1)
Buy this book! It's not an option!
2) Find live poker games. Online is completely worthless and virtually just statistics. It pales, hell it's transparent, compared to the real thing.
3) Figure out if you want to play limit or no-limit. They are two completely different animals, if you decide to play both at least treat them differently. Personally I take a very, VERY conservative angle on limit poker because when I play limit games with friends I know they are liable to call any bluff because the limit isn't huge and odds are the pot will be big enough they'll want a shot. If you play conservative against friends they will soon start laying down limit hands against you if they realize you almost always have the nuts or at least a monster. You can use that for your advantage later on
No-limit is the complete opposite for me. I bluff far too much, but get away with it far too often. Along with the fact I play so conservative in limit games people are afraid I might have something, I also bet the exact same if I'm bluffing or if I have the nuts. It hard to guess what I have, and when I bluff, people oftentimes can't tell.
4) Pour money into it like you want to win. In order to win, you need to be able to sustain some heavy losses. I've spent weeks where I was down $100. That's fine. Why? Because I realize that it will turn around. After I was down $100, the next game I won over $30 in two hands because I was dealt bullets in back-to-back hands. You have a .45% chance of being dealt aces. Back-to-back aces? .002025%. That will never happen again. This weekend, I had a pocket pair and got four of a kind by fourth street three times this weekend. THREE TIMES. I can't calculate the odds of that, but I know they're about as slim. A bad weekend can't turn you off poker. If it does, then don't play.
5) Never, NEVER, few chips as money. It will only cause problems. Chips are just a device that allows you to gain more chips. You need to be able to easily throw out 10 chips on a hand you have confidence in, you could have trouble throwing out say $10 on a hand you're confident.
6) Get a stone face, and keep it through thick and thin. For example the first hand when I had pocket bullets during that winning $30 was the worst I've felt during hold 'em ever. Why? Because we were screwing around a little bit before and I got around to making the max bet, now we joke around a bit, but you don't call the max bet unless you have something. I had three callers. Inside I'm jumping up and down on tacks. I'm unbelieveably happy that I have the best starting hand in poker and I know deep down that I'm facing three possible monster hands while I hold a hand that I'd couldn't let go in a 150 MPH hurricane. The flop comes down jack-5-9 no flush possibility. The max bet is placed before me and everyone calls. Inside I'm jumping as if I'm on the moon with super balls glued to my feet. I know the only thing that could beat me are matched pockets and two pair, and I know that pocket jacks are the only possible hand these guys would be holding out of those, and I highly doubt anyone's holding it. The next card came, and it was the one card I didn't want to see. I'd have taken any other card in the deck, I didn't care, but it was the one card that scared me and it just came out on fourth street just laughing in my face. The fucking jack comes out and during that peak of the jump on the moon with superballs on my feet and all of a suddent 5 feet tall spikes that are covered in poision shoot up from the ground. The odds of anyone holding two jacks? No, not possible. I know these guys, they can't. One jack? They called the max bet before the flop. That means they had a damn good hand, which includes J-10, Q-J, K-J, A-J. Deep down I have the feeling that one of those three HAS to have a jack. Considering all the top hands, about half of them contain a jack considering I'm holding two aces. Meanwhile, I'm holding the second best hand possible, and as long as no one holds one of those two cards, I win easily. One decides to fold, so three people including myself put down the max bet. The last card is a 4. We play a loose game of poker and even though I can act last, I can't take it any longer. I've been through hell already, so I just say fuck it. Throw the max bet out there and tell my friends that's what it's going to be. One folds, one calls. He shows pocket queens, and I still can't feel good. I know I've won, I know I escaped those two fucking jacks, but I still can't feel good, I show my hand, rake in $28, hear that the other two guys had A-K. I'm not even close to recovering when I get the next hand, which is pocket aces again. I wait for the flop, throw out the max bet, and thank god no one will call. I could not have gone through that twice.
Meanwhile, during that entire time, my face didn't change. I was much like Chris Moneymaker when he made the bluff last year at the world series. I looked emotionless after the turn, meanwhile I knew one of the guys who had A-K didn't have a jack right off the bat just from his reaction. If it was heads up against him I could have easily milked money out of him, but against 3 people it is completely different, and as a poker player you need to be ready for that.