1. Read everything you can find on poker
2. Try to talk to everyone you can get ahold of
3. Save all the hands you have difficulties with
4. Discuss all of your hands on poker forums and anywhere you can
5. Get a poker coach or join an online program!
6. Always review your sessions and learn to improve by yourself
7. Calculate and look at your equities
8. Learn how to apply hand ranges
9. Keep an open-mind and test everything
10. Understand the concepts in poker so you can customize them to fit your own style
11. Be generous – Help others with what you know
12. Keep your life balanced – don’t let poker swings affect your life
11. Use poker tracking software to plug your leaks
12. Be a copy cat – Look at how big winners play, think about it and imitate them.
13. If you think poker will make you rich quick, you’re wrong.
14. Prolonged stretches of bad-luck will happen, tighten up during them, take more breaks and discuss more hands to make sure you are playing your best.
15. Love your mistakes – How else will you know what to improve?.
16. Be self-critical, but do not put yourself down. Every mistake is an investment if you learn from it.
17. Learn how to spot exploitable patterns in players and how to take advantage of them.
18. Focus on one game and invest in an online course – whether it be Sit & Go’s, Tournaments or Cash Games, pick one as your main focus

Essential Tips for Beginners

19. ALWAYS play tight!
20. Try different poker games – Even though Hold’em is the most popular game, it doesn’t mean it will be the game for you
21. Study the game as much as you can
22. Have patience – It was frustrating as a baloon for me in the beginning, but turn that frustration into determination and you are good to go.
23. Keep your calm – This is incredibly important throughout your whole poker career, but especially while starting out.
24. Become a master of game selection
25. Keep it simple
26. See the first 8 tips in this list and make them your 8 commandments

Forum Posting Tips

27. Post meaningful stuff
28. Post funny stuff
29. Don’t just spam the forums with standard hands – Search the forums and archives first and learn
30. Discuss others hands at least as much as you post your own
31. Don’t be afraid to get yelled at, this is how you learn
32. Participate! The more hands you analyze and think about the better you become.

Poker Coaching Tips

33. Find a coach with experience and a good track record
34. Ask around what others think
35. Don’t hire a high-stakes coach when you only need a low-stakes one
36. Hire a coach if you’re “running bad”
37. No matter how good a coach might be, he might not be the right one for you. Try many coaches to gain several perspectives, sometimes you need to hear the same information from several angles to fully comprehend it.
38. Join a subscription site like Cardrunners or Stoxpoker

Poker Strategy Tips

39. Master the fundamentals – Solid poker wins the money.
40. Don’t fall into the trap that poker is all about great moves
41. If you don’t know the correct places to bluff in – don’t bluff
42. Learn to adjust to different player types
43. Play tight as a motherfather out of position
44. Don’t get into ego contests

Bankroll Management

45. Make specific bankroll management rules
46. Have AT LEAST 20 buy-ins for the level you are playing and move down if you drop below that
47. Make your rules so specific that you cannot break them without knowing it, it is easy to fool yourself
48. Make sure you never go broke, if you go broke you can no longer play (shocking isn’t it?)

Game Selection

49. Learn in what games you win the most
50. Learn in what games you lose the most
51. Improve your weaknesses
52. Make a living off of your strengths
53. Make super specific rules for what games you play in and leave if they do not make the cut

Discipline

54. Learn how you tilt
55. Stop playing after you lose a big pot or take a break
56. If you feel any kind of emotional change in your body after taking a beat or several or just not getting any cards – get up or just quit the game.
57. Discipline is one of the key pillars in the fragile house of cards – If you do not use it, the house collapses.
58. Most downswings or prolonged stretches of bad luck are magnified by bad discipline.
59. Don’t be afraid to move down in stakes if you’re having trouble

Take Notes

60. How does he play big hands?
61. How does he play medium strength hands?
62. How does he play weak hands?
63. How does he play draws?

