Beginners Guide to Poker?

Games
1

So my recently-turned-18-year-old son asked me tonight about teaching him to play poker. I understand the game, and understand it well enough to know I shouldn’t be playing for money. My mind just doesn’t work that way.

He, on the other hand, is a math whiz. He mastered Rubik’s Cube when he was 8 or 10, and he excels in his computer programming classes (he’s actually going to be taking Software Engineering in University). I think he would take naturally to the game, and with his math skills, might be able to make a couple bucks from his school mates next year.

I can teach him the basics, but how does one learn the finer points of the game, like win-probability percentages?

2

Get him the book, then play tons of poker online. All the various gambling sites have fake-money tables. But really you need to play for real money to get the feel of it, so move on to small stakes like 25c/50c tables to limit losses.

If you play well a normal human can actually make some money at these very low stakes tables. But if you get cocky and move up to like $2/$4 or whatever, that’s where professional players hang out playing 12 tables at a time and you will get your ass stomped.

https://smile.amazon.com/Theory-Poker-Professional-Player-Teaches/dp/1880685000/

3

Paging @Desslock

4

Gosh…I could write a lot on this subject lol.

I’m going to assume that you’re talking about ‘texas holdum’ here, as it’s been the most popular for quite a while. That being said, poker is poker, and the way you play doesn’t change much from game to game.

https://www.amazon.com/Doyle-Brunsons-Super-System-Brunson/dp/1580420818 For starters, pretty much the bible. There are quite a few books out there, by quite a few great poker players. For me, Doyle Brunson is the king. I’ve read pretty much every poker book there is, and found this to be the most ‘real world’ useful.

As far as odds go, figuring out the odds given what’s been played, is actually fairly easy for someone that has any kind of affinity for math. Poker is rarely about the cards in your hand, and almost always about what cards are on the table, your read of the other person, and your ability to know when to bet. It also has a lot to do with position, there are good and bad positions to be in, when you are trying to force a bet or steal a pot. All of that stuff can be learned by playing, but also just by watching poker tournaments and listening to the commentary.

Long story short, poker is a game about betting, not a game about cards. Getting to know the odds on cards, probably won’t take him long, getting to read people, know their tells, and know when to push, is what takes time to develop. It’s impossible to win at poker, by only playing “winning hands”, you have to win some pots with bluffs. Don’t get me wrong, having math affinity is a huge plus for a poker player, knowing that you are 40/60 going into a bet, is crucial to deciding when and what to risk. His math will certainly serve him well, there is just a lot more to the game.

I’m pretty old, I’ve played a lot of poker, as I said, I could go on for quite a while about this but will spare you the manifesto lol. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a message, but reading that book, and watching a lot of poker, will get him well on the way to fleecing his buddies. The one thing he needs to watch out for…it’s much more difficult to win money off of bad players, than it is good players. Bad players will stay in hands they shouldn’t, because they are too dumb to know what’s being represented on the table. This will lead to people making hands they have low odds for ect. Something to be mindful of as he starts out probably playing people that suck.

Beat bad players with cards, beat good players with aggression, is a pretty good rule of thumb for any poker game.

5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzZNh0P9K38

6

From what you say about his math skillz he should take up card counting and learn blackjack instead. Have him learn from the best.

7

True enough, blackjack is pure math. You still have a 11% advantage to the house, even if you play perfectly though. Craps is only .06 against you :P

8

AI is pretty close to being optimal on poker these days.

9

Seconding Theory of Poker for the maths side of things and Super System for the rest.

10

Yeah, Sklansky. The guy’s a bit of a creep (not in the book but IRL).

11

The only books that are worthwhile are Theory of Poker for general concepts, Harrington on Holdem for tournament basics, and the two Super System books primarily for poker types other than NL Texas holdem.

