansky has written a couple of good ones on Texas Hold’em and on the basic theory of poker.
(“Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players” or “The Theory of Poker” would be a good start).
Buy a software package that will train you to play the game in the comfort of your own computer. Look for software that claims to be “simulation and training” software as opposed to a simple Casino game player.
When you’re comfortable with the mechanics of the game, and have some handle on how the game works, then I would recommend going to your local casino and playing a little low-stakes poker. With a bankroll of a couple of hundred dollars, you should be able to play a little and see how you do. If you do go to a casino, get one of the players cards (sometimes called a “frequent loser” card in our house); you’ll accumulate points for meals and stuff based just on how long you play. Don’t drink alcohol while playing, even though thre drinks are (ostensibly) free.
Disclaimer: I am not a poker player, but have used a similar strategy to improve my Blackjack game to the point where I seem to be doing OK. I have not read the books I refer to above, but found them refered to on a reputable site.
Yeah, what Scruff said. Additionally:
Sklansky has excellent material, but he’s a pretty dry read. I prefer Mason Malmuth’s books. In any case, for a pure novice, I’d suggest Lou Krieger’s “Hold 'em excellence.” You can find top-notch poker books at ConJelCo (You can also find training software there). I’ve seen David Sklansky’s and Mason Malmuth’s books at Borders as well.
If you want to play without spending money, check out Paradise Poker. It’s an internet poker room, but they have a ton of “play money” tables that you can try out.
Oh, and check out Dan’s Poker Page for some good reading.
Hope that helps.
Your advice on poker seems very sound. How does this relate to Blackjack, a game that (with the exception of counting) seems to have no skill component one you have grasped basic strategy?
Make that “once you have grasped”
Hey Xema,
I had a very expensive blackjack lesson at our local casino (or as I prefer to think of it, I gave generously to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation). After that fiasco, I bought a book on Basic Blackjack and a software program, and am now at the point where my basic strategy is pretty solid, and I can usually stay in the game for a long time. Sometimes I make money, sometimes I break even, but on average for the year I’m up a little.
I figured that the way to learn Poker was somewhat similar, in that you need to practice the simple mechanics of the game, and figure out the equivalent of basic strategy for a poker hand. Now I know that poker is based on more than just the cards, and that you are playing against the other players rather than against the house, but I figure you still need to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. Hence my advice.
For me right now the “thrill” of playing blackjack is in playing the correct strategy; in knowing that I know what I’m doing and am playing better than some of the people at the table. I’m still not 100% on basic strategy, but I’m getting a lot better. And I get the odd meal comped as well, which is not too bad!
Right. The difference between blackjack and poker is that at the blackjack table it’s a team sport where everyone (even the dealer) should be on the same side and cheering for each other. Poker, on the other hand, basically consists of jackals (read people who know what they are doing) who sit around and wait for easy prey (read people who don’t know what they are doing) to sit down so they can steal all their money.
The only way to get good at poker is to play. Read some books and learn the odds on various hands (depending on what’s showing, etc.) and then you have to play. A lot of poker is reading other people’s faces, finding patterns in what they are doing while at the same time making yourself as unpredictable and unreadable as possible. So I would just go to some low-stakes poker games, during the morning and early afternoon at most casinos, and just keep playing. You shouldn’t lose too much money this way.
Watch people! Everyday watch people, learn to understand what they’re thinking just from their facial expressions and body language.
If you cannot read people you will never be a good poker player.
I took a Game Theory (math analysis of games, in a nutshell) class last summer… one of the games we studied was poker, and how to win (well, win more than you lose) mathematically. Unfortunately, applying this to the real world might be difficult, unless you get pencil and paper and a lot of time in between hands.
How do you become a good poker player?
Come play in my regular game. And bring money. 
Seriously, you know what you call a poker player who thinks the secret is in the cards and rules? A “loser.” Poker is 45% about the people, 50% about the money and only 5% about the cards.
If you’re looking for fun, avoid casino poker; those tables are full of professional players who sit, playing tight, waiting for someone like you to sit down and help them make rent. Instead, find or organize a home game (completely legal, as long as the “house” doesn’t make any money) and ease into the game at a financial level you’re comfortable with. If you play “over your head,” with money that you can’t afford to lose, you’ll never play well.
The game is the same worth $0.10, $10 or $10,000. Find a table you’re comfortable at, with people you won’t mind spending a couple of hours with and enjoy the game.
The Education of a Poker Player by Herbert O. Yardley is a good book and a fun read.
This is not really true. At low limits, it’s all about knowing the odds. You will capitalize on other people making mistakes. There are a few moves that you can make but you can’t bluff someone who is oblivious. If you’re playing at low limits (up to about 10/20) you’re wasting your time trying to read peoples expressions and looking for tells.
At higher limits, everybody know the odds very well and few people will make mistakes. Now it’s time to use psychology, tricks and bluffing. Facial expressions and body language is a bit more important but still only maybe 20% of the game if that. The science of tells is very overrated.
Back to the OP. I studied from books and software for six months before I ever sat down at a casino poker table. I won my first time out too. The advise to use Paradise Poker is excellent but be warned that it is much easier to win at the free money games than it is at the real money games. Use your play account to figure out the game you like the best. It is best to start out by becoming an expert at one game. Get some books on the game and read them. There have already been some good book suggestions.
