Poker Journal Entry #0: I had to start somewhere
Poker Journal Entry #0:
I had to start somewhere
How did I begin learning about poker?
I was never a
studier in poker or in life really. I
had, of course, heard people talking about hitting the lab and I was way too
cocky to admit I had no idea what that meant during my earlier poker days. I acted like I knew what they were saying,
and I pretended like I did it too.
However, pretending did nothing to build my knowledge or to develop my
game.
Life humbled me
pretty well over the years and when I decided I was going to come back to poker
I had developed some helpful new life habits.
First, I won't lie to myself anymore.
At this point in my life, I know the first step in getting better at
something is to get specific about why I am not good yet. When it came to
poker, I had to admit to myself that I not only hadn’t been learning, but I
didn’t even know how to start learning.
Next, I set aside a few hours each day for
working on incremental growth in areas that matter to me (philosophy,
meditation, exercise, etc.) Poker had to
be the same, I had to get “in the lab” each day. The problem, as I mentioned earlier, was that
I didn’t even have a clue what that looked like. In the early stages of learning something, I
like to research how other people learn about it and go from there. Plenty of people have great free content on
how to make the most out of your poker study time. I hit YouTube and 2+2 until I had a plan for
how to split up my studying time and my playing time for maximum efficiency.
Finally, I am
always on the lookout for people and places where help can be found to help me
progress towards my goals. I knew a few
things from back in the day, but I was sure there was more to be found if I
spent some time looking. I was right
about that. There are about a million
coaches, courses, message boards, YouTube channels, and discords that could
help me out.
I started off
watching videos on how to study poker and led me to the Raise Your Edge
YouTube channel. There I found courses
and a discord community that was very active.
Before I bought anything or started interacting, I checked some reviews
and they said that it was a great place to start if you were building your game
from the ground up, and I definitely was.
I bought a course and started trying to learn ranges. Once I felt (incorrectly) that I had learned
them well I loaded up $100 on a poker site and started hitting the
streets.
I knew I wasn’t
going to be a winner right away, but everything I had read and watched so far
said I needed to share hands with other people to get feedback and learn to be
better. This was a test of my newly
found humility because people are not exactly gentle. A lot of people were only a few lessons
beyond my level, but if I posted a hand that interacted with their learnings
they LOVED to pontificate from the window of their ivory tower. I didn’t let that get to me because at the
end of the day their blunt advice sprinkled with insults of my game was
helpful. If I could just focus on the
learning and forget the trolling and superiority complexes, I could get what I
needed and I knew it right away.
In time I got
used to the trolling and made a deal with myself to play for at least an hour
before work every day and to pick at least one hand to share on the RYE
discord. I continued listening to their
YouTube videos and trying to put the advice into practice. One thing that was being said everywhere I
looked was “you need to find a group near or above your level and join them to
learn together.” I found a room in the
RYE discord where people post messages to find study buddies and I went for it.
I posted a little
bit about my history as a poker player and a life-leak master. I also told a bit about overcoming my issues
along the way and that caught a few different group’s interests. I got a few messages and most of them were
studying tournaments only, which was not what I wanted to get into. Then I got a message from a German guy who
was looking to add some English-speaking members to his small group. It was finally exactly what I was looking for.
I was intimidated and I assumed everyone else
was going to be a crusher that was wondering how they wound up with such a n00b
in their group. I could not have been
more wrong. They don’t care that I am
not the best player, they care that I am consistently working at my game. The most important thing is that if I say I
will be there for a group skype on Sundays, I am going to be there if it is at
all possible. They are better than me,
and they know way more about solvers and GTO than I do, but I just listen and
take notes so I can get a little better each time we talk.
I also lucked out
and had an up and coming player message me to offer to open a discord
messaging conversation where I could ask for help. This has been the main thing that has helped
me because this person has come to know me well enough to see my repeated
mistakes and they almost always have great advice to help me plug the leaks and
understand why I have them in the first place.
I will get their permission and shout them out in a future post
hopefully, but they will remain anonymous for now.
I have been
playing each day and keeping a journal of my learnings on an almost daily
basis. I will start on the next post by
exposing how dumb my learnings were at the beginning and how things slowly
developed from there. I was always
searching for the simple set of rules that would turn me into a crusher, but
after a while, I realized that isn’t how it works. Since then I have just been on the daily
grind of playing, posting hands in the study group, posting hands-on 2+2,
summarizing my daily learnings in my journal, and reviewing them before I start
each daily session.
Thanks for
reading and stay tuned as I start next week writing about my entries in my
learning journal. It will be
embarrassing for me, but it should be entertaining for you, and then eventually
we will get to the things that helped turn my game around. Until then, get out there and grind and find
some ways to learn.
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