Poker Forums

Hi everybody, yes, I should have introduced myself. I have been a pro poker player since 1976 and been successful both at live games and tournaments.

There are overall general concepts that dominate our poker decisions, reading the right poker books is the easist way to start getting your feet on solid ground. Unfortunately, I don't read many poker books anymore, I have formulated my own opinions on how to play and been very successful. Books that I know are "golden" are listed below, "this doesn't mean that the other books are wrong or inferior," but I haven't read them and am not willing to comment on their quality.

Must Reads;

Poker Theory by Sklansky
No Limit by Sklansky
No Limit for cash games volumes 1 and 2 by Harrington
Super System II by Doyle Brunson

The first thing that you MUST understand when reading poker books is;

POKER ISN'T BLACKJACK

Blackjack is the same game if you are betting $1, $5, $25, or $10,000 a hand, Poker isn't.

In Blackjack your opponent is playing by a fixed set of rules, in poker we all know that our game has to be tailored to take advantage of our opponents mistakes. Since we are human and are all going to make mistakes, the player that makes the fewest mistakes will be the grand winner when the luck evens out. Since any game played with a deck of cards has a certain amount of luck to it, this can take quite awhile if you run bad enough.

BLAMING BAD RESULTS ON BAD LUCK

We all know that we can get tremendously unlucky at times playing poker. In every losing session, we can focus on the bad beats and say to ourselfs, "if that hadn't happened, I would have won. I am so unlucky!"

Sometimes we lose because of bad luck, but what I have learned over the years is; a lot of the badbeats could have been avoided with better play. At the time, I wasn't capable of understanding this concept.

Let's take golf for example, we know Tiger is going to play at a level that none of us will ever be able to attain. How did he get there? He had natural talent for sure and there is nothing we can do to aquire the natural talent that he has. But even with all the natural talent that he obviously has, he would have never got to where he is today without WORKING HIS ASS OFF!

Many of you might have the natural talent and not even know it, but since this isn't a physical game, it can be played by any age group at a real high level. What does it take? WELL, WORKING YOUR ASS OFF, is a good place to start. There is a world of golden information in the books listed above, these are the foundations that you need to start building your "Poker House."

All of us also have a "poker soul." In order to improve, you must search your poker soul after every session, not after every losing session, every session period. "Is there anything that I could have done differently that would have been more profitable?" I have gone home many nights thinking, "well, I got unlucky and there wasn't anything I could have done to prevent that outcome." The next day after the smoke cleared, I am thinking, "Oh my God, what did I do! I could have done this or that instead." This is a game of repitious situations, the next time this situation comes up, you will have this last situation to fall back on, providing you learn from it.

DON'T LET RESULTS INFLUENCE YOUR OPINIONS

In No Limit your mission is to get all the money in when you have the best hand, if you do and lose, learn how to live with it. The losing part was something that was out of your control, your mission was accomplished, the cards just didn't let you win this time.

IT

"It" is the intangable part of the game, you either have "it" or you don't. In the Tiger Woods example, he obviously has "it." "It' is being able to formulate the correct strategy against the right player at the right time. The great thing about poker is that it is a non-physical game, even if you don't have "it" the harder you work the better you will end up playing. If you have "it" the sky is the limit. Taking into consideration the volumes of good poker info that exists today, anybody can be a winning player in the medium limit games if they try hard enough. You can actually support yourself quite nicely beating medimum limit games, like $5-$10 No Limit or $30-$60 limit.

Ed Hill