Poker can be an imtimidating game.  At least it was to me in the casinos when I was in my early 20s.  I mainly went to casinos to play blackjack, craps, sports betting, etc.  The poker rooms back then (at least the ones I went to in Wendover) isn't what it is today.  If I remember correctly, the Rainbow poker room had 3 - 4 tables, no no limit games, and a bunch of the same ol guys playing.  Why would I go sit with a bunch of guys when I'll most likely be the fish, the tourist so I never bothered playing or learning.  Then one day, Hyde told me about Hold em.  He entered a tournament in Wendover, I went and watched, and he finished 6th I believe.  It began to spark my interest.  He said to watch Rounders and that will introduce you to the game so I did.  I began reading up on it a little bit.  After 2 - 3 months after that tournament, I went and visited Hyde in Boise and he took me to my first hold em game.  That day, I lost about $300.  The loss didn't both me as much as I felt like a fish out of water.  I'm competitive and hate losing.  Not so much losing, but losing in a way where I played scared and didn't really know what I was doing.  After that day, I made a committment to learn the game.  For the next year, I started reading every book anyone recommended.  I started organizing my own games in my house with all my friends.  We played mainly tournaments then because thats all we knew (and a bad structure too!).  We were all learning.  I went to Wendover and would play the 2-5 limit game (No Limit wasn't even an option) and play in their weekly tourneys.  I can't even begin to tell you how much money I won or lost during that year time period.  All I know is I definitely wasn't a winning player.  I knew the only way I was going to learn is to play.  I spent countless hours playing and losing.  But I knew the only way I was going to learn is to play.  However, what I did and what I value up to this day, is I asked questions.  I asked my friends, I ask strangers, dealers, whoever was willing to talk because I was willing to listen.  What I started to learn was everybody had an opinion or a story.  "I hate aces, I just go all in" "I love aces, I slow play them" "I can't believe me called me with that crap" blah blah blah. 

What you start to see is people are different.  Situations are different.  Poker is an imperfect game and you have to be able to adjust your game to the different types of players.  So instead of following one strategy that someone told me or I read about, I started to incorporate different strategies and opinions that I had learned and applied it to my own game and my own style.  The math part of the game was never a problem for me.  Calculating odds, pot odds, outs, etc were the first things I learned when I read.  Once I started incorporating the psychology part, I began seeing progress.  My goal was to think as if I was in my opponent's shoes, which in reality is what I'm still learning to do today.  I started analyzing hands in my head.  I didn't play poker just to play.  Then came the time period where I was rewarded for my committment to the game, winning a few tournaments here and there, having good sessions, etc.  Finally, all my commitment was seeing results and consistent results.  (It only took over a year!)  Even when I lost, I would analyze the hands and see if I could have played certain ones differently.  Honestly, all you can really do, all you can really correct is your own actions; just ask yourself this:  At that moment, did you make the best decision possible?  What could you have done differently?  If you played that hand optimally in your eyes and you still lost, theres nothing you can do about it because the cards still have to come out.  I can honestly say it took over a year for me to grasp the game.  That includes thousands of hours, cash, and headaches!  But I started winning and seeing results and thats what I wanted to happen.......

Fast forward to today....AND I'm still learning this game!  Thats the beauty of it.  Because its such an imperfect game, you have to continually adapt.  The way I play at a table of people that I know and the way I play against complete strangers are different because if you don't adapt, you'll lose. 

I've had people ask me questions about how I play, what would I do in this situation, and so forth.  The best advice I can give, is how I would play it and what other ways you could have played it.  Then ask youself why did you do what you did?  What were you trying to accomplish?  Think ahead. 

I love poker but I hate it at the same time.  How far can I take my game?  Only time will tell.

TK