Learning tools for the game.. June 22, 2008

I’m constantly thinking about how to improve my game and looking for new ways to do so.  I’ve found a variety of resources that have helped me improve as a player.  I haven’t played poker in a couple days as I’ve been nursing a bad cold so I’ve just been searching around online and reading a book and thought I’d add this blog.  Some of my favorite learning tools are…

Books…I love to read poker books and right now I’m reading “How to Beat Low-Limit Poker” by Shane Smith and Tom McEvoy.  I’m currently trying to improve my live limit cash game so it was a good primer to start with, informative but not overly technical.  I think my favorite two books I’ve read so far are:  Read em and Reap by Joe Navarro, Online Ace by Scott Fischman (this one really improved my online tournament game), and although I’ve not read them in their entirety (I skipped chapters I felt were boring or at the time didn’t apply to my game) I enjoyed both Super System (1 and 2) and The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide (tournament edition).

Magazines…I don’t subscribe to any magazines but I do pick them up on my trips to casinos and love the articles found inside.  I normally pick up Card Player, Poker Player Magazine, Bluff, and Poker Pro.

Blogs…this has been one of my favorite learning tools.  First it is getting me to write about and delve deeper into my game and from that comes a wealth of knowledge I wouldn’t have had otherwise.  Second, I’m reading the most amazing stories from other poker bloggers and I’m gaining huge knowledge from these blogs and I thank you for that.

Poker Forums…I’ve been on one forum or another for the last 2+ years and have gained knowledge and friendship from them all.  I especially love reading and analyzing hand histories and trip reports.  Lately I’ve been hanging out on 3 forums for 3 very different reasons.  Lady Poker Sharks (www.ladypokersharks.com) is the forum for serious poker for women.  I love and cherish this forum for this reason.  I know at any given time I can log on to sharks with a question and get back the most wonderful, knowledgeable, and caring answers and I appreciate that.  Another women’s poker forum I love to log on to is ladiespokernmore (www.ladiespokernmore.yuku.com) which is everything I ever wanted in a forum…good poker talk and talk on other subjects as well (current events, news, politics, tv, books, movies, etc etc etc).  My third forum is Dog Pack Poker (www.dogpackpoker.com) and it’s a forum that was created by a group of friends from the railbirds community.  I don’t log on to railbirds anymore (I feel I’ve outgrown it) but I love to log on to dpp and say hey to all my friends and see what they’ve been up to lately.

Beyond poker forums online, I also love to follow tournaments live on poker reporting sites and read hand histories etc.  I’m also big on looking at online stats on sharkscope and OPR.

Poker Journals…I’m a fanatic about a good poker journal.  It’s the one thing that my hubby drilled in to my head when I first started playing holdem.  He bought me a poker book and a journal for christmas one year (maybe xmas 2003?…yep that was about a year after he started playing holdem) and told me if I wanted to play poker I’m to read the book and keep a journal.  I took that to heart and have always kept a journal since…I am now on my 6th journal lol.  I actually have 4 filled journals, one current online journal, one current live journal, and one small notebook that I use to keep track of just my Foxwoods limit cash game trips.  I love to look back at my old journals and see my old successes and failures, read my notes, and see how much I’ve grown.

That is all my major tools to learning this crazy game we all love and hate (at times lol).  I’d love to hear any other tools I might be missing for my game.