What are the least effective methods of learning poker?

[Propane Goat]

We've all heard the advice "play lots of hands," but that alone isn't necessarily going to make you become at least a good player.

Music instructors often state that students who have self-taught for some time before taking lessons wind up having to spend a lot of time undoing bad habits before they can progress. The phrase "practice makes perfect" is often stated but doesn't give the whole picture. In reality, "practice makes permanent" and practicing the wrong thing only creates or reinforces bad habits.

What are poker leaning activities that might look like they're effective but actually are doing nothing to help you learn or worse, causing you to create or reinforce bad habits?

 

[iwont20]

I believe it's watching/learning from people playing higher stakes than you and then going and do the same thing on your stakes. And it's not about high stakes vs micros. What's good for abi 50 is not that good for abi 10, for instance. That's why they say, take the coach who have beaten your limit and is playing a buy-in or two higher, not someone who played there 10 years ago and is in a different category ever since.

 

[pentazepam]

Studying too much GTO and not learning how to exploit unbalanced players.

You don't need much theory. Just find worse players.

That is why table and player selection is paramount.

Sorry tournament players.

 

[Propane Goat]

I believe it's watching/learning from people playing higher stakes than you and then going and do the same thing on your stakes. And it's not about high stakes vs micros. What's good for abi 50 is not that good for abi 10, for instance. That's why they say, take the coach who have beaten your limit and is playing a buy-in or two higher, not someone who played there 10 years ago and is in a different category ever since.

Great point - watching wsop videos might make for good amusement but it's not going to teach you much about the button-mashers in a $1 MTT.

Studying too much GTO and not learning how to exploit unbalanced players.

You don't need much theory. Just find worse players.

That is why table and player selection is paramount.

Sorry tournament players.

I've heard it said that GTO also doesn't help much if at all when playing against very weak players who have no idea what they're doing.

 

[pentazepam]

Great point - watching WSOP videos might make for good amusement but it's not going to teach you much about the button-mashers in a $1 MTT.



I've heard it said that GTO also doesn't help much if at all when playing against very weak players who have no idea what they're doing.

That is correct.

A simple approximation and summary of GTO is that it's a perfect defense strategy against balanced, and other GTO, players in the sense that you can't be exploited since you also are balanced in almost every spot.

But as soon as you notice that any other player deviates from a balanced approach: for example calls too much or bluffs too much you start to exploit the fact that they are unbalanced.

Good players can of course change their style back and forth depending on how they think the opponents perceive them.

But if you find a player that acts unbalanced almost all the time it would be horrible to play GTO. You can exploit their weakness as long as they do not change their leak.

 

[fundiver199]

I am not really sure, why we would want to find the worst ways to learn? Its obviously valuable to know, what to avoid, but its even more valuable to know, what to do instead. And to keep it in very broad terms I think, the most important point is to mix study and practice. Playing a million hands wont make anyone a good player, if they spend no time studying. But spending 1.000`s of hours reading books, watching videos or working with software also wont make anyone a good player, if they have no experience putting all the theory into practice.

 

[userX]

We've all heard the advice "play lots of hands," but that alone isn't necessarily going to make you become at least a good player.

Music instructors often state that students who have self-taught for some time before taking lessons wind up having to spend a lot of time undoing bad habits before they can progress. The phrase "practice makes perfect" is often stated but doesn't give the whole picture. In reality, "practice makes permanent" and practicing the wrong thing only creates or reinforces bad habits.

What are poker leaning activities that might look like they're effective but actually are doing nothing to help you learn or worse, causing you to create or reinforce bad habits?

I think the most important thing for effective learning is our patience. Our willingness to be patient directly affects the effectiveness of our learning. Patient players don't play bingo, they play poker, using the position, the strength of their own hand, and the shortcomings of their opponents. In my opinion, it is the patient players who learn most effectively.

 

[eberetta1]

I think a person is wasting their time if they are playing with play money. The style of play among play money players is silly at best.

 

[antonis32123]

Rng sucks online . The poker that I know is good enough to play with such players decisions . But tng favours the stupid decision makers , like limping with 2 blinds or raising with 3.5 blinds when you have 5 or 6 blinds at your stack . Total stupid ..so no need to become better for online poker . Love poker is another thing but I don't play live poker .

 

[63burner]

Learn by doing, not by observing, being "taught." Ask yourself," who taught the person teaching poker?" odds are, the teacher learned it themselves.
Playing a lot of games is one way to do it, but with a caveat, "play a lot of serious hands, against serious players. You learn a lot more if the competition is difficult to beat, regardless of stakes.

 

[Ogma]

Jimi Hendrix couldn't read music.

 

[Mr.$t0k]

I think we must work with coach and off course wiyh good coach
Good luck!