I can hear many people screaming at me, “well just how are you supposed to learn the game then Carl?” Books are a constant in what is a forever changing environment despite the fact that there are some very good poker books out there.

It is a well known but not often contemplated fact that the material that is inside poker books ages along with the book itself and this leaves much of the current material out of date for the modern game and especially the online poker game. Then we have problems arising from the authors of even world renowned books making generalised statements because they simply do not know each individual reader personally.

To be fair, they have no choice because understanding every single person who buys your book is impossible. Selecting the advice that is worth following and taking on board from the stuff that isn’t is really very difficult for most people. Only when you get to a very significant level of understanding and sophistication can you really ascertain the good from the bad.

One of my all time favourite statements with regards learning poker for novice players is “evolution not revolution”. I love this statement because it brings together in three short words what all poker players should be trying to do. This is to make the goal of mastering the game (if that can ever be done) or earning money a far off goal.

But the problem with today’s modern world is that people crave success and results almost with immediate effect. Whether it is losing weight, being richer, making a business successful or becoming a successful poker play….people want it sooner rather than later.

People see poker on television and in magazines and on the internet and then hear about players winning six and seven figure sums of money. They learn about professional players who play the game for a living who don’t even have to leave their own homes as they can play online poker.

All this news and hype is highly seductive by nature and leads to people wanting to emulate the people that they read about and because many of these people have started online, they feel that all this is within their grasp. So now we have millions of people worldwide who crave to either pack up their jobs to play poker or to make the game a serious revenue stream for themselves.

I was very lucky when I started out in online poker back in 2002. Why is this so? Simple, the overall calibre of players back then was nothing like what it is today. I was able to play online and make a living while only having a fraction of the technical skills that today’s online professionals have.

I basically learnt my trade as I went along and slowly adapted to online poker adapting. But the new generation of poker player is entering into a much tougher world than the one that I entered just a few short years.

Actually this all makes me sound like some old time road gambler from the swinging sixties and does not sound like I am only talking about eight years ago when I first played poker professionally. I would stick my neck out and say that I would like to meet the man (or woman) who has studied and worked harder on their game than I have.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Winning Cash Game Poker”

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