Awareness

64. What is your table image?
65. Learn to manipulate your table image.
66. Learn how to use what others think they know against them
67. Learn to quit a game when it turns sour or when your table image is beyond repair

Happiness

68. Don’t waste your energy on whining about how unlucky you are
69. Take breaks
70. Be specific about what you want (write down goals)
71. Use you winnings to take a vacation or just take your friends and/or family for a dinner!
72. Keep the game fun

I strongly believe anyone can become a solid poker player and make a living doing it, but it takes work and it takes DETERMINATION. I know some that are in it for the money and it apparently is a strong motivator for them, when I started playing I liked playing poker, but I also liked making money. I had a kind of mix and that kept me interested.

Nowadays when I play 8 tables and my only goal is to make money I feel bored, there is no passion in the game. Sure, I still learn if I focus, but I prefer playing less tables. In that way I can get reads on opponents, I can adapt my play and I can play real poker that is challenging and fun for me.

Why then, do some of you never become the players you can be?

1. Fooling Yourself

Are you constantly fooling yourself? “Poker is all luck and these fishies don’t know what they’re doing”. You constantly get “bad beats” and that’s why you can’t win at poker. Does this sound familiar? If it does, then you are absolutely fooling yourself.

Bad players are what make it possible to win at poker, you have to embrace the bad beats because when people are sucking out on you, you are making money in the long run. If you can keep going then you will win, but if you just play bad and blame it on luck then odds are that you will never make money playing poker.

2. Playing the Ego Game

What about ego, do you get in emotional battles at the poker table? If you answered yes, then this is another obstacle in your way to becoming an excellent poker player. Don’t think I am saying that you have no chance of becoming a winning poker player, because if you are honest with yourself and work on your game, you have a phenomenal chance of doing so.

Your chances go way down if you get into pissing matches at the poker table. You have to keep your cool and be rational about how players are playing, what are their hand ranges? How can you adapt? If you only believe someone is doing something then that is often not enough, you have to see some showdowns, you have to see his hand so you can make a proper assessment of how he plays.

If you’re thinking “I’m going to get this guy because he sucked out” or anything similar, you’re in big trouble.

3. Not Putting in Enough Time

You can’t expect to become a winner if you don’t put in the study time. What is enough time? I can only tell you how much time I put in before I started to win.

I started around 2004 and after 5-6 months I was making ~$2,000 a month. During those 5-6 months I probably put in at least 3-4 hours everyday of reading forums, annoying people with my questions and reading all the books I could get my hands on.

That should give you a perspective on what it could take. Keep in mind, that was my journey, yours will most likely be completely different. What’s important is that you put in the time and be persistent, results will come if you keep working at your game.

4. Neglecting Coaching and Help

I know quite a few players who blame bad luck and whine about how they’ve run bad for the past 6-12 months and I tell them to get coaching or send me their last 500 hands so I can look through them. And what happens?

They refuse because they know they’re playing bad poker. Why would you want to do this to yourself? Is your goal to whine for the rest of your life?

If you want to become a winner you have to be willing to show your mistakes to coaches and other poker players to discuss how you can improve. If you keep losing you HAVE to figure out WHY, only then can you make progress.

5. Tilting Your Money Away

You might be one of those players who play really well until you get a few bad beats. You then proceed to throw a few buy-ins away and get pissed because you’re so unlucky. Guess what, you’re as lucky as anyone else, but you’re throwing your money away but not keeping your composure.

In the end, you are the one responsible for your results.

Learn to meditate, do yoga or anything that helps you minimize tilt. You can start by quitting INSTANTLY when you feel any of those tilty feelings come up. If you keep going you are just giving your money away, avoid doing this at all cost!

6. Money Management

Are you constantly playing in games where you are 2 buy-ins from being broke? Then you have a money management issue, you have to start making specific rules and making sure you never go broke, because if you go broke and gamble foolishly then you have no money to play with (pretty obvious isn’t it? ).

Start by having at least 20 buy-ins for the level you play, preferably 30 buy-ins. So if you’re playing $0.5/$1.00 No-Limit Hold’em then you would need $3,000 if you’re following the 30 buy-in rule and whenever you drop below that $3,000, even if it is to $2,999 you move down to $0.25/$0.50 to get back to 31 buy-ins for $0.5/$1.00 and then go back.

