[Dazarath]

Last night, I was talking to a friend of mine who recently developed an interest in Hold'em. He's your standard college student who plays $5 tourneys with friends. He asked me if I thought reading was more important or playing for experience. When I started out, after playing like 2-3 games, I asked to borrow a book from my friend. He told me to just play with them because "experience is the best teacher", to which I responded, "No, I don't want to lose money to you guys playing incorrectly. I'd rather read, so when I gain experience, I can be learning how to play correctly." (Not in those exact words, but the jist of it is there.) I understand that after the initial step, it becomes a continuous cycle of study/play/study/play.. etc etc. What about for someone just starting out?

I personally don't believe that experience in poker always builds skill level. When I go to the casinos, I see elderly players who've probably been playing for 30-40 years of their life. Even though they've played for twice as long as I've lived, I see them make blatant mistakes that I've learned not to do in only a year. It's very easy to develop bad habits when trying to learn on your own and never have anyone or anything tell you that it's wrong.

As humans, I think we depend a lot on conditioning to teach us what's right and what's wrong. In school, if we work hard, we get a good grade. When playing videogames, if we play correctly, we win. I know this isn't always the case, but it's moreso than poker. The whole idea of positive action leading to a positive reward, whereas a negative action leads to a negative consequence applies in a lot of life, but not so in poker. In poker, I can play my AA perfectly, and still take a horrendous suckout on the river. I can incorrect limp 83o UTG and flop a boat. Combine this with selective memory, and that's a formula for those B&M players we all see who never raise AA because it "always loses" or they always play 83o because "they flopped a boat with it twice in a row."

Assuming a new player knows the rules, I think reading is the way to start off, because then while playing, you can start to work on building good habits. Trying to play first just leads to misguided experience and bad habits, which later have to be broken once you learn the correct playstyle.