Advice to Beginning Poker Players

I am 20 years old now and have been playing poker for a ~6 years. I am going to give a brief recap on how I got started in poker and why I believe that my beginnings and my mentality can help those who are just beginning.

When I was 13, my brother Paul would always ask me if I wanted to play "No limit texas hold 'em". This sounded like a foreign language to me and I said no and continued playing Tony Hawk.

When I was 14, I started playing online poker. I specifically remember playing for free money on Ultimate Bet first and then switching over to Poker Stars when I found a guy who would by free chips for real money (to this day I have no idea why).

At the age of 15, my friend Nate decided to make a deposit on Ultimatebet.com. we decided to go into together with a preliminary deposit of $25. We started off playing $5 sng's which I now realize were quite outside of our bankroll. I don't remember how many deposits it took but after about 2 or 3, we were actually starting to make some money. Playing undisciplined $5-$10 6-person sng's, we ran quite well running our account up to near $1,000. Eventually variance caught up with us and we began to slide, going down to $500.

This is where I believe that a healthy fear of going broke allowed me to get out of this situation profitably. I was convinced that we had better withdraw now with some profit than just continuing to slide and eventually going broke. We withdrew and it was actually fun to see some real money after playing with what seemed to be fake money for so long.

Getting out of that situation with a profit felt like a bonus. I soon realized that I had no concept of the game. That's when I started talking to people close to me about proper strategy. I read Phil Hellmuth's "Play Poker Like the Pros" but I did not have anyone there to give me advice on specific hands.

When I saw that my friend Derek was doing well playing cards, I started talking to him about proper strategy. He immediately told me to tighten up my starting hand requirements to that point that I was folding AJ suited to a single raise in limit hold 'em. This was the start to me becoming a winning poker player.

I guess that I sort of rambled during this post, but I want to make a couple of points of advice towards those seriously considering playing winning poker:

1) A healthy fear of going bust - If you are genuinely concerned about losing any money playing poker, you will never do well. But if you understand that smart bankroll management combined with a proper strategy will almost eliminate the possibility of going broke, you will eventually make money.

2) Find a mentor - Find someone that is knowledgeable about the game and is genuinely interested in helping you learned. I feel like I was groomed to be a winning player, and that is something that I wish for other people. Along with this comes two benefits: a) you will hopefully get better at the game and b) maybe your mentor will eventually bankroll you, eliminating your risk in certain games.

3) Start out playing low stake limit hold 'em. Those who understand how to beat the local $2-4 or $3-6 limit game at their local casino will have a great foundation with which to begin their poker career. The key to these games is to understand that nearly all winning hands need to be shown down. This means that tight starting hand selection is of the up-most importance. If you significantly decrease your starting range, you will be able to not only beat local card room games but also online limit games. If you can beat these games, you can move into no limit tournaments effortlessly and be profitable.

Wow this is a long post. I just got done from a night of drinking so I hope I have minimized my mistakes and actually made coherent sense.

God Bless,

JG