7. Game Selection

This usually isn’t a problem for beginning players as the games at the micro or low stakes are pretty good, meaning that you never have to use game selection. But when you reach stakes like $1/2 No-Limit Hold’em you have to start being picky. That means leaving games that are bad (i.e. you won’t make any profit in them) or just not playing when the games are bad.

It’s tempting to keep sitting in a game when you’re losing to get unstuck, but this is just backwards if you want to make money. Set a stop-loss, if you lose 3 buy-ins you quit playing until you’ve regained your calm.

And when you’re winning you should play longer sessions because your table image is such that you will win more pots easily and generally have an easier time. On the contrary, when you have a bad image other players will take more shots at you and bluff you at a more difficult frequency, thus lowering your win rate and if the game has gone bad you might even be a loser for that session, because of your impaired judgment, table image and the table line-up.

8. Trying to Outplay People

This should go into the Ego category, but I decided to give it its own office space. This is very prevalent in today’s online games, players are paranoid that you’re making a move on them so they will call you down very loosely. And it kind of works against the bad aggressive players, because they bluff too much and are too paranoid about anyone bluffing them.

If you put one of these paranoid players vs. a good thinking player then he will get crushed, because the good thinking player will adapt to his looseness.

This is another reason why you have to play tight solid poker in today’s games and when you learn new things you add them into your game, you do not and I repeat DO NOT start playing all those speculative hands like 97 suited out of position because you think you can outplay other players.

Avoid being that player who plays hands because he thinks he can outplay everyone and thus making the hand profitable.

9. Failing to Adapt

You cannot play a mechanical game if you want to win decent money playing poker. Poker is about people and that means you have to adapt to be able to win.

If someone is playing too loose you adapt by, for example value betting them more. You have to learn how to adapt vs. different players and this knowledge or should I say wisdom comes from mainly experience and partly having someone to discuss these concepts with.

I hope this post will help you realize if you have any flaws in your game and propel you to take action. Because if you do not see your mistakes, how can you ever get rid of them? Magic? Possible, but unlikely.

Most high-traffic poker sites offer solid gambling deposits, which means that you don’t have to worry about losing your money. There are so many different online deposit options that they are impossible to cover in one article.

That is why this article is solely to get your awareness on making sure that you pick a trustworthy site. For example, there are many big poker rooms out there, such as Titan Poker, Party Poker and Poker Stars. They are all great. The way you pick one is to try them out and see which one you like the most.

There are also e-wallets you can use to manage your bankroll, such as Click2Pay. Whether you need one or not is up to you. I recommend you check them out and read the fine-print.

Remember to always keep your eyes on what you truly need. Don’t opt for things that are unnecessary for what you’re trying to accomplish. There are a lot of good offers out there, but ultimately you are the one that has to decide whether or not it is right for you.

There’s a lot of questions around how many is transferred and transactions are made online, but in reality, playing poker is safe, when you stick to the big poker sites.

The big sites have elaborate security measures in place. The smaller ones are more hit and miss. If you’re just starting out, I recommend you pick one of the bigger sites. That way you know that your bankroll is safe, and besides, the bigger sites have more players, games and bonuses.

Have fun and keep rocking!

If you’re new to the game, Party Poker is very accommodating. PartyPoker.com doesn’t run as many events as some of the other sites, but that should not deter you from the site.  The events they do run are very good and they don’t attract huge fields of players. Those two things can be very beneficial for beginners, as it is easier to book a win.

Full Tilt Poker may not attract the biggest fields for their tournaments, but the fields can be very tough, as some of today’s top pros play there. They also feature plenty of freerolls, satellites, and guaranteed prize pools for their tournaments, so if you’re looking for a decent tournament size and the chance to make a big score, FullTiltPoker.com is right for you.

If taking on the biggest tournament fields available sounds like your cup of tea, then PokerStars is the site for you. PokerStars.com offers guaranteed prize pools and satellites to some of the best live tournaments around the world. Tournaments run constantly on PokerStars and if you’re up for a challenge and competing against some of the biggest tournament fields around, sign up for a PokerStars.com account.

