School in Session

Many people in academia say in order to really understand something you need to teach it. Well tonight I gave my gf her first poker lesson. It's hard to decide where to start. When most beginners ask me how to learn the game I usually just tell them to play for fake money. A good portion of the game is similar to riding a bike; you can only really learn by doing. Maybe it was just the short stacker in me, but I began with pre flop fundamentals. It has always been a weakness of mine that I stumble with teaching rudimentary mathematical ideas. Within an hour I was trying to teach her to check raise flops with air and float. Maybe part of the beauty of the game is its difficulty to teach makes it so tricky to master.