Who would eventually become a better poker player in the long run? A beginner who carefully follows the styles of amateur poker player or someone who made himself familiar with established techniques but simply studies and plays on his own? Does the former play more carefully, learn more, enjoy more and eventually win more poker games than the latter?
Not necessarily, especially if you consider that most professionals (not even necessarily great players) routinely pray on unimaginative poker regulars. Trying to actually learn the various imaginative possibilities of the game and develop a more or less personal style does not necessarily involve taking unnecessary risks. It does mean trying new things, despite the commandments of the Poker Beginner's Bible, and it means constantly improving despite occasional flops a more banal player might never have allowed.
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.
In many countries, poker is considered to be a sport. Very similar to chess, poker is more like an art form rather than a purely physical sport. Major television channels regularly show poker games and tournaments. Materials on poker can also be easily accessed via the internet. However, many poker players react more positively to marketing efforts rather than focus more on the game's real meaning. Many don't know that they are keeping poker only as a form of entertainment and an obscure craft.
99% of aspiring poker players never make it big because of the very simple fact that they cannot create their own set of playing techniques. They simply stick with a specific list of do's and don'ts which make them vulnerable to big players who are very well versed with those rules. These beginners are pretty much like a school of fish ready to be ambushed by large sharks whenever they pass by.
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 secret here is that no one ever seems to tell you this: the few good players are mostly busy enjoying and improving their game, while the poker-related mass media and mass media in general foster in the common person a spirit of meek uninquisitiveness. It is not part of the general culture to be creatively deviant, even nowadays, in a world where to DV8 is a kind of cool norm and, precisely for this reason, has degenerated into a number of primitive mainstream and sub cultures, such as the Goths, the Punks, or the Zombie Shufflers.
The author is a successful limit cash game player. He plays poker online and receives Betfair Rakeback as well as Red Star Rakeback.