When I first started playing online poker I was really interested in making money in a non-job way. I planned on going to a university nearby when I’d made $20,000. Once I made that money, everything changed.

I saw the possibilities that were in front of me. I could play texas hold’em and make a ton of money. Making a lot of money is an admirable goal, but it isn’t exactly fulfilling and not a good reason to play poker.

I don’t know about you, but once I made enough money, poker didn’t really interest me anymore. I still kept playing and forced myself to play, which ruined by love for the game.

Whenever you make something a must, it will end up feeling like a job sooner or later. At least that is how it was for me.

Becoming a professional poker player requires hundreds if not thousands of hours before you even start to understand the basics. Some never learn the game, it just isn’t for them.

If you’re thinking about texas hold’em, omaha hi/low, online poker tournaments or any other form of poker, think long and hard about how you want to go about it.

If you really want to do it, I’d suggest you do it part-time at first and see how you do for a year or two. Poker can be deceptive because you CAN be lucky for a long, long time, which will skew your perspective and make you think that you are better than you really are.

I’m not here to scare you, only to share a bit of my experience during the years that I’ve played. In the end, if you really want to become a professional poker player, you will succeed. You just have to be sure that it is what you truly want.

Pretty often a new poker room comes around and threatens the grip that previously established poker rooms have on the online poker industry. More often than not, they fizzle out, never to be heard of again. One online poker room that seems to be here to stay, though, is Littlewoods poker online.

While Littlewoods poker is still relatively small compared to some of its major competitors, it makes up for this shortcoming with great signup bonuses, great customer service, an excellent software platform, and extremely easy deposit and withdrawal methods.

If you have already visited all the poker news sites, taken part in a poker school, and have been following your favorite poker blog religiously and are ready to make the jump into online poker, Littlewoods Poker is worth giving a shot.

Littlewoods Poker offers great sign up bonuses. Not only do you get entry into a special freeroll tournament for new players when you sign up, you also get a 100% deposit bonus on your initial deposit.

Freerolls are excellent opportunits for who is looking a free seat to the next EPO. Even though this is relatively standard in the online gaming industry, the easier bonus release rules make this a great deal.

Tommy Angelo is a legend among the poker community. He has been playing longer than I have been alive.

He coaches people how to tilt less and become tiltless. He runs his own coaching program and blog over at his website.

I first came in contact with Tommy about 3-4 years ago I think. I contacted him after I went berserk at the poker table and realized that I needed more tiltlessness in my life.

Here’s the interview, enjoy!

Henri: I remember when I first discovered poker. One of my friends had made $500 and I instantly thought “If he can then I can” and I started reading books and everything I could get my hands on. How did you find poker?

Tommy: I started playing poker with my older brothers when I was five years old. That was in 1963. I started playing for money when I was 14. At age 17 was the first time I ever heard the phrase “professional poker player,” and I knew I wanted to be one. 13 years later, my dream came true. Two months later I was flat broke.

Henri: There are many reasons people turn pro, most of today’s online players seem to just fall into it. One day they’re making $10,000/month and they decide that it is awesome and they should try going pro, but what made you go pro, was it when you reached a certain amount of income or something else?

Tommy: I became I pro because I was so insanely addicted to poker that there was literally nothing else I wanted to do. And if I was going to do nothing but play poker, well, I was going to have to win, or else. So because of obsession and necessity, I learned how to win.

Henri: I know you’ve been playing poker for almost 20 years now, that’s almost as long as I’ve been alive! I know I’ve learned a thing or two from playing poker, so my question is.. Have you learned anything during all these years?

Tommy: Just to get the numbers straight, I went pro about 20 years ago. I played for money for 15 years before that! Yes, I have learned the most important thing to work on now and forever is playing my best all the time, no matter what it takes. If I do my best, then not only do I enjoy the game optimally, and make the most money possible, but I also have no regrets, no matter what happens.

Henri: Did you ever go broke or have to work in some weird places? What kind of jobs have you worked in your life. Did you enjoy them? What did you learn from them?

