Starting my journey: What's your "Golden Rule"?

Play very tight until you know what you're doing, you'll lose less and learn more. There's no golden rule.

When I start to think about better things to do with the money in front of me, I stop.

Don't play with money you can't afford to lose

Get some preflop charts and learn them. Good preflop play can go a long way to at least getting you to break even, even if your postflop play is not up to par. Preflop play happens on every hand, so it’s a good starting point. Plus preflop play forms the basis for your postflop strategy and helps you range your opponents.

lol. You're definitely right, there are many other beautiful things in life.

Actually, I said learn them, not memorize them. Understanding why certain hands are in your opening range and not others is much more important than knowing that, for instance, Q9o is an open on the button but Q8o is a fold. These charts are based on appropriate GTO play by opponents, so deviation from them when opponents deviate from GTO play is entirely appropriate. Plus, mistakes on the margins are typically not that costly anyway.

What they are is a good baseline for preflop play. Don”t lose sleep if you can’t memorize them exactly; most people can’t (especially since there is a different one for each position). A passive game with many limpers and multi-way pots will call for a much different PF strategy than one where there are three bets in most pots and a lot of hands that don’t go to the flop. It’s a rich subject, and more complex than what I can reasonably go into in a forum post, but it comes down to understanding range construction in general. We obviously want to raise our premium hands, but if we ONLY raise those hands our opponents will catch on and fold to our raises. We therefore balance our opening ranges with non premium hands. The choice of which non premiums involves many factors (such as equity realization postflop, implied odds vs reverse implied odds, equity when facing three bets, and probably others).

TLDR summary - learn WHY PF ranges are what they are and donÂ’t beat yourself up if you make mistakes on the margins of the charts

We are feeling things now? A good rule is start paying attention to your opponents betting amounts, since starting bets work in multiples 2x, 3x, 4x. How scared and meek are they playing? Do they bet a lot with weak holdings? Do they start hands with a little bit of money or a lot, do they have nothing, or absolute strength? Start thinking beyond just your cards

Biggest thing for me was learning to treat every decision like I'm going to have to justify it to someone who knows what they're doing. Not in a paralyzed way, just asking "what's my reason for this" before I act. Cut out so many "I just felt like it" calls that were bleeding me quietly over thousands of hands.

Dont' be like everyone else. Can get you far in poker and beyond it.

If you sit down at a table and you cant find spot at least 3 weaker players after a few orbits, stand up and find another game.