Learning Poker Backwards
I haven't read many poker books, and I'm not a great player, but I'm thinking of writing a beginners guide to understanding poker. Most books start by explaining the rules, and then tell you how to play pre flop - which harnds to raise, and which to fold. This is a good start, but IMHO, it doesn't help to understand poker. This is because the decisions we make pre flop are dependant on what happens after the flop, and in a traditional book, post flop action hasn't been discussed yet. My idea is to teach people backwards. i.e. teach them how to act on the river first. Later, teach them how to play the turn, then the flop, and finally how to play pre flop. This has the advantage that the first chaper should be easier to understand, as there are far fewer possibilities - all cards are dealt, there are no more surprises to come.
This approach has downsides too - the betting on the turn is dependant on previous bets, and the stategy of these bets won't have been discussed. If I were to teach a bunch of children how to play poker, I could remove this problem by teaching them betting on the river, and let them play against each other where there is only one round of betting, and all 5 community cards are shown.
Later, betting on the turn can be discussed, and the game is changed to have two rounds of betting. The first round with four community cards, and the next round with five community cards.