when do you know you finally "get it"?

[snowlarbear]

was wondering is anyone had any experiences where they finally said, hey, i get this poker thing (enough to make some money).

is it a sudden epiphany while playing, or is it the type of thing where you look at your PT stats and notice you're playing the right way?

[bwana devil]

Been playing seriously for a year and I still "don't get it" when I move up a level I shouldn't play. It's a slow learning process and never does a light bulb go off transforming you from a bad player to a good player. It's a journey.

[jar]

When I started helping my girlfriend learn the game, I realized just how much I've learned. I've had that experience in several areas recently. I'm a teaching assistant, and this is the first term I've worked an intro level course. When you are trying to help someone learn something and you have a brief moment of not knowing where to start because there's so much you could say, that's when it really hits me how far I've come.

[Izaak_Walton]

Never heard of holdem until last winter. Got Hoyle Casino Games CD from Walmart to pass the time at boring job. Ignored poker until coworker said to try.

Learned game, practiced until comfortable.

Played online for funny money for the first time the evening before Easter Sunday of this year. Won $86,000. Even though it was fun money, this caught my attention.

Sent for Turbo Texas Holdem practice program. Used it for 2 days--could beat the computer consistently, so said "what the hell" and went for real money.

Ups and downs since then. Got books and studied. Played limit for months but got SO bored.

Tried NL a couple of weeks ago, and now it's my game. Am not a good poker player, that takes years of study and practice. At this stge I think of myself as a fairly efficient money-skimmer who can show a fairly consistent profit by playing tight while I continue to learn.

[Clemtown53]

I think of “getting it” as a process. Epiphanies are commonplace as you learn the game. Not folding to one bet on the river, learning to play proper starting cards, playing based on position and not just hole cards, etc… are all epiphanies of sorts as you learn the game, some much bigger than others.

My recent epiphany was calculating pot odds on a flush draw with the nut flush draw the other day. I typically have to stop myself, look at the pot and calculate the odds, this time I had kept track of the BBs without looking at pot size, made the correct call and hit my flush. It felt damn good.

[onegymrat]

I only play live, but a rookie friend and I were waiting for an opened seat. We were on the rail overlooking a low-limit game. Right before showdown on a certain hand, I whisper to my friend regarding the bettor, "He's got 10-8, watch." Lo and behold, I was right. It suddenly appeared to me that all the studying and playing have finally absorbed, and if I just didn't deny my instincts DURING a hand, I will make a few bucks off this game.

[brian14]

when you can own your friends

[Ianco15]

[ QUOTE ]
when you can own your friends

[/ QUOTE ]
Brian14 gets owned by his friends all the time. LOL /images/graemlins/shocked.gif

[brian14]

Ianco15, you follow my posts and hassle me in each one...this is not a flame board. thanks and take care

[pokerstudAA]

Every so often I get the feeling that I get it...but then someone teaches me (or should I say schools me) and I realize how much I really don't get it. Poker seems to be a continuous learning process and I think everyone has aspects of the game they don't get. That is why poker is good.

[Reef]

when I could snatch the mouse out of my teacher's hand.

[slavic]

When I was sitting in a 20/40 game and knew I had a value bet with an unimproved AQ on the river I thought I "got it". The next hand when my top house was "noo guut! Ship it!" I realised I may never "get it".

[MilkFish]

just when i thought i get it, i really do...i'm in the button looking down at AQ offsuit with a large stack...early position triples the blind, next player goes all-in (this guy also has a large stack but i have him covered by a few thousand) and i don't even think for a second and called his all-in bet. that's because when i saw my cards i've already decided to raise and stuck with it. /images/graemlins/mad.gif well, the all-in guy had QQ and no Ace fell on the board....that's when i realize i still don't get it. i usually fold AQ to a bet but the worst part of me...the ego...got the best of me that day. what a stupid call.

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
Ianco15, you follow my posts and hassle me in each one...this is not a flame board. thanks and take care

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, you have 10 posts and already have your own personal troll? Feel honored, not insulted.

Anyways, to answer the question, it IS a process, but the first time I knew was when I was able to read 3 opponents on the same hand at a live table. I had been playing there for about an hour and realized that some of the thinking I had been struggling to do before was starting to come naturally for me now. There's still work and study, but when I instinctively know what to do against a turn check-raise (and not worry about it if I'm wrong) I believe I'm starting to "get it."

[Keres]

Greg Lemond, the Tour de France winning cyclist, in response to being asked when does training get easier - "It doesn't get easier. It just gets faster".

Similarly, for poker I think you can change it to "It doesn't get easier. The limits just get higher."

