darkydog,

As someone who plays reguarly and actually wins some money the best advice I can give you is play, play and play some more either in real life or online at free sites.

If you want to learn play Sit and Go games which are free or play in freerolls. Playing in freerolls is more fun as you can actually win some money.

Playing a Sit and Go game is better than a ring game as people only get 1000 chips to start and from there once you lose your chips you are out. You need to be coming first or second in 3 out of 4 of these before you move onto playing for real money.

There are a lot of books out there but most are written for Limit Poker and I would assume you would are more interested in No Limit Poker. Read up on any of them though as they will teach you which cards you should play for which positions.

I like Absolute Poker for FreeRolls and usually play at partypoker or royal vegas poker for real cash.

Oh also I wrote the above on the assumption you want to play Texas Holdem and not Omaha or Stud poker.

On another note I have been playing the Austrlaian poker league this season and have been knocked out very quickly each time I have played. Yet I take people who have never played before and they are getting to the top 10. This shows how much luck there is sometimes. So far I have been beaten by a 73os when I had AA. I have been beaten by 22 when I had KK and I also got beaten when I flopped a straight (and went all in) by someone who called me and hit a flush.

My luck in the league is bound to change soon....

Good Luck.