Synopsis:
In this operation I will follow Robb's Noobie's First 5k Hands at 10NL curriculum for learning poker and report on associated thoughts and hands.

First Post !!11!one!!
I am embarking on this adventure for two reasons:
1) To contribute, if only through feedback, to the educational side of FTR.
2) To improve my applied understanding of poker fundamentals

Further to the first point: I came across FTR first about 2.5 years ago when I made my first deposit and found some excellent material to get me started understanding poker. Then I stopped playing before I really got started. When I started up on poker a few months ago FTR was my first port of call, and I've spent some time poring over the assorted guides and noticed a few shortcomings. Not surprisingly all the guides are limited in scope and unconnected - as they are typically written by different people. This leaves someone coming to the site with no knowledge at something of a loss as to where to start. The other side of is that lots of excellent discussions never made it to digest/sticky status/format and are probably by now forgotten by all except those who took part in them.

I've ever so loosely started to consider what kind of framework I would establish for teaching someone completely new to the game - what kinds of lessons to work on first and so on, but haven't really put pen to paper. Like I imagine Robb is doing I would do this for my own benefit - to structure my learning, demonstrate gaps in knowledge and generate short-hand lessons for myself to re-learn when I get rusty - as I am certain will happen next time real life puts my poker on hold for a good long while.

I think what Robb has begun in his post that I reference above is very much along the lines of what I would have liked to do - to make a basic curriculum for learning to win at poker starting with very basic lessons and moving on to more and more advanced topics. I think it's a fantastic initiative, and a fantastic effort - and I offer myself up as at the very least a guinea pig, and I hope I can find other ways to make myself useful. I really like the way that key articles and discussions have been unearthed and referenced and he's found several that I didn't know about and which are very good.

As I go through each lesson of the curriculum I will be doing the mandated exercises while also trying to critically assess the content of each lesson and provide feedback on it.

Commitment:
I commit to study the lesson I am working on before I begin play every session.
I commit to taking a break minimum 50 minutes and maximum 75 minutes after each start.
I commit to playing only 10NL
I commit to playing only 1 table
I commit to my one table being slow (as in non-fast) to give me time to ponder my decisions and make the right ones.
I commit to follow basic table selection strategies and leave bad tables
I commit to not browse or post while playing a session. I will spend 100% of my attention on the table or the hand history for that table.
I commit to stopping every session at a predefined time (22:30 for every day followed by a work day)
I commit to doing a post-session report in this thread for every session.
I commit to playing only as part of this curriculum for as long as it takes to complete.

I'm not committing to playing every day or to only study the material posted or linked by Robb. I may spend time on this or other forums while not playing, but the poker I do play must all be played in accordance with Robb's instructions so I can provide fair feedback on it. If I spend time practising my own crazy stuff I can't very well provide feedback on Robb's lessons based on that activity. I hope also to add some study discipline to my play and improvement as part of this exercise.

And now on to my first session, which after re-reading lesson "Hands 0 to 1,000 - Playing Tight-is-Right Poker" will probably be less than an hour long.