The Top 8 Ways to Get Better (or Worse) at Poker

Hey guys I figured a good idea for a blog post would be to talk about all the different ways that we can use to try and get better as a poker player. "Get better as a poker player" is really the key term here.

Poker is a game that is always changing and if you aren't constantly trying to improve, then you will get left behind.

This doesn't mean that you need to be committing to hours upon hours of study each day of course, but you should be making at least a little bit of effort to think through some aspects of your game, be it theory or even stuff away from the table, on a fairly regular basis.

That said there are some great ways to learn out there and some pretty bad ones as well. I know this from experience but also because I have been exploring some more of them lately.

I will probably say a couple contentious things in this article but that's ok because I am a polite Canadian so I can get away with it from time to time.

But seriously, I prefer to keep things as real as possible to provide you guys with the best information possible. With the good also comes the bad and providing the whole story and letting you decide is the best policy in my opinion.

I will go from best to worst.

By the way, if you're new to poker and you just want to know exactly what hands to play, grab my free poker cheat sheet.

Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.

1) Play a lot of poker

This has always been the best way to get better at poker and nothing has changed. If you look at the top players out there you will find one thing that they all have in common; it seems like they are always playing! Like anything else in life, practice makes perfect and we learn through trial and error. You don't get better at something by sitting around talking about it. That does help but only to a certain extent. You get better by experiencing firsthand what works and what doesn't, and making adjustments from there.

2) Coaching

I almost put this one lower on the list for reasons that I will talk about in a second, but the potential value in getting coached by a great player is huge. If you wanted to learn how to play golf there is no question that going out and playing the game a lot is going to help you the most. But second best will be some one on one time with Tiger Woods (or whoever is the best nowadays, I don't really follow golf much).

There are a couple of reasons to be wary of this option though.

Firstly, there are a number of almost "scam coaches" out there now. Maybe "less than honest about their abilities" is a more polite term. Let's go with that one.

These are guys who might be good teachers and all. Heck, they might be fantastic teachers! But they aren't capable of beating the games that they are teaching. If that isn't a big deal to you, then don't worry about this. It would matter quite a bit for me though.

Make sure you check their results thoroughly. Don't fall for the "PTR lost all my winning hands" story. While PTR is not perfect by any means, it is good for showing general trends.

More than anything just look at their website, coaching pitch or book sales page and see where their results are listed. Most people who truly are crushing the games will stick these in your face at the first opportunity. Those who aren't will hide their stats or make them hard to find.

Lastly, the price with coaching is a bit of a downer sometimes. But all and all, if you are working with the right coach, one who is a good teacher and an elite player, it's probably well worth it for you in the long run.

3) Joining a Training Site

This is a really good option especially when you consider the cost versus getting coaching; a month's subscription at a training site is usually not even enough for a full hour with a coach. However, like coaching you need to do a little bit of research before you decide upon a site.

I am of course biased towards DragTheBar. And the biggest reason why is because DTB is the only site to my knowledge who links directly to the coaches PTR or OPR pages right on their site. This kind of transparency is what drew me to them in the first place.

4) Talking with other top poker players on Skype/MSN etc.

This is a pretty big thing. As they always say, try and surround yourself with people who are better than you and you will rise to their level. You will probably have to message them initially at the tables though or try pm'ing them on a forum, because as I said before, they are probably spending a lot of their time playing poker, not talking about it.

5) Studying your DB

This could easily have been #2. It has been #2 for me because I have never really utilized coaching, joining training sites or discussing hands with other top players enough. One of the benefits of playing a lot is a mountain of reliable information on your game and that of others. I have spent countless hours messing around with the filters in Hold'em Manager and studying the games of other players who I think are really good.

6) Reading Blogs

And not just any blogs. Blogs of top players. I pretty much read the blogs of the guys who are the top winners in the games. I don't need to name them. You can go to PTR and find this year's top winners at each stake and those are them. You can definitely learn a lot by reading about what makes them tick and how they think about hands.

7) Books

It sucks to put this one so far down on the list especially as I am in the final stages of writing my own book. But it needs to be said. There is a lot of crap being released that is paraded around as a "poker book" these days. It's similar to the less than honest coach thing. Who are these people? Where are their results? Forget the $24.99 that I just blew, why should I spend my time reading this? I don't believe that these types of questions are being adequately asked or answered enough of the time.

