Content week: Self-Improvement Essay

This weeks essay by y0d4 deals with important steps which will help improve your game

When evaluating sample hands in the forum, I often see responses to my reviews like: “yes, but the chart says it that way!”

It goes without saying that it's good to have the chart, and that strictly following the chart helps you avoid a lot of mistakes in the beginning stages of your poker career. Yet as in every other form of poker,
it is always useful to make your own thoughts about what you are doing in order to better understand the decisions the chart is telling you to make. This way you might even be able to adapt the chart's directions to make more optimal decisions, based on the specific siituation.

As time goes on, you will be able to become more creative and flexible with situations and be able to make decisions that go beyond simply following a starting hand chart, simply because you know why the certain move you are applying is profitable.


I. The first step is therefore to not only follow the chart, but to try to understand the backgrounds of why the chart tells you to play in the prescribed way. If you are not sure of if you played correctly or why the chart tells you to play in a way that you don't understand, simply ask a more experienced player. No one is born a master, and that is what this forum is for: to share information.

During your first attempts, you will get in many situations where you
think that you played well but you're not really sure about it. It is important to be aware of these kind of situations and to save the hand history, for later posting in the forum. There is nothing wrong with posting questions in the forum and the views and insights of other members are some of the most important resources for improving your play available to you.

In this aspect it is important that you write down all information which is available to you at this moment (villan's play style, etc.) since this will vastly improve the quality of the hand reviews. Post as many hands as possible and ask if you didn't understand something!

II.
Another great possibility to learn is to visit coaching sessions or teaming up with other players for user coaching. Try to get in contact with other players of your limit in order to watch each
other during playing (for this, the teamviewer is a very good software
with which you can see the desktop of your partner - http://www.teamviewer.com ).
Ideally, you use Skype to discuss situations during the play – and try to identify each others leak, or learn from the other players style. In this manner you are doing coaching not only as participant but also as coach. This way you will
learn a lot and recognize leaks that you wouldn't find otherwise.

Feel free to discuss this article:
» Thread