Letter sent to a beginning player.....

[crzyjethro]

I'd like to post a letter I wrote to someone just getting started in poker. I'd like you all to read it and comment and add things you wish you knew when you were getting started. Disagree with anything I say if the spirit moves you as well....

http://www.pokerlistings.com/
www.twoplustwo.com
http://www.cardplayer.com/

Olga these websites will help you on you way. pokerlistigs gives you info on all the online sites including their current bonus offers. Some sites will give you up to $600 for playing on their site (you have to meet some requirements though e.g.. for the $600 match on fulltilt.com you had to deposit at least $600 then they would give you $.06 for every dollar they raked out of the pot for any hand in which you were dealt cards. They would realease the $600 in $20 intervals until the whole $600 was released. They probably sounds a little complicated but to simplify it they would match your $600 by paying you $20 for ever 200 hands or so that you played so it would take you 6000 hands to get the full $600, roughly.

twoplustwo is a great website with a great bulletin board where very knowledgeable players post some hand histories and you can see how top players played some of their hands and more important the things they thought about before making the decisions they did. Keep in mind though it is a public bulletin board and not everyone who offers their opinion is worth listening to.
There is a usergroup called rec.gambling.poker that is very similar but there is too much garbage and idiots posting worthless tidbits that really don't make the usegroup very useful, but you will occasionally see some very good analysis on there. http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.gambling.poker

cardplayer magazine is the foremost poker magazine in print, a subscription is expensive, but you can read the entire magazine online on the website.


I would recommend playing several thousand hands online before you move into live action play. There is something that is very very important that very few of the books that I've read address and that is bankroll management. you must have enough $$ dedicated nothing but poker to sustain the fluctuations of the game. Even the worlds best pros go on sustained losing streaks, short term fluctuation is part of the game. Its what keeps losing players playing, the hope that they can overcome the odds that are against them caused by their inferior play. Most don't even know that they are losing players. Eventually they will lose a lot of money, but along the way they will have winning sessions, its the beauty of the game. Never judge your play by the outcome of the hand but by whether you put your money in as a favorite. IF you get your $$ in the pot with the best hand often enough, mathematical expectation will take care of the rest. (although there are times when you will put $$ in the pot knowing you have the worst hand when you think you can cause your opponent to fold, but that's something else entirely). Back to bankroll management.....IF you are playing in a game that you can buy into for $100 and all your poker money in the world is only $200, your playing too steep. There is too much of a gamble that you could get unlucky and go broke before you are able to play enough hands to realize a profit. MY personal rule is to have enough to cover 5X the max buy in. For example the game I play in is a $1-$2 blind no limit game with a $300 maximum buy in. I keep at least $1500 in my account to assure that I won't go broke. I might lose $300 or even $600 but the chance of losing the whole $1500 is very slim. And some might say 5X the max buy in is low, and 10X is preferable. I can't argue with that. IF you only have $250 to start with, start out on a $25 max buy in table, every poker site has them. IF you build that up to $500, try the $50 tables. Don't put yourself in a position where if you have a couple of losing sessions you'll be broke. Everyone hits losing streaks and you need to have the funds to ride them out.

I do have a couple of books that have sections on 7-stud, I don't play the game very much, No-Limit hold em is in my opinion the easiest game to win $$ at right now. Due to its enormous popularity it has attracted hoards of unskilled players. Just reading the books I've leant you will put you ahead of the curve if you can understand those concepts.

Olga, that's all I can think to write right now but I am going to post this email on twoplustwo.com under the low limit hold 'em board, Ill ask other players to add to what I've said, be sure to look for it and good luck.
May your opponents get aces only when you have 7-2.

[excession]

I'd just tell them to go to my spam free newbie guide page -after all it's what I set it up for:

(and yes when I saw say 'spam free' I mean it - not even an affiliate link anywhere on it)

http://www.andymcnish.btinternet.co....uide/index.htm