Hanging Ten

I was surfing the web yesterday in sort of a “follow random tangents” mode. I started out looking for a car fuel injectors, which led me off on a tangent to motorcycle fuel injection parts, which led me off on a tangent of motorcycles, which led me to motorcycle touring, which led me off on a tangent of adventure travel, which led me off…. Well, you get the idea. The web can either be (a) a total waste of time; or (b) a means to let your mind experience wanderlust when your body doesn’t actually have the time to get up off the couch and go outside. Neither of these are particularly good things.... but I digress.

In any case, I ended up browsing to and through a landscape photographer’s blog, where, buried in with the “Five Ways to Avoid Camera Shake” and “Three Hidden Tools of Photoshop” articles, he listed his “Ten Tips to Help You Become a Better Photographer.” As I skimmed through the list, I realized that every single one of his tips was directly applicable to bettering yourself at poker.

His original list is shown below, but wherever he used the words “Photography” or “Photos” or similar photo-related text, I’ve substituted in the appropriate poker terminology. (BTW, the original piece can be found at http://www.smashandpeas.com/10-tips-to-help-you-become-a-better-photographer/)

1. Learn Where You Need To Improve
Before getting better at anything, you need to work out what you actually need to work on. Write a list of things you don’t feel confident with, it can be as long or as short as you like but try to keep each one as narrow as possible. When you have your list, concentrate on just one item from it and spend time practicing, researching and doing everything you can to improve that particular aspect of your poker play. When you feel confident with it, cross it off and move onto the next one.

2. Be Critical
When you play a hand that you’re not happy with, don’t just scrap it. Spend some time looking at it and work out what you don’t like about it. Write your thoughts down so you can look back over them later. You might start to find a pattern where it’s the same things that you aren’t happy with. If that’s the case, go back and add it to your list.

3. Set Yourself Assignments
A great way to improve your play when you know what it is that needs improving, is to set yourself assignments. This gives you a challenge, something to aim towards and it helps keep you on the right path. Make it achievable though and preferably something that you will enjoy doing.

4. Try New Things
The worst thing you can do is play the same way over and over without mixing it up. Even if there’s something you’re brilliant at, it’s always good to make changes to make sure you don’t get complacent. You might learn something that will improve what you are already great at but it’s even more important for beginners, trying new things will definitely speed up the learning process.

5. Be Patient
I’m terrible for this one but it’s a really important trait to have! Don’t expect brilliant results instantly, becoming a great poker player takes time and isn’t something that can be learned overnight. It’s even more important when you are completing your smaller tasks to not give up at the first sign of failure.

6. Find Inspiration
When you are feeling confident with your game and you want to experiment a little, it can be a challenge to come up with new ideas and it might be a good idea to take inspiration from other people’s play. Look around the internet, in magazines, and poker books. Try taking ideas from the material rather than blindly copying them, so you can develop your own unique style.

7. Learn From the Best
Following on from finding inspiration, take some of that inspiration and work out what makes it great. Critique the player’s work, look at why that particular player is so good, what do they do that you don’t? This is a great way of improving your own game, as you look closer at other players, rather than just thinking ‘that looks nice’ and moving on to the next.

8. Shoot, Shoot and Shoot Again
There’s no better way to learn than getting out there and experimenting. You can read a million books but you will still learn faster just by doing it and learning from your own mistakes. Spend some time playing the same game over and over again in different ways. It could also be a good idea to record your play afterward so you can work out what worked the best when you look back over it later.

9. Listen to Feedback
When you are improving, get other opinions instead of just judging your own work. There are plenty of people out there willing to help your game, even if they don’t realize it. Also, it’s not just other players you want feedback from. People who have no idea about poker can still give an opinion that could make you realize something you could have done to improve your play, so get feedback from as many different sources as possible.

10. Don’t Give Up
The final tip is the most important of them all. If you really want to become an amazing poker player, it takes time, dedication and commitment. Everyone has to start somewhere, and many people do give up when they get impatient or frustrated, but stick with it and you will get there.

Now, go out and get better...

All-in for now...
-Bug