Am I too stupid for poker?

[DeeJ]

He's right. I learnt the game with play money, quickly saw that it was silly and moved to 0.5/1 where I lost $300 before stumbling across this site and others. You gotta put the time in. Now I'm beating 5/10 but yes it takes a lot of work.

Post some hands you had trouble with and get the reaction. It certainly helps. I haven't posted one in a while and I'm sure it must be time [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[stripsqueez]

good post

i think the worst advice is to read more

the only way to get better is to play more

everything you read just helps you think about what your doing when you play - i think you might be thinking about what you read when you play

stripsqueez - chickenhawk

[CORed]

A few suggestions:

Practice putting people on hands. This is actually harder at the low limits, because many of the players are extremely passive, but try to look at the board and your opponents' betting and think what they might have. When you start to have some success at putting people on hands, use that information. Bet and raise when you think you're ahead, and fold or check-call (depending on how good your hand is and pot size) when you think you'r behind.

Be more agressive with your good hands. Winning poker is not just about hand-selection, it's about getting the most out of the hand you win. Try to make sure you get every bet possible when you win.

Find the leaks: A few possibilities: Rarely cold call raises preflop. You need a better hand to play after a raise than you do to raise yourself. If your hand is good enough to raise, it's usually best to re-raise. There are probably a lot of places that you are donating to pots that you shouldn't donate to. There are also probably a lot of bets you are missing on your winners.

[roundhouse]

I don't quite have the wealth of experience of some of the other posters here but I'd suggest...

(i) Move down to 0.5/1 - you're playing for fun, not a living right; learn cheap, learn easy.

(ii) Play one table only - concentrate on the game, all those hands you're not in try guessing what everyone's holding. Try to identify who is loose / passive / tight / agressive.

(ii) I'm betting you play preflop pretty much by rote ("The book says raise AJo preflop, so that's what I do")? Pause before you make the robot play, think WHY am I about to call / raise / fold - what do I want everyone else to do after me?

(iii) Don't slowplay hands that don't merit it. SSHE has very good advice about when and when not to slowplay if I remember correctly. If in doubt, don't slowplay at all. At low limits you lose much more by slowplaying too much than you do by not slowplaying enough.

(iv) Get pokertracker, if you haven't already. Use it to play back your hands, the ones you won as well as lost - did you really play the hand as well (or as badly) as you thought? If you use pokertracker for nothing else use it to check you really are playing suitably tight preflop.

(v) Understand that variance is the prime determinator of your winnings in any given session, ability takes a large number of sessions to shine through. So when you have a -30BB session, you WERE unlucky. When you have a +30BB session, you WERE lucky. Neither session's outcome was heavily dependent on your skill, so don't get depressed / cocky. Use pokertracker to track your longer term progress (longer term means tens of thousands of hands - some on this site would advocate hundreds of thousands), this is what is determined by ability.

But then you probably don't want to listen to me, I'm 5.5k hands into 2/4 for the grand total (excluding bonuses) of -$8.41.

Best of luck buddy.

RH

[Dan Mezick]

You might consider your personality profile relative to poker.

Some personality types may be predisposed to poker, implying strongly that others may not.

This essay elaborates these ideas and has a useful personality test at the end.

This Other Essay also may be useful to you.

This post was intended to broadly spread interest, hopefully academic and RESEARCH interest, into these ideas.

[GreywolfNYC]

[ QUOTE ]
Hey, welcome to the forums. I think these steps will help you become a winning player.

1. Forget what you've read in HEPFAP, most of it is not applicable to low limits.


I hope you're not serious.

[aflaba]

Also a good thing might be to get started in a poker school on the net.

[MarkL444]

yes

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
1. Forget what you've read in HEPFAP, most of it is not applicable to low limits.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you feel like you can't apply HEPFAP concepts when they're applicable and instead you need to block out a great book by pretending it doesn't exist then you are too stupid for poker.

[Bluffoon]

"I really enjoyed playing poker for the past couple of years, but I always played under the assumption that eventually I would get better and become a consistent winner. My failure to do so has left me very frustrated with the game. "

You don't "get" better. You make yourself better.

Start by studying at least as long as you play every day. Identify areas of your play that need improvement and focus on improving those areas. When you are comfortable that you have improved these areas pick something else and repeat the process. From time to time look at areas of your game where you feel you are strong and see if you can improve those areas too. A good hard look at skills you take for granted may find a leak.

Study this forum and try to understand how winning players think at the table and try to apply the concepts and ideas that are being discussed here. Participate in the process and get called an idiot and have your ideas ripped apart. Find someone to share blocks of hands with and analyze their play and have them analyze yours.

Be innovative and creative in finding ways to improve your game. Apply yourself. Carry around a poker book so that when you are waiting for a bus or ina cab or at a lunch counter you can study for a few minutes.

In six months you won't believe how much better you can play.