If Your New Year’s Resolution is to Get Better at Poker Fast Then Here’s How

Hall of Fame poker legend Doyle Brunson once claimed that Poker took “a minute to learn but a lifetime to master” and there is certainly an element of truth in that statement. Poker can appear to be beguilingly simple at times. Fortune can bless you with a win with the weakest of hands but similarly, you can see your pocket aces beaten by some of the unlikeliest of hands at times.

That said, that is all part of poker’s charm and why it has enjoyed a massive growth in popularity especially since the 1990s and Chris Moneymaker’s amazing win at the World Series of Poker. That led to the “poker boom” and the position we find ourselves in today where there is a massive choice of top poker sites for players to play at from all over the world.

However, it can be a little daunting for a novice player to join a site such as Coral Poker and then start to play at the tables against players that are more skilled and more experienced than they are. For a start, doing so can prove to be very expensive if you lose all your money to these players and it can also be disheartening to want to play a game well, but consistently find yourself losing too many hands and not winning nearly enough.

This is why some of the best poker sites will also offer novice players a little assistance when it comes to developing the skills they are going to need to thrive in an online poker environment and Coral Poker has its own assistance for novice, intermediate and even more experienced players in the form of its Coral Poker School.

This doesn’t mean you need to don your cap and blazer, ensure you’ve got your PE Kit and your pencil case and have got lunch money sorted. Poker School can be done at your own pace, at your own time and is easily reviewable at any time to ensure you learn at your own pace.

Let’s learn a little more about how Coral Poker School can help you become a better player at the tables.

What is Coral Poker School?

Coral Poker school is a utility which players at Coral Poker can use (though you do not need to be logged in to access it) to help them develop their poker skills. The School is organised into three different categories, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced.

In each of the three categories there are a series of videos that players can watch which will explain different aspects of poker and will try to explain some of the key concepts, strategies and skills you need to develop to become a better and more profitable player.

The Beginner section features six videos and is more aimed at explaining the very basics of the game to a new player. There is one video in this section called the Coral Poker Training Intro and this will explore the basics of the game.

Alongside Poker School at the foot of the screen are a number of supporting documents you can pull up and read in addition to watching the videos. These are:

• Intro to No Limit Texas Hold’em
• Cash Games and Tournaments
• Basic No Limit Hold’em
• Advanced No Limit Hold’em
• Bank Roll
• Introduction to Pot Limit Omaha

There are further videos in the Intermediate section of Poker School which expand upon the basic ideas outlined in the opening video and these videos are:

• Early Stages Online Strategies
• Middle Stages Strategies
• Stacks and Blinds

After this you can then move on to the more Advanced video section which contains the following series of videos which are more involved and assume the player already has a solid grounding in the basics of poker.

• Pot Limit Omaha Cash Game Strategies
• Pot Limit Omaha – Big Pairs etc
• End – Best Tips

By working your way through the videos and supporting documents, allied to playing poker to gain experience on Coral Poker, you will quickly be able to start to understand and use some of the skills and strategies which will help you become a better player.

Can I use Coral Poker School if I am a complete beginner?

Yes, the Beginner section of Coral Poker School is aimed squarely at people who may not have played a single hand of Texas Hold’em Poker in their lives up until this point. However, while the video for beginners is useful, I would also recommend any total novice to have a read of the rules of the game first to familiarise themselves with some of the terms used in the video.

How else can I improve my Poker skills cheaply or for free?

While recognising that Poker School at Coral can help you develop your skills at poker, both in terms of Texas Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha, it is worth pointing out that working your way through the videos and documents will only improve you so much. In order to see the impact of this learning to the full and to work towards a stronger all-round game, you do need to play the game alongside your learning.

You can do this cheaply enough by playing free-to-play games on social media sites if you like, but I personally feel that gambling with pretend money that has no relevance to you is completely different to playing with your own real cash. In such circumstances, you tend to play naturally more tight when it is your own cash on the table, rather than pretend coins, which will not impact you financially in any way if you lose them.

As such, I feel that rather than playing free games, playing the very low stakes games, tournaments and sit & go games is a much better method to help you develop your skills as even with just a little of your money on the table, you will be adopting the right mindset to put your skills to the test.

How best do I put the skills learned at Coral Poker School into practise?

What you will find as you develop your poker skills is that you will tend to gravitate towards one style of game more than another. For example, some poker players prefer cash games only, others prefer large multi-player tournaments, others still prefer smaller numbers at the tables in a sit & go contest. Whatever you prefer, the skills you require for each are slightly different and by playing these games, you will focus in on these key skills and naturally adapt them as you go.

For example, in cash table games, the mindset here is not to win, but to play hands and make a profit. That tends to see players play a bit more conservatively than they would in Sit & Go games or MTT’s, where the aim is not just to stay in and make a profit, but be the winner. As a result, players tend to play more aggressively in these tournaments.

You may find that you enjoy specific promotional games such as Twister Poker or Six-Plus Hold’em more than the traditional game, and that is absolutely fine. How you want to play is up to you and the skills you learn at Poker School are transferable across all types of game, with a little tweaking.

So if you want to learn more poker skills quickly and improve your play in 2018, then Coral Poker School is a great place to start.