I don't want to paint this whole category with a bad brush though. There are some fantastic books out there that have helped me a lot. It's like anything though, you just have to dig through a lot of rubble to find the gem.

8) Forums

And finally we have forums. Yes they are that bad. One of the easiest ways to see this is by remembering that somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of all poker players actually lose money in the long run after the rake.

Now let's give forum members a little more credit as being more serious players and therefore more likely to be winning players. It would probably still be generous to put that number at 50% though. So basically this means that every second post on a poker forum (on average) is made by a losing poker player. Does this sound like a good environment to learn from?

I don't want to completely rag on forums. There are a lot of nice people that visit them and try their best to help. And I am also mostly just speaking about the bigger forums here. I think the community on a smaller forum like the one at DragTheBar for instance is a lot more knowledgeable and friendly on average than at the larger ones.

And there is a lot of good information on them sometimes as well. But you have to remember that forums are kind of like a social gathering place for many people as well. It just so happens to be that poker is the topic. As I stated above a couple times, remember that the top players are at the tables playing poker, not making thousands of posts on forums.

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It's Ok to Just Quit Poker Sometimes

A very common question that I get asked about is what to do when things are going really bad. This is going to happen every now and then if you play this game for any length of time. I call them "disaster days." A disaster day for me is running in the bottom 5 or 10 percentile of overall luck.

And by overall luck I mean things like coolers, bad beats, hitting draws, having them have something when you have something etc. On disaster days these categories will all be overwhelmingly in the favor of your opponents.

It is hard to quantify all of this of course but one of the easiest and best ways to see how you are running is to check the,


stat in Hold'em Manager. Make sure that you have played a decent amount of hands first, at least 500 but preferably 1000. For most people at full ring (might differ slightly in 6max), if this number is between 45-50, you are probably running a little bit bad and you should just grind it out. If it is between 40 and 45, you are running quite bad and should consider quitting. If it is below 40, you are running extremely bad and should quit immediately.

Here is a reply of mine to a pm on this subject recently,

"I have had these kinds of days on countless occasions in the 6 million+ hands that I have played. I'm sorry to say but I don't have any words of wisdom. I don't understand them. I was just writing a section in this for my book recently. I don't know what to tell people. I don't get it when it happens.

All I know is that I win in the long run. Trying to understand what happens in the short term is well beyond me. I don't even try anymore. I just try and gut it out for as much as my stomach can handle and then quit. And by quit, I'm 100% done for the day. I compartmentalize that day and move on. It's definitely easier for me when I play at stakes where the loss is a trivial amount to me.

When I come back the next day I always feel much better. However my fuse is usually shorter and if it goes bad again, I may have to quit earlier. And my fuse is even shorter the next day. And then the light switch gets turned and I go on a heater. I don't understand this game man lol. Hope this helps somehow though."

So I hope this discussion was a benefit to you guys. It's a tough game to deal with at times. Just remember that everybody goes through it eventually to an equal extent. The only question is if you are going to handle it better than the next guy or not.

The vast majority of people reading this don't play for a living. Don't sit there and bang your head against a wall when this stuff happens. You don't have to play! And especially if you are playing your C game or worse, your bankroll will really thank you for quitting.

Don't bother trying to understand what went wrong. Don't even bother checking the hand histories. Don't go tell your friends your bad beat stories (They don't want to hear them, trust me on this one). Don't go whine about it on forums.

Just get up, preferably away from the computer and do something else for the rest of the day. The games aren't going anywhere and you will feel full of energy, rejuvenated and in a much better headspace tomorrow.

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Quick Update

Hey guys just a quick update here since I haven't posted in awhile. I continue to work away at the book. I really thought this thing was only going to be a smaller eBook when I first got started, maybe 50-100 pages at most. Boy was I wrong.

It is pretty much for sure going to be a full length book at this point. And I am still adding content and have a big list of stuff that I still want to talk about. It really is amazing how many important concepts and ideas there are even at the lowest stakes of full ring.

But I don't want to miss anything so I am constantly jotting down notes on a certain types of spot that I need to talk about as I play poker each day. Thanks for the suggestions that I have already received and by all means leave more in the comments.

I hope you are all doing well. Thanks for all the comments and support here and elsewhere. It really means a lot to me. Here's a silly hand from the other day to close with.