Which game should you choose? I would start with either seven card stud (high) or Texas Hold’em (limit). These two games are the most readily available at the casinos. For stud you will need a better memory because you will need to keep track of what cards have been out for odds calculations. Hold’em is a lot more fast paced and therefore there will be larger money fluctuations. Hold’em has the advantage of you being much more likely to know for a fact that you have the best hand (the nuts). Play both games at Paradise and see which one you enjoy more.
An simple odds example. You are playing Hold’em and you have one card to come and you are holding four cards to a Ace high flush. You know that if you hit your flush you will win the pot. You have to bet $10 to see that card. Do you make the bet? It depends. Your odds of hitting the flush are about 4:1 against you. If the pot is less than $40, you fold. If it’s more than $40 you bet. Let’s say the pot it $60. You will lose $10 three out of the four times you make the bet in this situation (-$30) but you will win $60 one of four times. Your net profit in this situation is $30. Remember, it’s all one long game. You will never, ever win money at this game if you don’t know (or can quickly calculate) the odds of every situation that can occur.
Haj
I’d also like to briefly comment on the blackjack hijack. In order to be the most successful at bj, you need to memorize the correct strategy. Even if you play perfectly, you will still be a net loser in the long run. It is statistically impossible to win over the long run unless you become an expert counter which is a very, very difficult thing to do. Playing perfect blackjack strategy still gives the house an edge of about 1.5% so you can be ahead for a while before the odds inevitably catch up to you.
Haj
Hajario has got it about right. At low limits, being a winning poker player is all about collecting the money left on the table by other player’s mistakes.
If someone calls for an inside straight (11:1 odds against hitting it), with one card left to come and no further betting, then if the pot is laying less than 11:1, he will lose money in the long run.
If you don’t make the same mistakes, then you’ll collect some of that money. The pots you win will be larger than they should be.
When I started playing poker, I already had a solid math background, and had been a winning blackjack counter for years. But blackjack was boring, and it was hard to make serious money. So I moved on to poker.
I started by learning which authors were worth reading (David Sklansky, Mason Malmuth, Lou Krieger, Doyle Brunson, Bob Ciaffone), and read them. The “must-read” books are:
The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky
Hold’em Poker by David Sklansky
Holdem Poker For Advanced Players by Sklansky and Malmuth
For a well-rounded book on poker in general, you might try Super/System by Doyle Brunson, although it’s becoming dated.
Bob Ciaffone is a good writer, and Improve your Poker is a good book. I highly recommend Ciaffone’s pot limit book if you want to play pot limit or no limit poker. But this is by far the toughest type of poker you can play, so as a beginner you should steer clear of pot limit games.
If you’re mostly interested in low-limit poker, a good beginner’s book is “Winning low limit Hold’em” by Lee Jones. But beware, there is some incorrect information in the book which won’t really hurt you in the low limit games, but could burn you if you try to move up to tougher poker.
If you want to play online, I recommend the IRC poker channels. You can even download a graphical front end that’s pretty polished. And it’s all free. There are many good players there who use IRC to hone their strategy.
Finally, head on over to www.twoplustwo.com - You can order all of Sklansky and Malmuth’s books there. But the real treasure there are the forums, which are full of world-class poker players. Read their hand dissections and dissertations on strategy. It’s a gold mine. If you play a poker game, and you’r e not sure if you made the right play in a hand, post the hand details there, and a lot of very good players will tell you what you did right or wrong.
I’m a regular at Paradise Poker (or I have been off and on over the years), and I agree that it’s a good place to play, but I would very much recommend buying in and playing for real money if you do. The play money games bear no resemblance to reality, as people have nothing to lose and will stay in and call anything; just about every betting round gets capped.
It’s hard to lose big playing at the 50 cent/$1 table if you vaguely know what you’re doing, and it plays a lot more like a real game.
As others have pointed out, in low-limit games, psychology is not anything like the factor it becomes at higher stakes. It’s all about the cards, the pot, your position at the table (especially in hold’em) and knowing the odds. Once you have a handle on all that, then you can start bringing in the psychology.
Dr. J
haj said:
I agree. Learning to count is a bitch… err, or so I’ve heard.
Actually, learning to count at blackjack is trivially easy. I could teach anyone how to be a winning blackjack player in a weekend. Writing a computer program to play perfect blackjack is also trivial.
What’s hard is being able to do it for serious money in a real casino. Once you start betting $50-$500 per hand, the heat will come down, and you had better be very, very polished.
But if you want to go out and play $5/hand blackjack, count cards, and make $5/hr, that’s easy. Learn basic strategy, learn a hi-lo count, learn how to spot a good game, and have the nerve to spread your bets at least 8-1, and you too can make minimum wage at the blackjack tables. And it’s very rare that anyone gets barred playing $5 blackjack, so you don’t even need a good act. Just be pleasant, don’t be a jerk when you lose, and toss the occasional tip to the dealer (but sparingly - at $5/hr, you don’t have a lot of tip money). Don’t give them a reason to toss you, and they’ll leave you alone.
I think we agree here. Learning to count is easy. I know how it’s done. I meant that actually doing it is tricky in terms of keeping concentration and not getting caught.
Haj
Yeah, that’s where I’m at too. I’ve more or less learned the mechanics of HiLo (one of the simplest counts) but I’m not yet at the point where I can deal well with the distractions.
But at least I’m past the point where I move my lips as I look at the cards; I understand that’s something of a giveaway…