But poker books are limited and dated. One of the best ways to learn and appreciate poker is by watching youtube and twitch streams from professional players:
– Doug Polk’s (Upswing Poker) is the most entertaining and he also covers industry gossip, analyzes poker hands from prior events, etc. He’s mainly on youtube now.

  • Bryan Paris (BParis poker) on twitch is one of the best channels for tournament poker - he has gross tournament winnings of over $10m online and is one of the best to learn from.
  • Jason Sommerville (jcarver) on twitch is one of the overall best - he mainly plays tournaments, but also mixed game cash, sit/gos/ and spin/gos etc. He started the twitch-poker phenomenon and almost single-handedly wiped out the subscription training sites as a result.
  • If you’re interested in non-holdem poker, Talonchick is the best mixed game twitch feed. She plays a lot of 8-game, stud variants and omaha h/l.

Best of all, the twitch and youtube stuff is all free. You can subscribe to support the ones you like, but it’s not mandatory to access the content.

12

Oh, yes, Harrington is great, but probably not so much for beginners.

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I don’t agree with that - it’s very accessible and yet comprehensive. It’s biggest problem is that it is badly out of date and a lot of its details (such as bet-sizing on various streets, use of squeeze plays, etc.) don’t relate to the current state of the game - but the basic concepts are still very useful to understand.

Theory of Poker is arguably less accessible and a lot duller, but key for understanding how you should think about the game.

Super System books are very dated when it comes to NL Holdem and yet the fundamentals are so sound that they will always be useful, and they are the best books for understanding the basic strategies of most other types of poker that are popular in mixed game tournaments or cash games.

14

Yes and no. Bots have essentially ruined limit holdem online, but only recently have become capable of effectively playing NL holdem and even then only with serious hardware and 1 on 1 as opposed to ring games, and they’re essentially non-existent in mixed games. Games like 7 card stud might be vulnerable for AI to crush, but there’s so little value in those games anywhere these days, and most other mixed games are far more nuanced than holdem.

15

Isn’t online poker still illegal for US citizens? The current online sites are all outside the US and won’t take American cards I thought.

16

My understanding (and I’m not a lawyer) is that it’s not actually illegal to play and profit from online poker, but that many banks won’t process transactions with these sites so you need to take a circuitous route to deposit and withdraw money. The exception is if you live in NV, NJ, or delaware, where it is explicitly legal.

17

These are the ones I read back in the day when I was learning how to play (10-15 years ago). I think the order I read them in was Super/System, Theory of Poker, the Harrington ones (at least the first two) and Super/System 2, but that’s probably not ideal now. Theory of Poker is by far the hardest to read, and you’re probably better off reading that when you understand the basics.

18

I wouldn’t recommend it as a first book either, but Gladguy said his kid was a math whiz and it is a very statistics-heavy approach, seemed up his alley.

19

The broader legal question is a bit of a grey area - but it’s clear that the US federal government considers online poker illegal and shut down the major players still in the market in 2011.

Since then, new “grey market” players have sprung up that people in the US use, most notably America’s Card Room (ACR) - personally, I would not recommend depositing money you are not prepared to lose on a site if you a resident of the US, unless you are in one of the states Stusser noted (where they have passed legislation to make online poker is expressly legal) - and would similarly not recommend using a VPN to pretend you are in a different jurisdiction (you will lose your account funds if/when they realize you’re in the US).

Similar legislation is in various stages in other states, with California and New York expected to eventually approve it – even then, you should only play at sites that have been licensed by the state, and right now they are all “closed markets” (only able to play with players within the state) like WSOP.com in Nevada.

20

They do consider it illegal, but the law covers businesses taking money for gambling, it isn’t aimed at individual players. So yeah, worst case scenario the site is shutdown and you lose your money. However, many people did end up getting their money back from the 2011 black friday crackdown, except for one site that was essentially a ponzi scheme.

If I was playing poker for a living, or kept real money on deposit, I wouldn’t play on a grey market site. But for a kid playing 25c/50c tables? Sure, go crazy.