My first foray was on play money tables. Awful for learning good play, great for learning the rules of the game, hand rankings etc.

I'm not a good player yet, but my first 50% improvement definitely came from websites. There's a wealth of sound basics out there, free.

My next 50% improvement came from the strategy archives here, and just asking questions on hand advice and this forum.

The other thing that really helped was realising I needed to 'pay for lessons'. Which is to say, some stuff can only be learned by playing with the ideas for a few hundred hands at real money tables, and as a beginner that might mean making a loss.

FullTilt's poker academy is also really very good. And again - free.

Just my tuppence.

I don't recommend *starting* with reading books, though I think it's an essential part of the learning process. This is kind of how I started:

Play money tables are ok for teaching the structure and rules of the game, when actions happen, and so on. They're ok for teaching hand values (except, bear in mind that a lot of the players playing these tables will play trash that almost nobody in real money games plays). As the poster above me says, they most definitely do not teach good play. While you're playing these, lurk the hell out of the HA forum here, and devour strategy articles. A lot of these are worded to be more accessible to a new player than the books are, and may therefore be a better start.

After a bit of the above, I'd suggest playing some very low buy-in games of whatever type you think you'll enjoy (SNG/Cash - don't start on MTTs) - and you'll lose. But you'll know what goes on in real-money games. Keep your results, but bear in mind that they won't reflect your long-term ability. Post anything you get confused by here, or to someone who can help (I offer, but you can find better people than me).

This is the point where you should start reading books, I think. I won't go into much detail about which books to choose, but I find that dividing time 50/50 between reading and playing is good; it allows you to try the new concepts, and work them into your game bit by bit. Remember that you're likely to lose here as well, because you're playing a developing and incomplete strategy. Over the course of this period, though, you should start to feel more confident in your play (NOT necessarily better results, as I doubt the sample sizes will be high enough to reflect ability at this stage.)

Now comes the real subjective part - at whatever point you feel confident that you're playing well, you have to put in some volume, to find out where you're at. If it doesn't go well, return to studying books, and try again. If it goes well, return to studying, and try again. Repeat a few times, until you no longer think you're getting much benefit. Then repeat once more, for good luck.

(If you're still looking to improve after these steps, I suggest coaching or training sites, depending on personal preference)

Volume, volume, volume, volume, volume
...volume.

read Hand Advice here and the strategy sections on the 2+2 forum.

do some research on which poker video training website would fit you best, these are really helpful. I prefer cardrunners and pokerpwnage

Just play and see how you do, then read a few books and understand some of the main principles. It might give you a few ideas and more importantly help you understand how other people might be playing.

 

Originally Posted by toddytheboy

i reckon the best way to start would be 9 man sng's.

I think this is great advice. I started at the 9 mans, mostly b/c I didn't have time to play MTTs and larger SNGs and I know that experience helps me immensely when I make FTs now. STTs give you the opportunity to practice almost every element of MTT poker except deep stack play and full ring bubble play. Its no surprise to me that these are easily my biggest weaknesses. But I don't get nervous at FTs and always have extreme confidence that I'll be able to ship the tourney. Since all the money is in the last three spots of any tourney, experience in 9 mans is critical, b/c getting to the top three is the only way to make money in those, and you will never break even unless you get plenty of 1sts.

If you haven't read any books then read Harrington on holdem, all of them. They have lots of strategies and tournament play in em.

Just remember that its Texas HOLDEM, not Texas preflop favorite.

$20k

<span><span><span>Play money poker is helful for learning game rules and game structures. For play money I would suggest you to pick any of the website like pokerstars, fulltilt or any other from </span></span></span>http://www.casinoscorner.com/

Learn basic rules> the go for play money>Move on to books >Real poker.

 

Originally Posted by aletaseth

<span><span><span>Play money poker is helful for learning game rules and game structures. For play money I would suggest you to pick any of the website like pokerstars, fulltilt or any other from </span></span></span>http://www.casinoscorner.com/

Learn basic rules> the go for play money>Move on to books >Real poker.

<span>Along with this I feel in order to perform well in the long run and for a +EV , a newbie must have to walk that *extra mile*. He needs to learn Bankroll management and need to understand how big variance is in poker.</span>

<span>Best thing you can do is start playing and post hands on the forums.</span>

<span>Thanks
</span>