Which is the better way to learn Poker? Does following the styles of amateur poker players make beginners play more cautiously, learn more, and eventually win more money down the road? Or does someone who has made himself familiar with established techniques and has found himself to be dissatisfied with them or who, lacking the proper guidance, simply studies on his own by observing, reading and playing according to his or her own unrefined judgment enjoy more success in poker?

Most of the more experienced poker players do observe other less imaginative players. It doesn’t mean that you should take needless gambles. You can learn many creative possibilities of poker play and even make your own techniques as you go. However, trying new ways of doing things in poker may sometimes go against the commandments of the Poker Beginner’s Bible. Even if you fail, you need to pursue your studies to improve your poker playing techniques.

Playing by rote is a lot simpler than being a more creative poker player where you engage yourself in a more imaginative way of playing poker. This can be demanding and challenging at times however.

Poker has been recognized as a sport in several countries. Like chess, it is the kind of sport which is closer to art than to athletics. The game is regularly shown on major TV channels and access to poker material on the net is almost limitless. Nevertheless, most so called poker players respond more to poker marketing campaigns than to the game’s essence. They keep poker as popular entertainment and profession from becoming an unprofitable esoteric art and most of them don’t know it.

In the end, most newcomers do not realize that they follow a more or less identical path, like a school of fish upon which loner sharks conveniently feed every time they pass. They do not dare to deviate from a specific list of dos and don’ts and in the end, 99% percent of players never accomplish anything and ascribe their failure to mystical capitalized causes such as Fate and absence of Talent.

It is interesting how readily one learns a pattern never to deviate from it in his or her life, as if those hacks who created the pattern considered one’s various unique tendencies, proclivities, and preferences. When you think that you must follow a rigid routine or fail you derive little or no pleasure from a game in which you could loose a fortune in the fraction of a moment. At the same time, most newcomers do not drop out: that is how good businesses work - your actions become mechanical and you stay in the game, but derive no great benefit for yourself.

The real secret to becoming great in poker is this: great players are constantly developing their game. Many don’t figure this out because mainstream media is telling you to develop a blind attitude towards playing poker. They are telling you to develop an attitude of apathy. The general rules don’t encourage people to become creative and to deviate from mainstream thinking. To truely be great, you may need to take the path less traveled.

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