The Concept of Learning Poker part one

What you can end up doing if you are not careful is learning tons of stuff about poker that sounds good when you are down the pubs with your mates and helps you to talk the talk. But the material that you have learned has no relation to what you are going to encounter the next time that you fire your computer up or play at your local casino.

If you have been studying the game for about a year or two from starting at the beginner level then you have basically scratched the surface. At this early stage you will probably be blissfully unaware of how important it really is to understand yourself as a person in order to know what is the correct path to take with regards your poker career.

It took me a long time to realise that my personality was not suited to playing certain forms of poker. You are potentially making a huge error if you try to emulate or copy someone else. This applies however good or famous the player is that you are looking to copy. Chances are that the way that they play will not fit your own personal style but many players never ever get to know what their own style actually is because they spend too much time copying and not enough time thinking and analysing.

For instance, I have certain character traits that prohibit me from having what I consider to be a positive expectation in many forms of poker. I lose concentration after several hours which is not good for tournament poker and long cash game sessions. I become bored by inaction which is not good for playing full limit or no limit Texas Holdem ring games.

I love the mind games and psychological warfare that are in poker which are mainly absent when you are multi-tabling. I struggle to stay disciplined when I play below certain stakes. Once again I could go on and on repeating scenarios where I would be playing less than optimal poker but the point is that you must be aware of what suits your personality.

The poker boom has brought with it vast numbers of new players who are all eager to play poker. The vast majority of these people have seen poker either on television or through poker magazines and the internet. The form of poker that they have been introduced to initially has been no limit Texas hold’em.

Without realising it, they have actually been introduced to what is perhaps the most testing and brutal form of poker that there is. But even when people do indeed realise how tough it is or if someone tells them then many players misunderstand why this form of poker is just so tough.

Look out for the next part of this series coming shortly.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Winning Cash Game Poker”