I've been to twoplustwo many times, very informative. But, the actual strategies and terms these guy's throw around blows my mind! Is poker really as strategicaly complicated as these guy's make it out to be? Especially low end holdem. I know things are a little looser in a $1-$5 game of holdem, these guy's are talking brain surgery and we're still preflop. I gotta think that's scaring some people away from the game. Maybe?
Yes for poker being a very difficult game to play very well, as difficult as chess or bridge at the higher levels. Case in point, a computer program has not yet been devised that could play with the top pro's. Just too much missing information for it to make higher level evaluations. Mike Caro believes poker to be more intellectually demanding than chess for this, among other reasons. I seriously doubt it as the skills demanded are not comparable. Chess is heavy on calculation, pattern recognition and intuition; poker relies on memory and psychology, much more subjective areas.
Now at the low levels, such as $3-$6 and perhaps as high as $10-$20 Hold 'em -- at the casino anyway -- the skill a player needs is not very high in my opinion. I'd recommend purchasing Wilson's Turbo Hold 'em and a few books, such as those by Sklansky or Malmuth. If you're starting from scratch you should be doing ok within a few months.
An excellent starting point for the game of Hold'em are Jim's writings as posted on 2+2 and in his relatively new column in _Cardplayer_ magazine. Perhaps you may considering asking him to email you his Hold'em Quiz.
Jim is genuinely a nice guy and his insights can help you to be a thinking player.
If you know the basic poker terminology, then the posts on 2+2 shouldn't be too difficult to follow. And if you can't at least follow the 2+2 posts, then you're probably not playing well enough to beat most tables, including low-limit.
