The best way to learn poker: Videos and Streams

In a new short series Barry Carter looks at the pros and cons of the main ways that poker players study the game away from the tables.

I was chatting to the co-author of my most recent book, Dara O’Kearney, about poker books in general and we both observed that anecdotally it seemed that book readers skewed more towards the older end of the poker demographic. In a similar conversation Jared Tendler, who I have also co-authored two books with, mentioned that the esports audience he now works with (he is a coach for Team Liquid) pretty much demands video content as standard and are not as interested in books.

The one thing I always ask any poker player I interview is what way they approach study and what works best for them. I have noticed some commonalities which I’ll mention in due course, but it does seem that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to learning.

So I am go to share some thoughts on the most common forms of study in poker, then I am going to throw the question over to you to ask what form has helped you the most. I’ll be covering all the main ways to learn in the next couple of weeks but let’s start with perhaps the one this audience is most familiar with, which is watching training videos and streams.

A gateway into a new way to think

The first few poker training videos I ever watched were transformative for me, no doubt in a way that Super System was for the old school pros. The real benefit of watching a talented player playing poker on screen with hole cards shown is that we get an insight into what a good poker thought process looks like.

When you are new to the game I think that watching somebody like Lex Veldhuis stream or LemOn36 playing on a video, it really opens up your world to the things you are not even thinking about in poker. I’m pretty certain I learned what value betting, blockers and equity was in poker because I would hear a coach mention those terms, I had no idea what they meant, so I had to look it up.

This does mean you can get lost watching a video but that isn’t a bad thing if you are curious enough to follow up. I’ll never forget what EPT commentator James Hartigan once said to me about not dumbing down his commentary and I think it applies here, he said:

But equally the analogy I always use is when I got into American Football in the early 1980s I listened to these guys on TV but I didn't have a clue what they were talking about, this was in the era before Google, and just by immersing myself in the game and the TV shows I learnt what they were talking about. I loved the fact they were talking at a level above my understanding and I then had to learn to get to that level. I would never want to alienate the audience but equally I think you have to pitch it to a level where they can aspire to.

I think he nailed it, the best thing about videos and streams is that they are a gateway into a new way of thinking about poker, not to mention a very entertaining way to introduce new people to the game, especially on Twitch. That, however, also presents the potential issue with them as a learning format.

Entertainment or education?

Videos and Twitch streams these days are usually very well presented and very entertaining. In fairness to the Twitch streamers they almost always express they are entertainment first, education a close second. Either way, there is often a danger with video content that you can consume it for entertainment primarily while convincing yourself you are learning.

The cleanest read in the history of NL 5 Card Draw. Do I know how to play? No. But does it matter if I know what you have? Also No. Get on my level Micro Millions nerds. @PokerStars pic.twitter.com/rgKMrgdG45

— Benj Spragg (@spraggy) November 18, 2019

We have all been guilty of loading up video after video, patting ourselves on the back for ‘studying’ and ending the day not sure if we have learned anything at all. This does not mean that videos are a poor form to learn poker, far from it, it’s just that you need to go into them with a gameplan. We wrote about the best way to watch a training video recently and in the case of a Twitch stream, because they are interactive, the best way to get something out of them is to make use of the chat and ask questions.

Videos and streams are perhaps poker’s most important learning method because of the new customers they bring to the game. They are also a very useful way to learn as long as you take an active role in the process.