Beginner's School

[Hedge Henderson]

Howdy, all. Long time lurker, first time poster. I have two questions but, first, some background.

I host a weekly micro-limit game composed mostly of very poor graduate and doctoral students. The games are usually hold 'em, Omaha/8, and stud, with a little five-draw thrown in when we're waiting for a full table. While we're all there to have fun, we're also pretty competitive for micro-limit. Some of the new players are regularly dropping $10.00 or more which, if you know what grad students get paid, can be a little painful. After a couple of semi-regulars dropped out, I remembered the old adage that you can shear a sheep many times but skin him only once.

As both the host of the game and, in all modesty (not!), the best player there, I took it upon myself to do something. This may be a mistake, but I decided to invite some of the least successful and least experienced players to (hopefully) teach them how to avoid being skinned.

My plan is to cover general strategy (less calls, more folds and raises, what position means, etc.). I also want to cover a bit about the individual games. Rules, game play, starting hand selection, reading the board (button games), and exposed cards (stud games). In addition, I hope to work in a bit about the differences between full and short handed games, as well as limit, pot-limit, and no limit.

Question the first: Is there anything in particular you experts out there think I should cover? Keep in mind that I merely want to keep the sheep from being skinned. I don't want to give them their own set of clippers (or worse, a sharp knife).

Question the second: I called this "meeting" without the knowledge of any of the players in positive territory, partly because I didn't want a dozen people at my house and partly because I didn't want to give any of the stronger players more ammo. Should I be worried about an angry backlash?

[NoTalent]

Q1: Just cover normal hands--like what to raise with, what to call with pre-flop. Maybe introduce the concept of position at the table and maybe a bit about odds. I'm not sure if you should go into pot-odds and implied odds.

Q2: You know your friends, we don't. Would they get mad? If the 'better' players hear about it (I'm sure they will) then they might get pissed and not play anymore (which could be good for you again! /images/graemlins/laugh.gif) Your call...

[crockpot]

my website has a section devoted to beginners' strategy if you want to check it out. sorry, the stud section is under development.

[Lottery Larry]

i am thinking of doing something similar with the home game that i started up. some of it will be to train new players so they can survive enough to be regular players. some of it will be to introduce new games that people are not familiar with- therefore do not want to try- so it gives the game more choices, for variety's sake.

let me know how it turns out and what flak you did get from your "better" regulars.

my only comment now is, if they are not good enough to improve their own games to adjust to better levels of play then they are not very good players in the first place?

[calig]

I would be worried about backlash from the better players. You are cutting into their positive EV. As regards the losers I don't think you can control how much they learn.

[Hedge Henderson]

With hindsight, I realize I probably should have posted this in the Home Poker forum, but thanks for the replies.

We held the thing last night. After some general points, we all bought chips (at a big discount) and played for a couple of hours, with everybody showing their hands at the end. I'd do my best to explain why I played the way I did and what mistakes I thought were made. By the end of the evening, you could see a few light bulbs coming on. We didn't cover anywhere near all of what I wanted to, but it was successful enough that we'll do it again soon.

I don't think there will be much, if any backlash over the thing. One of our better (and more volatile) regulars called during the game hoping to catch one of our rare Thursday night sessions. When I explained what we were doing, he didn't have any objections. I think he realized that, if we don't keep the weaker players in the game, or at least recruit some new ones, we'll all just be trading money with each other.


NoTalent sez:
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If the 'better' players hear about it (I'm sure they will) then they might get pissed and not play anymore (which could be good for you again

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I don't really want the better players to leave. Sure, they're costing me 0.1 BB per hour or so, but they're also forcing me to improve my game. In addition, they are the only players who attend often enough that I can count on a full table every week.



Lottery Larry sez:
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my only comment now is, if they are not good enough to improve their own games to adjust to better levels of play then they are not very good players in the first place?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, they're not very good players. Honestly, none of us are, just some of us are better than others.