Tommy: I was either broke or on the verge of broke my first five years as a pro. I haven’t worked a regular job since I went pro. Thought I have had a variety of small income streams, such as parking cars in my yard on Ohio State University home football games (that was six days per year, back when I lived in Ohio). And writing poker articles. And, well I guess that’s it. These days, I hardly play anymore. Between doing poker coaching, and book sales, I’m making plenty of money, and I love those activities, obviously, or else I wouldn’t be doing them!

I have a new major project out right now. It’s called “The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment.” It’s an 8-part poker video series. You can see it at DeucesCracked.com. You can read the details about in this blog post.

Henri: And an important question I almost forgot. We all know Eckhart Tolle (the author of Power of Now) likes cats, but do you have any pets and do you think that they are secretly manipulating us?

Tommy: I have two cats, Max and Emma, and they rule my mind and body. I am powerless before them.

Henri: There’s something strange about cats. They’re tricky. I like it. Onto the next question. Have you ever been so sick of poker that you just wanted to kill something cute? What did you do during those times? Did you take a break or just plow through it?

Tommy:
1) Yes.
2) Damaged myself instead.
3) Both.

Most of my running bad “breaks” were really three-day depressions. I’d just read and sleep and watch movies and not answer the phone. And there were times I plowed through. I’ve been through every kind of bad streak so many times that just about every which way of handling it, and not handling, has occurred.

Henri: You’re well known for your tiltless coaching program, where you help poker players reduce their tilt issues. If you could sum up the best advice ever on how to reduce tilt into a few sentences, what would you say?

Tommy: Meditate every morning. Tune your instrument. Then use your mindfulness skills during your sessions and on your breaks. I just made a page at my site for people looking to get started. TommyAngelo.com/meditation101.html

Henri: If someone is thinking about going pro, what would you say to them?

Tommy: Go for it.

Henri: You’ve started making a new series on the poker training site DeucesCracked called “The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment”, do you have any plans to produce future videos and what will they be about (if you can disclose that)

Tommy: There are still a couple months of intensive work left to be done on the video series. After that, I am going to take a break from major projects for a few months. I have no specific plans yet as to what my next project will be. I might write a book with the same name as the video series. As to videos, I have no plans to make more, and no plans not to. My general plan is to start my next major project, whatever it is, in January 2010.

Henri: Did you ever study at college or get any “higher” education?

Tommy: I went to Ohio State University for one year. I left college to play bridge. I was definitely one of the higher people there.

Henri: What did you want to be when you grew up?

Tommy: An astronaut.

Henri: Many poker players say that being broke is an interesting feeling, you feel free. Have you ever been completely no-pennies-in-your-pocket broke? What was it like?

Tommy: Yes. It totally sucked. I did not feel free because I was broke. I felt shackled. However! It was worth all the pain, because the freedom I DID feel, the freedom of waking up everyday with no one relying on me and me relying on no one else, was absolutely priceless.

Henri: What is one of the awesomest things you’ve ever experienced at the poker table or related to poker?

Tommy: This was at a home game back in Ohio. It was like a casino game, with a house dealer and all that. Everyone knew everyone. This old-ish guy went into a red-faced vein-bulging rage over losing hand after hand. He stormed to the bathroom while blaring, “I’m going to go blow my fucking brains out.” He went into the bathroom, and we heard a gunshot go off. Nobody got up. A minute later, he came out, even more angry if you can imagine that, because no one had come to see if he was still alive.

Henri: You’ve been coaching tilting players for quite some time now. Are there any general patterns you see in people that you would like to share, like not quitting enough, not breathing etc..

Tommy: The most pervasive tilt-causing pattern, and this is in all people, not just poker players, is that we think and think and think and think, about what happened, and what will happen, and we have all this negative mental crap that get stirred up by our judgments and reactions, and if we would just stop, like, now, and just listen, and look around, and take some calming breaths, and give our discursive thoughts a chance to slow down and even stop, for just a second, if we would do just that one thing, multiple times throughout the day, our overall tilt factor would go down in direct proportion to the amount of stopping we do.

Henri: And lastly, why do you love the game of poker?

