• Open a free account with Pacific Poker (click on the banner at the bottom of this page). Play at the free money tables for a while to get accustomed to the software and playing online.

• Read Winning Low Limit Hold’em by Lee Jones. This is the best poker strategy book ever written for beginners.

• Read the preflop section of Hold’em Poker for Advanced Players by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. This book is the most comprehensive hold'em strategy book, but it's geared toward higher stake games.

• Practice preflop play on my Preflop Simulator spreadsheet until every play seems second nature.

• Now, deposit $20 or $30 into your Pacific Poker account, to begin playing for real money.

• Start out playing only the smallest limit of Hold’em ($.05/.10).

• Keep records of each session. Record the stakes you played, how long you played, and how much you won/lost. (I use a simple Excel spreadsheet.)

• Re-read Lee Jones’ book, this time, one section at a time (Example: “What to do when you flop top pair with a good kicker”). While playing the micro-limits, concentrate on the section you just finished reading and apply it to your game as you play. Take note of each time you come across that situation.

• Once you’ve seen that section’s situation in live play many times, and you feel confident that you know what to do in those situations, then move on to the next section in the book, and repeat the process.

• Only move up in limits when your bankroll gets up to 300 big bets of the next level (Example: You start out with a $30 bankroll, that's 300 big bets at the $.05/.10 limit. Once you get your account up to $60, then you can move up to the $.10/.20 limit). It is very important that you do not play in games your bankroll cannot afford. Even when playing perfect poker, you can expect to occasionally go on a 100-200 big bet downswing.

• If ever you go on a losing streak and fall below 200 big bets of your current limit, then move back down to the next lower limit until you have your required 300 big bets to move back up (Example: Let’s say you get up to $60 and move up to the $.10/.20 level, but then you run into a bad run of cards and your bankroll falls below $40. You must then move back down to the $.05/.10 limits until you can get it back up to $60.)

• Continue adding new sections from Lee Jones’ book, and continue moving up in limits as your bankroll increases.

• Don’t cash any of your account out until you reach $2,000. At that point you can continue to play at the $3/6 level and schedule to cash out monthly (or weekly) any amount over the $2,000 mark.

How high you move up limits after that, is up to you, but the Lee Jones book, if followed and learned, will easily get you to this point and keep you a winning player at the $3/6 level.

Another way to improve your game is to read poker strategy forums regularly (twoplustwo or UPF). It's helpful to post hands you have questions about, and get feedback from other players. A good poker forum can be an invaluable learning tool.

At the beginning, when you are only playing for nickels and dimes, it will be tough to stay disciplined and patient. This is the beauty of my program. If you can stay disciplined at the micro-limits for the time it takes to build a decent bankroll, then you have leaned to stay disciplined at any level. It will take you several months (it took me 4-5 months to get to this stage while playing 5-15 hours a week).

All the long months of moving up the micro limits is not a waste of time, even though you won’t be making much money. This is your poker education. Most people lose thousands of dollars in the beginning and chalk it up to the price for education. Following my plan, you can get the same education, while only risking a few bucks.

Avoid playing tournaments and no-limit games until you’ve mastered the basic limit hold’em strategy. I know tournaments are fun, but they will kill your bankroll if you are not properly trained for them. If you must, open a separate account with another poker site and keep some money over there to "play around" with. Don't use your training bankroll.

You could follow these same guidelines on PartyPoker, but you would have to be willing to invest a lot more money initially, because they do not offer the super low-limits that you need to learn on. If you want to do this though, I would suggest you start out with a $200 deposit, and start out playing the $.50/1.00 games.

Always remember, the key to beating low limit hold’em is… patience and discipline.