Poker Stars, $0.01/$0.02 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players

MP1: $1.67
Hero (MP2): $5
CO: $1.70
BTN: $9.83
SB: $0.75
BB: $1.86
UTG: $1.91
UTG+1: $0.62


Pre-Flop: 9 9 dealt to Hero (MP2)

2 folds, MP1 raises to $0.08, Hero calls $0.08, CO folds, BTN calls $0.08, SB calls $0.07, BB folds


Flop: ($0.34) 2 Q Q (4 Players)

SB checks, MP1 checks, Hero checks, BTN checks


Turn: ($0.34) 4 (4 Players)

SB checks, MP1 checks, Hero checks, BTN checks


River: ($0.34) 9 (4 Players)

SB checks, MP1 checks, Hero bets $0.50, BTN raises to $1, 2 folds, Hero raises to $4.92 and is All-In, BTN calls $3.92



Results: $10.18 Pot ($0.50 Rake)

Hero showed 9 9 and WON $9.68 (+$4.68 NET)

BTN showed 9 7 and LOST (-$5 NET)

When to Holdem, When to Foldem

Firstly, thanks for all the support on the book guys. It's been very motivating to see all the encouragement and advice on Dragthebar, Twitter and here on my blog. I asked people to give me some ideas on what they might want to see in it and I got this response on DTB.

"Make sure you include when to fold. Of all the books out there, I don’t remember one that included when to fold if you get played back at and why. The just assumed a beginner would know or thought it was elementary."

Well firstly, yes I talk about this a ton in the book. But in advance of that I thought I would go over a few common scenarios where this situation may come up.

Hand #1

You have,



You raised preflop from MP and got called by a nit in the blinds. Stacks are 100bb effective.

The nit has stats that look something like this,

• VPIP= 10
• PFR = 8
• AF= 2

The flop comes,



This is a standard cbet spot. You should bet around 75% of the pot.

The nit calls.

The turn brings the,



You bet again and he raises.

A couple things about this situation. Firstly, I would not always bet here again on this turn. I know this sounds crazy right? We have QQ, wtf! Valuetown!

But you have to consider this player type's range. A 10/8 set miner type nit is usually playing 18 or 24 tables at once and is just looking for nut hands. Usually their fold to cbet % is pretty high (70% or more) and they are often fairly passive as well.

When this type of player calls you on that flop some alarm bells should go off in your head. There is no flush draw. And there are no actual draws besides 54 and 78, neither of which are likely to be in his range.

His range is going to be heavily populated by hands like small to medium sized pocket pairs and maybe a couple big broadways. And especially at the micros, these types of players often only 3bet with a very small range (QQ+ and AK) so JJ could easily be in his range here too.

Taking all of these factors into consideration, I think that checking behind here on the turn is a perfectly viable play. Don't get me wrong, betting is ok as well but you have to be ready to fold when he raises.

And that is the point of this post of course. Should you continue when this nit check raises you on the turn here? Absolutely not. Players at the micros in general don't check raise turns without nut hands, and a nit with an AF of 2 who is 22 tabling is even less likely to do so.

Probably a pretty straightforward scenario. Let's look at one that is maybe a little closer.

Hand #2

You have,



You raised from LP and got called by a fish in the blinds. Stacks are 75bb effective.

The fish has stats that look something like this,

• VPIP = 45
• PFR = 11
• AF = 2

The flop comes,



And the fish leads into you for pot.

If you have any kind of a decent sample on the villain I often have a look at their donk bet% in this spot to get an idea of their range.



Make sure you have a decent sample size like I said. If he has only had 2 opportunities to do a donk bet (the number in brackets to the right) then it's probably not a good idea to put much stock into it. But if you have a sample and his donk bet is something like 50%, then you will know that there is a lot of draws, weak pairs and complete air in his range.

Now the pot sized lead definitely adds a little to the situation as well. Fish generally like to lead huge on the flop with a hand that is ok but not great, especially top pair no kicker or a flush draw. We are well ahead of either of these.

That doesn't mean I would raise here every time. I think raising just folds out a lot of this range and keeps in the portion that beats us. I would just call the flop and ship over on most turns. It's interesting of course if another club comes and he bombs it. I would probably fold most of the time.

Hand #3

You have,



You raise from MP and get called by a TAG in LP. Effective stacks are 100bb.

