A Curriculum to Help My Friend Learn LHE -- Advice?

[sthief09]

one of my friends is looking to start playing poker to make some money so he can afford to drink this semester. I've been looking for a friend who wants to learn, and he's a smart kid, so I'm looking forward to this. he also has 0 poker experience which I think will be beneficial, since I won't have to deal with helping him unlearn bad habits. I'm trying to think of a curriculum for him. does anyone have any ideas?

I figure I'll have him read books, read 2+2, and me teaching him directly. I'll have him read WLLH just go get the jist of it. I'll tell him to take the whole book with a grain of salt, not taking the specific advice, but understanding that he has to be tight to win.

I think the first lesson I'll teach him will be about position. do we think this is too advanced a topic to teach him first? I feel like it's so damn important that he can basically relate everything back to position. that'll lead into preflop play. I have TTH, which I let him use for preflop repetion.

the postflop skills are going to be tough. I guess I can break it down into several parts, when you were the preflpo raiser, when there was no preflop raiser, when you aren't the preflop raiser, or when you get 3-bet, and break those down further. flop play is pretty simple, and it should give him a good introductionto turn and river play, which are complex.

some questions:
- at what point should I introduce him to SSH? should I hold off for it until I've basically taught him everything in the book?
- is it worth starting him off at the nano-limits? I can afford to spot him some money to play at .5/1, because I'm confident that he'll make that back eventually

any other suggestions?

[axioma]

begin with some basic non poker specific stuff like Ev, expection etc.

as for poker stuff, starting with position seems a bit obscure to me. like you mentioned, drill it into him that to play optimally he is going to be throwing away his hand the vast majority of the time, thats something thats non-intuative to a beginer.

start with the broad stuff to give him a picture, then get down to the specifics. id think starting hand requirements would come next, then if you like position, and how position effects starting hands.

[gila]

I would start him with ITH over jones book. Explains the concepts to a much higher degree

[bdk3clash]

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I would start him with ITH over jones book. Explains the concepts to a much higher degree

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I agree.

[greg nice]

SSHE is advanced and i wouldnt expose him to it until way down the line..

he just wont get anything out of it or he will misapply it like so many others

[Rudbaeck]

The world renowned Clarkmeister Rotation is a good start. Though I personally would replace WLLH with ITH. It's heavier going, but with you around to answer questions it shouldn't be a problem.

[Festus22]

Remember that you are LIGHT YEARS ahead of him in all areas of the game. If he really has 0 experience, even things such as blinds, posting, betting structure, etc. will all need to be learned.

I'd recommend starting at Pacific micro limits. The play is slow so it should be easier for a newbie and the players are terrible. I think that will help him get the mechanics of playing down and to become comfortable playing with real money without a lot of risk.

Certainly LLHE would be a good place to start as well as the Micro forum here. Just don't go too much too fast. Trying to compress all your experience and knowledge into a few weeks or even months of teaching isn't possible.

[IndiGenus]

The advice given here is excellent and your friend has much to learn...which brings me to this thought which I hadn't seen mentioned. Have him get a job! If he's looking to earn enough money to support a drinking habit playing the small stakes tables he's in for a challenge. If he tries to play at the higher stakes tables he will likely lose whatever he has to start with (and you didn't mention what he had for a starting bankroll). But even if he is able to master the game at the low levels and earn 10-15 BB/hour (respectable) how much do you think he will he make playing the .05/.10 cent limits...do the math. At most that's about a $1.50 hour. That shouldn't discourage you from teaching him how to play the great game of hold em but if he has expectations of winning big bucks that could be a while...maybe I'm wrong and he's the next "whiz kid" [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[sthief09]

[ QUOTE ]
The advice given here is excellent and your friend has much to learn...which brings me to this thought which I hadn't seen mentioned. Have him get a job! If he's looking to earn enough money to support a drinking habit playing the small stakes tables he's in for a challenge. If he tries to play at the higher stakes tables he will likely lose whatever he has to start with (and you didn't mention what he had for a starting bankroll). But even if he is able to master the game at the low levels and earn 10-15 BB/hour (respectable) how much do you think he will he make playing the .05/.10 cent limits...do the math. At most that's about a $1.50 hour. That shouldn't discourage you from teaching him how to play the great game of hold em but if he has expectations of winning big bucks that could be a while...maybe I'm wrong and he's the next "whiz kid" [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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he plays D-I baseball. that's not really an option for him. I don't think you're really understanding. and my pointa bout wanting money to drink was a joke kind of

[droolie]

Have him start at Pokerstars play money until he understands the game mechanics (ie blind structure, betting amounts per round, hand rankings, blinds leading the betting from the flop on and why all-in players get to go to the end for free). Not too many hands but perhaps and hour worth of playing. No reason to have him lose anything while he learns that. Keep it fun at the beginning, losing any money won't help. Pokerstars has great software and decent competition at the nano's and is a great learning environment. Pacific software and game speed sucks so bad it might be a turnoff. Online poker is fast paced he should learn the right pace from the start.

Once he's comfortable with the basic rules teach him the EV concept. Teach him about the long run vision he needs to develop. Explain that bad beats are a part of the game and that they are often a sign that his opponents are playing badly which is in the long run a good thing. Teach him about patience and diligence and what to expect as far as action when playing. The idea isn't to win the most hands just the most money. This is the single most important thing for a new player. Playing less than 20% of hands is unnatural and will take a lot of understanding of the theory behind it in order for him to adopt that style off the bat. He also needs to know that not everyone is bluffing and that everyone will assume he is always bluffing. He should expect to have to show down the best hand much of the time. This is something that will help.

Have him move to the .25/.50 game until he learns the basics of strategy. This is when he should start reading SSH. If you're going to be intensively coaching him, skip inferior books like WLLH. You'll be able to explain the tougher concepts to him and there is a lot in that book that a raw beginner would thrive from learning from the start. Why teach him something (weak tight style) that he will need to break away from later? Instead giude him through SSH at the right pace. +EV theory, identifying the nuts, pre-flop hand chart (download one for easy desktop reference) and counting outs and pot odds is critical and should be taught at this point, in that order.

Postflop aggression should be drilled to him in the right doses. That is one of the tough things about SSH it will turn him into a maniac if he's not properly explained "good aggression" from "bad aggression". Sentences like, "almost any hand worth playin on the flop is usually worth raising" need to be qualified. However hand protection and pumping draws are too important to winning to wait too long to learn. River and turn play are well explained and the part about not folding in big pots for one bet on the river is pure gold.

Have him post hands and get into reading the micro forum from the start. We can help when you're unavailable and the ideas there will have him bringing questions to you and may bring him along quicker. These forums are critical for learning how to read hands and understanding betting patterns and what they mean.

Once he fights his way through .25/.50 at stars and earns 300BB he will be ready to crush party (help him get the best start up bonus available) That is when you introduce pokertracker, player ranking, playerview, data mining, and multi-tabling. Finally teach him bankroll managment, bonus whoring and advanced aggression both preflop and postflop, get him off using the hand chart.

That's how I would do it...