The Beginners Guide To Improving Your Poker

Poker is a game of both luck and skill. The first you can do nothing about, but the second (skill) can be improved. This short article endevours to show you ways to increase your skill level in that first step to becoming a consistent winning player.

I am assuming that you already know how to play poker, but if you don’t, please read up on how to play and have a look at the hand rankings section. From there, your first step should be to pick up a book, my recommendation would be Harrington on Hold’em: Strategic Play v.1.

After the first few chapters, keep your interest by playing a few Sit & Gos, trying out what you have learned. Sit & Gos are useful for honing your poker skills as they provide a relatively cheap way of playing many hands of poker. It is recommended that you do not play Sit & Gos for less than $1 or $2 as you will learn nothing useful from the kind of play that gos on in there. For this same reason, freerolls and play money tournaments are no good for learning poker.

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While playing your Sit & Gos, don’t forget to get back to your book and read. Reading is very important to master poker. It gives you other player’s viewpoints which you can compare to your own style of play. It is important to always analyse the way you play and try to improve yourself. Discussions with friends about poker may prove useful too.

When you have soaked up the wisdom that Dan Harrington has to offer (read all 3 books in his series), it is time to move on to a player with a slightly more aggressive style, Gus Hansen’s Every Hand Revealed. This book takes you through a tournament that he won, hand by hand, revealing his thoughts on the situation and why he played how he did. There is a lot to be learned by reading inbetween the lines, so do revisit the books you have read as your understanding of poker grows.

Remember, there is no better teacher than experience, as long as you constantly review your play and try to improve yourself. It might even be helpful to write certain plays down, remember, the whole situation must be taken into account, your chip stack and that of others, your position, and how both you and your opponent have played in the past. Of course, the cards must be taken into account too. Author: BSPokerGuy