[wdbaker]

When you have a decent bankroll and can make substantial withdrawls, weekly or monthly, on a regular basis...

When people are sucking out on you and you realize you will soon Own this table and their chips.

When your heart doesn't feel like its going to beat out of your chest when you push a large amount "all in".

When you lose an all in and you just hit the rebuy button and carry on with out becoming mentally impaired.

One Street at a Time
wdbaker Denver, Co

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Other than the obvious consistant win rate, I'd say you finally "get it" when nothing that happens at the table evokes an emotional reaction.

[mojorisin24]

I don't think you'll ever have an epiphany, but I do think that you'll realize that poker is a very profitable hobby once you begin to make enough money to supplement your income. Also, once you can consistently win at poker, be it online or at home or at your local casino, then you should consider yourself a decent player.

[aron]

I started playing online this summer, slowly picking things up but still a pretty stupid style of play.
This fall I moved and had no connection to internet, however I got SSH, read the whole thing in two days and felt like I understood a whole lot more.
A few weeks later I'm visiting a friend and gets able to use his broadband connection while he is at work.
After a couple of hours two-tabling 0.5/1 at Party I'm up 90 BB which was a result of variance but gave quite a boost.

That night we go to this club and I get really drunk. All of a sudden I start to compare everything to hold 'em. In a conversation with a girl I could find myself thinking "I'll go for a checkraise here" or maybe "I'm not so sure about this so I'll just call it down". And there and then it made so much sense.

Anyway, I'm no where near getting it I think I'm barely beating the game. And this thing wasn't an epiphany for me but it ceartainly left me with a feeling that I had moved up a step....

[PokerMaster]

I think Im finally getting it, its been 1 year and I have played a couple of tournaments and im doing good finally!!!

I think u have to start playing with money as soon as you start getting it though, I made my first deposit at 2 months after playing fake money. If you dont play for real money you will never get it. thats my humble opinion.

[AncientPC]

[ QUOTE ]
I think Im finally getting it, its been 1 year and I have played a couple of tournaments and im doing good finally!!!

I think u have to start playing with money as soon as you start getting it though, I made my first deposit at 2 months after playing fake money. If you dont play for real money you will never get it. thats my humble opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lots of people play with real money and don't get it though . . .

Consistent win rate, and like Kurn said when nothing evokes an emotion anymore.

[Shilly]

I think that this point for me was when I started to think about every single decision, and being able to thoroughly explain why I would make the decision.

[JasonK]

[ QUOTE ]

Consistent win rate, and like Kurn said when nothing evokes an emotion anymore.

[/ QUOTE ]

After the 3rd MTT I won my wife asked how I did. I told her I won and she said she would have expected me to be more excited. I still don't really get it though.

[theghost]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that this point for me was when I started to think about every single decision, and being able to thoroughly explain why I would make the decision.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'll agree with this. You have a better sense of where you're at, what to do and why. After a losing session you feel alright because you made good decisions based on your situations.
Sometimes I notice when I do something wrong right away, sometimes I probably don't even realize a mistake, and sometimes it hardly matters what you do either way, it's so close. There is always more you can do to improve your game.

[soko]

I agree with others that not being emotionally effected by a hand is a fundemental aspect of good play. part of this comes from being desensitised to it. For example your flopped set is beat on the river by a gutshot straight draw and you lose a HUGE pot. the first time this is going to get you steaming mad, second time and third time probally the same. You may have to experience this 30 or more times before you realize that it's just how it is sometimes.

[drdre2001mm]

If your version of "get it" is when you understand betting structure, the difference between no limit and limit, etc.. then let me tell you my opinion. I first started to "learn" how to play by just randomly downloading paradise poker(to this day I don't know why I did this probably just a random pop-up)I sat down at the play money tables and just clicked a few buttons for an hour or so. I kept coming back and clicking those buttons until one day it all clicked in. I finally knew how to bet,call, raise and what each of those buttons meant.

[maryfield48]

There is no "it". "It" is like the spoon.

But there is a series of "it"s along the road to becoming a good player.

You can learn pre-flop play from a chart, up to a point. There's nothing really cosmic or revelatory about that aspect of play. The variables are few - position, action before you, hole cards, opponents. But post-flop, the variables are much wider in scope.

Playing 6-max showed me that in my full ring game I'd been calling too much. The playable hands come much less quickly in full ring, and I'd been talking myself into hanging around in a pot. Short-handed comes around quicker, more hands per hour, it felt a lot easier to let a hand go.

I made a conscious effort to take that 'vibe' into my full game, and I think it's having a significant effect.

Cheers,
Peter