Plenty of new poker players think that this game is easy to learn. To some of them, it’s enough to read the rules, understand the hand combinations, and get into the game.
Much later, as they try to play higher stakes or bigger games, they realize the truth. You can’t just casually earn more and more money from poker without learning. The micro-stakes are much more forgiving, but even there, players are improving every day. You need to be improving with them.
We are going to deal out the 5 best ways to learn how to play poker, in no particular order. If you really want better results, take note of all five.
1. Poker Theory
Start learning on your own. This isn’t hard to do since there is plenty of material freely available. This will be the first brick in your poker education and the best way to begin.
The classic approach is to search for books and other literature. Be careful of outdated info about poker online! The rules may be the same for different formats, but the strategies have changed drastically. The strategies described 10+ years ago are no longer relevant today.
We recommend following poker blogs and YouTube channels with proven success. We regularly post the best content to our news feed. Each week, you’ll find a mix of strategy and poker news there.
2. Analyze Your Hands After Sessions
Another key element is hand analysis. You’ll need more than a good memory to do this since nobody can remember all the details from thousands of hands.
On YouTube, you can easily find hundreds of clips where professional players and coaches analyze their own hands or hands sent by students. This is truly top content to watch as it allows you to form the right thoughts about various lines.
But at some point, you’ll need to use apps to learn about leaks and strategy mistakes.
Lots of programs can do this for you, but Hand2Note is one of the most popular.
With it, you’ll get a HUD at your table, displaying info about your opponents.
At the same time, the tool saves your results and actions for analysis later. It will even point out the flaws in your game, known as “leaks”. This is the best way to find out how you are losing in certain spots and show you any negative patterns.
3. Use Poker Tools to Increase Your Edge
It is impossible to imagine a successful modern online poker player who refuses to study with poker tools. The GipsyTeam store has software for all occasions:
- Trackers/HUDs: These tools display statistics for online tables. This allows you to make positive decisions against specific opponents, knowing what lines they took in previous similar spots. However, some poker rooms prohibit them. Even when that is the case, the software doesn’t become useless. They are still the best way to analyze hands and eliminate leaks in your own game.
- Solvers: Powerful and complex programs that analyze each specific situation in detail. You get answers, like which hand to choose a check-call line with, which one to bluff with, etc. For beginning poker players, the data can seem complicated, and it might cause them to avoid using the solver.
- Training programs: These are also known as calculators and simulators. FlopZilla software is recommended and doesn’t require high-level strategy to use. It is one of the best apps to learn about thinking in ranges. This is one of the key skills that allows you to make winning decisions in poker online and offline.
- Utilities and tools: A large group of programs that make playing online poker easier. For example, the Caption series was built for sites like 888, Stars, and partypoker. The tools allow you to change the interface of the tables and get extra functions usually unavailable.
4. Work with Peers to Improve
It really helps to have people around you with the same interest in poker. This can motivate you, give you ways to practice, and expose some of your leaks.
Organizing private online home games is one way to get your practice in. There are free-play and real-money options, so every skill level has a chance to get started.
Club poker apps take that concept further and reward you with rakeback. Let’s say you have a larger group of 20 players and all of you want a place to practice. If you play on KKPoker in your own club, that's 70% rakeback for you.
5. Pools and Funds in Poker
If you don’t want to work with a coach, or you don’t have the money for it, you can take an alternative route. Try joining a backing fund – one of the modern types of schools.
Usually, we pay for education and don’t see a direct return, but this is more like an investment.
If your current level of play and results are higher than a beginner’s, you can try applying to a poker pool or fund. For you as a player, this means free poker education. The fund provides a bankroll, and you share the profit with the school. Some poker online funds require studying strategy and a certain level of involvement, in return for perks. The conditions and kickbacks differ, so we recommend studying them and comparing them.
If you think you’ve reached this level and might have the skills a poker fund is looking for, send a quick message to our GT+ specialists.
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