Transitioning from beginner to intermediate

Hey Tony,

Myself I am currently working on TGM, glad to see you liked it as I definitely like it so far aswell. Gives good basics so far.

TBH I am one step behind you, but I managed to ask a couple good players from my country as what they advice for learning how to play.
I'll give you a short rewiev and my short plan as to what to do next:

• HS / NoseBleed player - for a begginer you should learn basics, articles on PS.com are still okay, some are outdated, but maths is always up to date. After you get the basics I would get Mathematics of Poker work on your own strategy and work on mindest simultaneously.
• MS huge winning player - Study deeply some maths book about poker. Do not focus on volume but focus on right decisions. Analyze hands in equilab / flopzilla, save them in a doc file and print for later review. Do not cash out. Learn, learn, learn. Later Matthew Janda books are ok. When you start to knock on midStakes door get a solver and work with it.

After I am done with TGM I want to get my hands on "The mathematics of Poker" and get a solver, propably GTO+ as it's not so expensive and has a build in "game" for particualr spots for you to train on.

Hope this will give you some inspiration.

Good luck in your journey!

Wow, this is awesome information, thank you very much! Seems like you did your homework so I'll actually follow all your recommendations!

I've decided to reread TGM, then I'll read The mathematics of Poker and will probably get GTO+ as well.

Btw, I'm reading on the side "the mental game of poker" by Jared Tendler, it's good as well. Currently, on my biggest downswing, it's rough. Still going down - already lost around 11BI... So many coolers it's crazy. It does teach me a lot about my emotions during sessions, my mental game has made good improvements during this downswing... But still, it sucks man haha.

gentlemen, you both gave some good advice. Thanks

Good to hear. Let me know if you need any help/advice!

Nothing beats experience... the more you play, read and study, you will develop more..

I maybe would suggest getting a coach for a few sessions 1-3. It helped me a lot with lower stakes 30nl-50nl... solid play and fundamentals are the key. Not so much of playing ranges and fancy plays.

When you have a solid hand get the money in the middle. 💰

How much time do you spend on study? And on what kind of study, any chronological order in it?

I think I spend about 60-70% of my time on poker study at the moment (pretty much a starter).

IMO,
I think study is very loose term when starting out...learning poker is a long journey...

When I started I thought studying was watching a video online when I didn’t understand half the things that were being said.

My personal belief is that when you start to learn about the game, combos, RFI, bet sizing, some basic fundamentals you need to use them and of course make mistakes to learn them... you need to learn how the game plays, the flow of the table, etc... studying certain spots and more advanced plays don’t help for nothing if you don’t understand the basics, you just become a button clicker.

Right now in the past 8 months I have played about 200k hands. If I am lucky I get about 30minutes to an hour to watch a video or read something... I started at 25nl and am now up to 200nl.. I try to play about 3 hours a day like a part time job, it isn’t easy I have to you do children and a full time job that I work at 60-70 hours a week, but I make it work and my wife still doesn’t want to kill me...!!!

Good luck.

Originally posted by Mkablo
IMO,
I think study is very loose term when starting out...learning poker is a long journey...

When I started I thought studying was watching a video online when I didn’t understand half the things that were being said.

My personal belief is that when you start to learn about the game, combos, RFI, bet sizing, some basic fundamentals you need to use them and of course make mistakes to learn them... you need to learn how the game plays, the flow of the table, etc... studying certain spots and more advanced plays don’t help for nothing if you don’t understand the basics, you just become a button clicker.

Right now in the past 8 months I have played about 200k hands. If I am lucky I get about 30minutes to an hour to watch a video or read something... I started at 25nl and am now up to 200nl.. I try to play about 3 hours a day like a part time job, it isn’t easy I have to you do children and a full time job that I work at 60-70 hours a week, but I make it work and my wife still doesn’t want to kill me...!!!

Good luck.

30min-1hour study a day or over 8 months?

Amazing to see you make so many hours work, spend time with your family and play poker. Respect how you worked yourself up to NL200, how is that working out for you?
Your progression in over 8 months is huge, also with the different kind of players on over the stakes. Respect

I try to study 30min to 1 hour a day... on anything poker related.

Yea my wife is awesome... I play a mix of game limits now from NL50-NL200. When my confidence is low or am learning something new I drop down limits. . It has helped that I have been
staked as well. I have been lucky to have a great support group..

NL200 is a new learning curve... with time I will get it. I am up about 8BI in a 6k hand sample.

What you do is working very well.

Staking means you 'get' money from someone but he/she takes a 'piece of the pie' right? And he/she learn you stuff? I thought I heard Gingepoker something talking about that.

Also a support group is very helpful of coarse. How did you came by them? Interested in your story

Yes staking= someone gave me money to play, and we split profits..

With the staking contract I receive coaching as well. The main reason why I looked into a staking deal was for the support and the coaching...to not go into a crazy amount of detail, I can say that I was a winning player before I took on staking, now I am a winning and much better player...then I was.