My Attempts At Poker Coaching
I am not a poker coach. But I do know how to play poker and therefore am able to tell the rules to people. A group of my father’s friends wanted to learn how to play and they asked me to help them out. I thought I would blog about my experience teaching them as it reminded me of the fundamentals of poker success and the key concepts you must always be aware of. I’m sure some of the players will go on to be very good and the more new players we bring into the game the healthier it will become for everyone.
Some of the players knew that I had played a little. Not many of them were aware that I write about 10,000 words per week on poker, but as I have alluded to before they would still probably believe they knew best even if they only played a few hands. One of the players has played a lot in a Texas Hold’em poker league and he likes to play texas hold’em poker online too. I was fairly confident that between us we could teach this group of people how to play fairly quickly. On a number of occasions, however, I had to remind one of my team of experts (term used loosely) that calling a large pre-flop raise with K3 of hearts just because, in his words, he might get a flush was probably not the best strategy.
The landlord of the bar was really keen to set up a poker night on a Wednesday. This would mean he had an event on every night and would make more money! Most of the other players had seen a poker event on TV and this was more of a one-off bit of fun for them. I would have loved the regular game but the players soon realised I could beat them easily. They just wanted to learn. For this reason I declined to mention fold equity, check raising and betting for value.
I started by discussing the blinds and dealing a hand. We played for the first few hands face up so everyone could see. A couple of players did not get the concept of face up holdem (it will not catch on although a few online poker rooms like Ultimate Bet did make a bundle secretly doing it), and we changed to normal face down play. The hardest thing for the new players to grasp was building a large pot with their big hands. They wanted to call rather than raise and were more interested in “playing poker by play hands” rather than realising they were playing poker even if they folded. They wanted to call with any two because maybe they would make a winning hand. This was something I stopped straight away and they were surprised at the small range of starting hands you could play and still have a chance to win.
Once we had finished some players expressed a wish to learn more about the game online. I guided them in the direction of online poker rooms that offer secure games and also freeroll tournaments, meaning even if they did not have a starting bankroll this does not stop them from building one from zero dollars and making some money from the game if they wish. I told them of my belief that you read many of the scams and get rich quick schemes online but there are few places where you can legitimately play free games and have the chance to win real money. Online poker offers this opportunity and as long as you are aware of the real money considerations and gamble responsibly poker offers a very real opportunity to a skilled player. They just need to get to work learning the skills required to win.
By Malcolm Clarke
Tags: online poker, poker, poker coaching, poker lesson