If you want to improve your poker skills this year without hiring a coach, you need to start studying on your own in an effective manner.

The study strategies I’ll give you in this video can be performed on your own and you don’t need any special software or assistance. And they will help you build your skills to improve your results in record time.

This is a simple and beginner friendly guide on how to start your studies this year.

Watch me discuss the simple study plan on YouTube:

Listen to this episode #534 as you follow along below:

Getting Started

The foundation of Poker studies is built on two key ideas:

1. Learn Something, Do Something

• Most people just watch a training video or read a chapter in a book and don’t practice what they learned, so that study time is mostly wasted.
• “Learn something, do something” will have you purposefully practicing everything you learn.
• If a video teaches you how to check-raise bluff, but you don’t actually practice the strategies, did you really learn how to check-raise bluff? No.
• “Action is the greatest teacher”, so you MUST practice what you learn to improve your skills and results.

2. Repetition Builds Effectiveness

• Back in school, you were taught that 2×2=4.
• But you didn’t hear it one time, and now it’s magically ingrained in you.
• Your teacher gave you multiplication tables, and you wrote the answer over and over again along with the answer to 3×6 and 12×12.
• That repetition, even if you intuitively grasped the concept at the start, is what led to you actually learning multiplication.
• Grasping the concept + repetition = ingrained skills.

These two concepts help you to get the most out of your study time, whether you’re studying for just 5 minutes a day or 55 minutes a day. They will also help you prepare for additional studies in the future like using solvers and higher concept applications.

Progress in your studies takes time. You probably won’t ingrain anything in your skill set on your first day of study. But that’s okay, by starting today, you’re working to build foundational study skills and you will gradually challenge yourself to do more as time goes on, and you’ll improve in ways that you never thought possible.

Let me show you how to get into these two foundational concepts, as a complete beginner.

Get Your Studies On

Decide what ONE skill you want to build this week.

Find a YouTube video to study (my channel has hundreds!).

Watch the training video, take notes in your poker journal (👉Get a FREE Poker Journal here).

Practice the strategies you learn in-game.

Review hands related to your strategy focus.

Frequency: “How often should I study?” Aim for 5 days/week as a beginner, 20 minutes per day.

Challenges You May Face

Challenge: You are not used to study. 

Studying is just another skill for you to build.

Block time in your daily schedule for FIVE 20-minute study sessions each week.

Scheduling it helps you get it done on a continual basis to build it as a habit.

Challenge: Beginners can be super excited to study, push themselves to do too much, and get burned out.

Be realistic and start simple.

You’ve NEVER studied poker! Everybody has 20 minutes a day to study, and it’s less than an episode of television. Heck, you take craps longer than that.

20 minutes won’t burn you out, and you can learn a lot in that short time.

And, you can expand and go longer over time.

Challenge: You don’t know what to take note of.

At first, simply take note of anything that you want to remember in the future.

Over time, your repetition with taking notes will help you intuit what notes to take.

Your first set of notes might be two full pages on a 5-minute video. But over time, you’ll become more efficient with note-taking repetition.

Challenge: Some videos are very long.

This is where “Learn something, do something” steps in. As soon as you learn something in a video, and you say to yourself, “I need to practice that!”, stop the video and note the timestamp. Play a session, and practice that thing. Tomorrow, return to the timestamp and resume your studies.

Recommendation: Studying Time is Warm-up Time

Do your 20 minutes of study right before you play and practice for 1+ hours. This study time will prime your mind for poker, and help you play and practice effectively.

1-Week Study Plan

Monday: Study the item you’ve chosen and take notes. Choose one thing to practice, fire up 1 or 2 tables, and practice it for 1+ hours.

Tuesday: Re-study the item (or continue where you left off), add to your notes, then practice for another 1+ hours.

Wednesday: Rest or just play and practice the strategy.

Thursday: Review hands in your database related to the strategy. Try to find any mistakes that you made, and note them in your journal. Practice for another 1+ hours and work to NOT repeat your mistakes.

Friday: No studying, just practice in-game for 1+ hours.

Saturday: Re-study that item (or continue where you left off), add to your notes, then practice for 1+ hours again.

Sunday: Rest or just play and practice the strategy.

On Monday Next Week:

• Assess your progress with the strategy.
• Continue with the same strategy and a new video, or, move to a new strategy.
• Repeat the 1-Week Study Plan.

Progression:

At the end of each week, you will have studied one strategy for 1:40 and practiced it for at least 5 hours. You’re crushing it and doing more than 95% of your competition.

Stick with this 5-day per week plan, and you will see continual improvements.

Poker study is a beneficial cycle: 

• You will see benefits right away.
• Your improved skills and results will spur you to study and practice more.
• This will keep improving skills and results, spurring more study and practice. And on and on.

You can use this simple 1-Week Study Plan to keep challenging yourself and growing your skills with purposeful study and practice. This will propel your results, build your bankroll and push you up through the limits.

Support the Show

Thanks to these incredible poker peeps for getting the 1-Hour Poker Study Workbook: John H, Arnaud L, James K, Kenneth V, Jeff S, Jay F, Keld H, Andrea K, Lasse A, John H, Daryll G, Adrian A, Dominic D, Nick W, Danny C, Norman Max P, Jean D, Ricardo C, Vincent D, David H, Norman F, Edgar C, Eric M, Louis B, Berry W, Shawn T, Mark L, Nuno S, James B, Warren F, Mike C, Angelo J and Eamonn M.