Tommy: Because it is boundless. Because it has a thousand faces. Because it tests every aspect of humanity, and it allows every skill and every trait to flower. Poker is the ultimate game because it molds itself to each person. As to playing it, I love it because, well, I don’t know why. I just know that I do.

Henri: That’s a wrap! I hope you guys enjoyed it. I know I did!

Flying out of Miami, my Dad and I arrived in Managua, and took a bumpy, dusty ride to the Surf Sanctuary about 3 hrs to the south.

The friendly American owners greeted us on our arrival.

We ate a delicious fresh-cooked meal and enjoyed the brand-new accomodations with pool table, AC, and internet.

I hoped to play poker during my stay, but the central american internet was good for email and chat but not stable enuogh for poker.

After dinner we took the short ride to the beach to check out the waves.

Stoked!

Dad, while playing pool, befriended a group of cheerful brazilian surfers.  The next morning we all drove north to Popoyo.

Popoyo is a fun, rippable wave, both lefts and rights.  Bigger sets would roll through periodically.

The tide rose and softened up the smaller waves.  We had a blast!

After lunch, the brazilians took us to an un-named surf spot they dubbed “little popoyo.”  The wave broke off a large outcropping of lava rock!  I kept my distance from the rock, but the brazilians would charge waves mere meters from the cliff.

Little popoyo breaks slowly, yielding big open faces for carves and cutbacks.   Lots of fun.

Surfed out, we ate a delicious dinner of locally grown chicken, vegetables, rice and beans at Surf Sanctuary, and crashed for the night.  Stay tuned for part 2!

I have been in contact with Tommy Angelo for about 4 years I think. I started getting coaching and talking to him when I was playing Limit Hold’em and he helped me discover why I was tilting and what I could do to stop!

In these episodes he goes through a lot of material that is in his book Elements of Poker, but he also talks about other things that are interesting to hear, at least for me!

It’s on DeucesCracked, where their thing is to make series, each series consists of seasons, each season consists of 8 episodes, and each series is about different topics.

One could be about how to beat low-limit NLHE and one could be about how to become a poker budddha, and that’s what Tommy’s series is all about!

I highly recommend that you check out not only Tommy’s series but all the stuff on DeucesCracked if you want to become a poker player who kills your poker game or any new poker room!

If you can’t find Tommy’s video, just type “Tommy Angelo” in the Find box at the top. You can try DC for free (for 7 days), until then you can see small preview of each video, until you sign-up.

My winrate started going downhill because I wasn’t keeping up with what was going on at the poker table.

I wasn’t paying attention to my opponents and I wasn’t REALLY studying the game.

Sure, I was getting coaching and watching poker videos at deucescracked, but I wasn’t really paying attention or even caring.

And that’s when I hit a pretty bad downswing and it has taken me awhile to get back on track. I lost focus and started to focus on the money more than the strategic aspect of the game.

It’s funny because it happens in cycles. I have soon been playing poker full-time for five years, and I can only laugh at myself because I go through the same cycles over and over.

I play well and I win a bunch of gold, then I’m like “this is so easy, I’m going to play more tables and own people even more.”

After that I usually hit a downswing and I am oblivious to why it has happened. Cards do matter, but often enough my play has deteriorated and I have no one but myself to blame.

I then whine to everyone I know about how unlucky I am and how I am the unluckiest guy in the world and why me. I consider doing animal sacrifices for the poker gods, but always decide against it.

That’s usually how the cycle goes for me. The animal sacrifice thing is usually rock bottom for me, and that is when I get a coach and slap myself in the face.

Lessons Learned

1 – Don’t play 8 tables and think you can play ABC poker and own people.

2 – DON’T whine to your friends, because it is a waste of energy and your friends will want to do bad things to you.

3 – Pay attention while you play and really THINK about every decision.

4 – Try to figure out your opponents thought process. If they show a weirdly played hand, think about why they’re playing it that way. What is their reasoning? Can you learn anything about them that you can later use to crush their soul?

5 – Do other stuff! Don’t take poker so seriously, poker has variance and you’ll get destroyed by poker if you take it too seriously. Get a hobby, girlfriend, dog, meditate or whatever you want.

Photo taken by Craig Dennis.