Listening to a well-known poker podcast that is delivered weekly by a strategy website last week I listened to what I thought was a strange comment from “Texas Dolly” Doyle Brunson. Doyle said that some people were just not cut out for playing poker but knew all of the theory and made excellent poker coaches. The reason that struck me as strange was a reasonable chunk of Doyle’s large wealth is his from his books where he teaches aspiring champions how to play poker!
This made me think about the various ways you can learn the game of poker and what exactly is the best poker system for learning in the world. I believe I have a good answer. The answer is experience and hard work. Whilst poker books like The Super System that Doyle Brunson wrote and collated with fellow professionals are useful they form only part of the overall syllabus to educate you in how to play poker.
Learning the correct moves in certain spots requires experience of the situations and analysis of the results you encountered in those spots. You analyse the outcomes and make modifications for a more positive effect in the future. This is where improvement in poker comes from. Over time we hope to eliminate more and more of the fundamental errors all players make moving closer to a complete understand of poker.
Recently I received an email through my poker website relating to a player discussing bankroll. It said something along the lines of, “I own a copy of Super System, Theory of Poker by Sklansky and Harrington on Holdem for Tournaments I, II & III. What is the smallest amount I could start with for my bankroll to run it up to a larger amount?”. I replied to him immediately asking how much all of those books cost him because in my estimation that is well over $150 worth of poker literature!
Whilst collecting these excellent poker books is worthwhile for your poker study away from the tables, this player neglected keeping some of his money available to actually play poker. The books will help this player a great deal in his quest to play good poker, but perhaps I would have set aside half of this money as a means of getting on the tables and beginning to gain the very valuable experience and earning some winnings. From the winnings further books could then be purchased and you get so much more from the books when you understand the concepts discussed in them when you relate the ideas in the book to your own personal play.
I believe the best system in the world for winning poker is learning the game yourself. Doyle Brunson said that he learned the game by self dealing thousands of hands early in his career and learning manually the theory of poker that we all take for granted by reading the many poker articles and books that flood the poker literature markets.
One of the best real money cash game players in the world Patrik Antonius says that he has never read a poker book and simply used live poker experience to learn the game. The best system for success is learning your own unique perspective of poker. I would suggest reading the various poker books and perhaps even subscribing to a poker training website to ensure you do not teach yourself poker errors as you learn (although even if you do, experience will soon show you any mistakes). These books are not the enemy and they do speed up the learning process. Just make sure you are thinking about the game and working it all out.
Nothing beats experience, so within the proper rules of bankroll management get as much poker
experience as you can.
By Malcolm Clarke
9. January 2010 at 7:20 am
Interesting post but I disagree with your conclusion. Over the years, I have discovered that not everyone learns in the same way. Some do learn by doing, as you suggested. Some learn by reading. Some learn by reading and doing. Some people even learn by reading, doing, and by being instructed. I am one of these that needs to read and then try doing what I read. Sometimes, I have to read again. But I did get some new ideas for me to try such as taking a deck of cards and dealing out hands to see what happens. Thank you.
19. January 2010 at 9:22 am
That is how Doyle Brunson learned and improved his game and this alone is gaining experience of hands! Good luck.
20. January 2010 at 10:51 pm
Steve,
You are right. There are many ways to learn the game. While it is true in many cases that experience is the best teacher, you can’t go wrong with using other resources.