I spend money on tools (HM3, Range wizard, Leak buster), but I don't spend quality time studying it. I'm about to readjust my poker strategy and create a 2021 road map to decide if I'm going to be a serious recreational (non-professional) player, or keep it just a "fun" at micro stakes. What is your studying strategy?
Interesting that you are spending cash on tools. I cannot yet justify the cost as the stakes I play are sufficiently low as to make it not cost effective. But perhaps when I play more often or at higher stakes that is worth it. For now, I seek out the free or trial s/w.
Whether you intend to get serious or not, I recommend you to make sure you keep it fun. Poker is not your friend when it isn't fun.
Your plan to create a roadmap is good. Plan your work, then work your plan.
In your plan, be sure to include the following:
Preparation activities - the sorts of things you do outside of the game to make sure you are in the best shape to win. This means sleeping well, eating well, getting exercise and all that stuff. So get 8 hours, 3 squares and 30mins of walking min.
Practice - like one of our pros said in the thread, playing should be considered a test of your work. (Or, as Evan calls it, practice). This is the time and place where we take the opportunity to try some new things and build on what we've learnt.
Before/After your session - don't make it about poker. Enjoy some time before you play doing other stuff you like (to get your head in the right place). And immediately after your sessions, give yourself some time away from poker. (e.g. don't review immediately)
Review - Make sure you go back and review some or all of your
hands. Look for leaks. If you have a HUD like HM3, you can right click the hands as they're scraped/exported from your Poker
App into HM3 database, and label them for review (or bad beats or bluffs or suckouts). Replay the hands and ask yourself how you might have - extracted more money (if you won) or minimised your losses (if you lost). If you cannot identify the weaknesses, load a hand up to CC and ask the group for help.
Research - spend some time reading and researching. By this, I mean like the CC site, PokerCoaching.com, or reading the myriad of books available. Generally, I would not call watching a stream of your favourite pro study, unless you are planning to play off against them. If you are keeping a database of opponents, seek out the regs on your favourite poker room and watch them play. If you come across regs often (e.g. in a certain game you like), this can provide awesome info which you can use to identify mistakes and then exploit them later.
Evan also talked about trying to put longer gaps in between your review of your
stats. The reason is that stats take a long time to get going consistently in the right direction. Variance will affect them. Trying new things will affect them. All your hard work will affect it.
OK, so now we've talked about what goes into your study, now you can talk about how much time you want to spend.
A pro might spend hours per day doing this (or so I'm told). Others will say this is an absurd expectation for a recreational player.
I'm just a rec who has a similar attitude to yours. I want to win, but I have no intention of going pro. (I'll pretend the reason is having a well-paid job rather than being a million miles from being a pro!). Still, I probably spend:
- an hour a day on CC.
- an hour a day reading/researching,
- an hour a day exercising (this includes just walking the dog) and on average,
- an hour a day playing poker. (Now, I don't play poker every day, but I do try to exercise, sleep, eat, get on CC and read every day. )
So that is basically a part-time job adding up to 25-30 hours per week.
Start with something achievable. Schedule it. Stick to the schedule.
Since I started this, I'm only up less than two hundred bucks (not including satellite wins which is maybe a couple hundred bucks worth there too). But I was down $25 per week before this. So now at least, I can play my favourite game essentially for free, with the chance of getting a few good pay-outs.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
ObbleeXY