16 Feb 2024 Beginner This material is for beginner players A-game distance fish mental game moving up stakes studying In the modern poker world, professional development is no less important than in any other field. Players use all possible methods to improve their skills and stay ahead of the competition. In addition to information resources and strategy books, one of the ways to learn how to play poker quickly is poker training. Here you have different options: poker courses, poker schools, poker coaches, and specialized poker training software. We’ll consider the basics of online poker training. Poker training: how to start Unlike most gambling games, online poker requires a special approach, as it's a game of skill. To learn how to play poker, you can start with general poker rules for beginners. However, if you have the financial ability to learn the game basics faster and more effectively, you can hire a poker coach. Yes, it is often not cheap, but starting a poker career under the care of professionals will pay off in the distance. Why? Let’s find out quickly! At a certain point, self-study can get out of the clear direction of the plan made by the player and spill over a mass of books and articles with bookmarks. That can be too much information, which will just overwhelm students. A newcomer can pass hundreds of instructional videos and articles, and end up gaining absolutely no useful knowledge. What is this for? For a good scenario, you’ll need an experienced person or a group of people who will organize your studying process. The role of a poker school or a coach can be equated to the role of teachers in a university. For example, a student can take his skis and go to the park, but will he ski well after a few walks or will he leave the debris of his skis in a snowdrift after running face first down the slope a few times? Coaches will not allow their students to participate in questionable hands with marginal cards and will return from the irrelevant limit to the appropriate field with players who can be beaten with a certain level of skill. Another apparent advantage of coaching is that the student will be helped to detect and fix the most costly mistakes. Beginners rarely spend time on training because they’ve got the main job. It is more correct to spend a few hours a week for lessons with a professional trainer. In this case, it is less likely that a beginner will quit playing poker. Working on mistakes Losses happen even to online high rollers and live cash masters. Some can identify leaks and others do not see them. These kinds of flaws are similar to the body ailments, which can be diagnosed by yourself - but is it correct? If you self-medicate, you can bring yourself to the coffin. Similarly with the poker game: if you treat it incorrectly, you can finally fail to realize yourself and "die" as a poker player. Only those who do nothing make no mistakes. As soon as you feel that such actions do not help and the situation with the game does not improve, would be wise to call a specialist. Individual poker classes A poker coach is a person in whose hands you can turn from a weak player (fish) into a shark. They will help you to understand the game better, which hides many nuances, breaks down every action, and makes efforts to improve your skill. At the same time, it is important to find common ground with your teacher and set all the stages of working on the game. Top mentors work with each student separately, developing a special program for a particular player, usually bringing the student to the necessary limit and achieving a quality profitable game. And coaching pays off more than enough. Quite often there is a situation in which a poker pro reaches a certain level/limit and can't move on. This is quite a common problem for players who expect to achieve more. A person may rush to play aggressively and riskily, lose a lot of pots, fall into a tilt, and, as a result, lower their bankroll. Hiring a coach to guide you further in your career is a much wiser solution. It is also possible to apply for separate classes. For example, if you want to try different poker game types - it can be a special course on cash games or multi-table tournaments. On No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Stud, Quiz, etc. There is always a choice to make, so don’t worry! What if training does not lead to winnings? But why does it often happen that a player is trained according to the rules, but "the game does not bring results"? A poker player doesn't need good marks in his diary for memorized strategies and other points - he needs direct results. Theory, practice, and analysis are the main components of effective training. It’s a crime to separate theory and practice. Only from the combination of knowledge and skills in a single whole helps to achieve results at the tables. Many beginners think that by reading one recommended poker book or passing a 2-hour poker course on a chosen topic, they have already learned a lot. But of course, they did not. If you put them at a cash table right now, it's unlikely they'll stand against pros. Especially online where the field is really competitive nowadays, even on low stakes. After the theoretical lesson and the subsequent practical game session, taking statistical data, you need to connect the third component of efficient training - analysis, which was mentioned above. Only with its help can you understand things you did correctly, and where you made mistakes. If you neglect to analyze your game, you will lose control of your learning. And the detailed analysis is mandatory both in case of losing and winning. Variance cannot be excluded from the calculations - you can come out with a good profit, having made a lot of mistakes, and vice versa - you can end up losing big pots even with a perfect game. Effective game training is possible only with a combination of theoretical knowledge, applying it in practice, and the subsequent analysis of hands. Such training in a complex will definitely bring you results over time.
