Getting the education right

Having come into poker around 1994-1995 then I came into the game at a stage that was in its infancy. There were a few books around but nothing at the level that is around today. This means that you get your education off on the wrong foot in terms of preparing for the environment that is about to arrive some years later. There are many ways to play poker and the online poker sites these days even offer free poker.

However all this fades into insignificance compared to playing poker for real money. The more money that you play for then the more people do to get that money. So when poker become more serious then the measures that people took to get their hands on that money became more serious.

There were numerous players making $500k per year in around 2005-2007 from playing online (unfortunately I wasn’t one of them) but these people have all drifted by the wayside just a few years later. It is no surprise just how many people have resorted to cheating in that time. It kind of reminds me of an interview that I read given by a casino pit boss in Las Vegas who remarked how casinos didn’t hate card counters because they took money from the casinos.

The reason why they hated them was because they knew from past experience that when counters fail to make money then many often turn towards cheating as a way to keep their income level going. This happens in poker as well because many poker players who were considered good a few years ago have suffered as a result of the games becoming tougher to beat and especially online.

To get around this toughening process then you simply have to get your education right and this was something that I got wrong a few years ago. My own story regarding my poker education is one of a mish-mash of books, websites, coaching videos and 1-2-1 personal coaching mixed in with an awful lot of DIY……..clearly not the best way to learn a profession.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson plays poker at www.pokerstars.co.uk