The least successful players are, generally, the new ones, those who haven't had much (or any) prior experience playing poker. A couple of them still need to glance at the hand rankings from time to time. A pretty good tell, really. They're almost certainly somewhere between a straight and a full house.

This game has been going on regularly for over 18 months now. For the first six months or so, we basically learned from each other. I learned very early to play fewer hands. When the other players figured it out as well, I started reading RGP, which led me here.

I certainly can't condense what I've learned in the last 18 months into four hours, but I can change the slope of the learning curve a bit for the beginning players. As I mentioned, we're pretty competitive. Even if a player can afford to lose his/her entire stack every week, it can be demoralizing.

[chesspain]

We have one new player in our home game who, during his first two weeks playing, lost his buyin stake each time of approx. forty dollars. He told the regular who brought him to our game that he would likely not return if he did not "win or break even next time."

Not surprisingly, he is a total newbie to poker. In fact, he still has difficulty understanding that one can't bluff about having openings in Jacks-or-better draw poker.

Since we can't teach him everything he needs to know to survive against four competant players, I guess we won't be seeing him anymore /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[Lottery Larry]

"I certainly can't condense what I've learned in the last 18 months into four hours, but I can change the slope of the learning curve a bit for the beginning players. As I mentioned, we're pretty competitive. Even if a player can afford to lose his/her entire stack every week, it can be demoralizing."

I applaud you sir. it is the best thing to do for the new players, for the game and for yourself- teaching others makes for the best learning.

[UTG_1]

From the perspective of a participant rather than host of my soon to be regular home game, the following are my thoughts of a "beginners school or class for the newbies of any game".

I would welcome the host of my game to teach any newbies that want to enter our game the basics and strategies to become more consistent players. The best players to have in your game are not the newbies. In my experience it is the mediocre players, who have yet to learn the subtle nuances that make a consistent winner, that are the best opponents. These are players that have a good understanding of the game, and a decent amount of experience, but have yet to make that transition into a consistent winning player. A beginners school no matter what guidance was provided will only help a newbie become mediocre. Only experience will allow a player to advance much further than that.

My only reservations would be the following:

1) No advice during a live game in which the "regulars" are playing

2) No specific advice or tactics on how to play any of the regulars during "beginners school" for example, I wouldn't want there to be some sort of lesson such as, when "xyz" regular has raised in our game in early position \that it usually means that he has a hand in xyz range and you should usually fold, call or raise accordingly.

Tactics and lessons should be taught in a generic sense such as if anonomous player y has been raising in middle position and has been observed to have xyz range of hands at the showdown then you may want to play xyz range of hands in xyz fashion.

Although the sharing of certain player's tendencies is a regular and intergral benifit of being part of a circle of casino regulars, it may not be as welcome of a practice in a formal setting within a limited population of a home game rotation.

Only my thoughts, for what they are worth.

[Hedge Henderson]

UTG_1 sez:
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I would welcome the host of my game to teach any newbies that want to enter our game the basics and strategies to become more consistent players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bingo! Once a player learns the basics, they become more predictable, and that's +EV for anyone who has a bit of poker sense.


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1) No advice during a live game in which the "regulars" are playing.

[/ QUOTE ]

We do that quite often when newbies are playing. The most memorable example was when we told a fairly new player that the straight he lost with wasn't really a good hand in Omaha with three hearts and a pair on the board. Naturally, the next hand had three clubs and a pair on the board, and a straight won, so he didn't believe us. Unfortunately, after a month of humiliating losses, mostly in Omaha/8 he doesn't play with us any more. Even more unfortunate, he was insulted that we invited him to beginner's night. C'est la vie.


[ QUOTE ]
2) No specific advice or tactics on how to play any of the regulars...

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, since I'm showing my hands on "beginner's night". they do get at least indirect advice on how to play me, but I doubt I have to worry about it. Other than that, I keep it general. I'm careful not to share my insights on specific players, though, I have to admit, it's more out of self interest.