The TAG has stats that look something like this,

• VPIP = 15
• PRF = 12
• AF = 3

The flop comes,



You bet the flop and he raises.

This situation is a lot closer than the other two because this player type has the most balanced range here. That is, he has a couple nut hands, a couple overpairs that beat us as well as quite a few draws, semi bluff's and a couple outright bluffs with just an over or two.

I would say that a good case can be made for not even cbetting at all here. As he can also do this with any Ace and have decent equity against us here as well. Against a player with an AF of 3 or more (usually TAG's and Maniacs), you need to expect that you are going to get raised by a wider range of hands than against most player types.

Since we have an extremely difficult hand to play (we are going to hate almost every turn and river card that comes) and we are OOP, I think that simply check/folding is a perfectly fine play here. Something that I try to talk a lot about in my videos and coaching etc is making a decision early in a hand so that you are not putting in a bunch of dead money, just so you can fold later.

When you know the hand is going to be extremely difficult to win, giving up early is sometimes the best approach.

I hope that you guys got something from these examples. I would love to hear some feedback on what you guys think about these situations or anything else that you would like me to talk about. Thanks for reading!

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So I am Going to Write a Book

Similar to coaching, writing blog posts or making videos, this would come pretty naturally to me. As tilted and annoyed as I get by this game at times, if I didn't enjoy poker immensely overall, I would have quit about 5 million hands ago :)

I believe that I can add a lot of value to the micro stakes community, given the success that I have had. I see a serious lack of information out there on how to beat the lowest stakes. To my knowledge, I am the only person on any training site, that is consistently making videos at these limits.

The information on forums is kind of sketchy to say the least (it does depend on the forum though). But the advice is often from people who don't actually play in these games, or from beginners who probably shouldn't be giving advice in the first place.

And any books that I could find out there purporting to cover the micro stakes seem to suffer from the same problem. The authors don't actually play at the micro stakes. Or much poker at all in some cases since the games got tough!

All of this is crazy to me. These are the limits where everybody starts at. And they are the most popular ones on the internet. I just checked on Pokerscout and there are more tables currently running on Pokerstars at NL2 than any other limit.

Do we really need another book on how to beat 5/10 when there are a grand total of 2 full tables running right now at that limit on the biggest poker room in the world?

And if everybody was just breezing through the micros like all the experts on the forums believe you should, then nobody would be visiting this blog, commenting on my PTR, watching my videos on DragTheBar etc. They would all be balling it up at 5/10 with all the other superstars out there.

The reality of course is much different.

So I intend to write this book about the lowest limits. The ones that I am either famous or infamous for depending on who you talk to. That would be NL2 and NL5. I have had more success than anyone in history at these stakes but perhaps more importantly, I still crush these games today. This is why I feel comfortable writing this book.

My goal with this book is very simple. I want to put to virtual ink the playbook in my head that has allowed me to have a lot of success in these games. I feel that unlike other formats be it coaching, videos or blog posts, a book is kind of a mammoth block of information that cannot be denied.

The information in those other formats is always far more limited to time and space constraints. My intention with this book, is a comprehensive statement on how to beat these particular games, in 2011, at the highest winrate possible.

So unlike some other poker books out there, you won't find many pretty diagrams in this one. Hardly any math. No plot. No gripping story lines. Hardly any fancy pictures. No complex EV calculations. No fluff. Just results.

I don't plan on writing another book on poker ever again. While it has been enjoyable so far, it has also been a massive undertaking.

I have actually already written most of the book. I didn't want to say anything about this until I actually sat down and really got started. I have written so much at this point that there is no way that I don't release it. I expect the editing and formatting to take weeks still and my goal at this point is simply to release it before the end of this year. But hopefully a bit sooner than that.

But as I said this is still very much a work in progress. So I would like your input on anything that you would like to see covered in it. For example, your most burning questions or problems relating to these games. As I said before, I want to leave no stone unturned in this book and it will not be released until I am very satisfied that that is the case.

Lastly, if you are an author yourself or have any advice or input on how to write or release a book please let me know as well as I have never done this before. My intention right now is to release this as an eBook (PDF format) only, but if there is some interest in a hardcover or paperback version, I may consider that as well.

As always guys, and girls, thanks for the support here on my blog and elsewhere. Hope you are all doing well! If you enjoyed this article please "Like" or "Tweet" it below!