Table Talk – Seeking outside assistance: Online Poker Buddies & Videos

I urge every online poker player to make friends with the better players they know and use
the table chat feature as much as possible. I feel you are only as good as the company you
keep and when you make friends at the table you can develop skills from their tutelage. By
asking questions in real time you turn the game into a learning experience. If you are still a
beginner with a low player rating, chances are you are playing on low stakes tables and are
surrounded by players as new as you. This is ok, if you have a few friends who are a similar
skill level as you, you can both learn from each other and hopefully become better players
together.

Having a friend who plays at the same level as you is good but ideally you should find
someone better than you and pick their brain. Eventually sharing hands with this level of
player is not going to teach you anything you don’t already know. Unless you seek out
higher ranked players you will likely be low ranked for a while. If you are a newbie but have
friends with rankings approaching professional, you're on the path to improvement and
could be joining your friends sooner than you think.

Right now I have around 12 players I talk to regularly online who are higher ranked than
me. I tend to respect the poker advice I get from these players more than anyone else
because they have the ability to think more comprehensively about all of the variables.
Their experience is an asset to me.

The best advice I get from my friends is when I use video capture software to make a video
of my playing and then upload it to the internet to share with them or post it to a forum to
ask for a review from other players. I recommend you do the same. When you get more
than one set of eyes viewing your video, they will spot the leaks. Take this criticism
constructively. It is surprising at how many leaks other players will be able to point out. Use
this as fuel to improving your game.