If you have ever noticed on your favorite video episode of the WPT, many of the pro players talk about hands that they just played against each other, offering their full and honest opinions on their strategy. Why? These guys are professionals and they are conveying their deep opinions about a hand, potentially giving away information.
That may be true, but poker players understand that a mix of their play enough will simply camouflage their tactics in a hand. The genuine cause they talk about hands freely is because they love the game, and they also realize that you can always become a better player, by sharing. It’s like they use that give-and-take to help improve their game, coach himself to become better.
Tennis players have coaches. So do hockey players, football players, rugby players, and surfers! The idea here is that if you take your game seriously, coaching is an outstanding way to better your perspective of the game and your tactical decisions. Let’s get back to that poker on TV mentioned earlier where you can see everyone’s hands on the camera. Your view of each hand changes drastically because you have a clearer understanding of each player’s motives in the hand. The same can be said for a coach or a friend, watching what you do in the game.
Now you don’t have to hire a coach – that’s kind of expensive, especially when you’re learning online poker. There are however ways that you can effectively start a self coaching course of study. Playing internet poker really expedites this because your poker software allows you to recover hands that you played from a simple text file. These can be found in program’s hand history folder. You can use these hand histories to post in forums, which is one of the optimal self coaching options available.
Just pick a popular poker forum and sign up, then start posting hands in pertinent sections. You will get more feedback than you ever thought possible. Nearly all of the advice is going to be very assistive to you because of the different perspective other players will have of your play – i.e. coaching.
If you play for a few hours every day, then there will be no trouble in finding four or five hands that you can post for analytic thinking. That is how to self-coach in poker. You have to get committed in your own hands and your own stripped-down plays, and let the coach’s opinions sink in.
Poker coaching and studying resources
If you want to be a great player you need to dedicate yourself to lifelong study. Apart from playing regularly, and studying your own plays to see where you made mistakes and how you can improve, you can also learn an awful lot from other players, books, articles and videos.
Join some poker forums and chat amongst other players. Railbird top players in online MTTs and see what moves they make, and how they adjust their game based on position, stack sizes, and how far through the tournament they are.
Read the poker articles on this site and on many other great sites on the internet. Watch YouTube poker videos and DVDs of the big events, and listen closely to the commentary, especially when it’s being done by a top player.
And finally read some books. There are literally hundreds of books on various aspects of the game, and some are better than others. Read the reviews on Amazon, and recommendations on forums to find books suitable for your style of play. As a starting guide I would suggest that every player should have at least the following books on their bookshelves:
Harrington on Hold’em
Super System
Caro’s Book of Poker Tells
If you never buy any other book at the very least buy, read and study those three and your game will improve!
