How to Study Poker Effectively and See Real Results in 2025

29 Mar 2025

Beginner

This material is for beginner players

If you want to start improving your skills and your results this year, you need to do your studies in an effective manner. The study strategies I'm going to give you in this article allow you to do this on your own without any special software or any assistance. Now, this is a simple and beginner friendly plan that you can use starting today. Let's get into this!

This is big brain time. The foundation of effective poker studies is built on two key ideas:

• Learn something, do something;
• Repetition builds effectiveness. 

Now, these two concepts will help you get the most out of your poker study time, whether you're studying for just five minutes a day or 55 minutes per day. They'll also help you prepare for additional studies in the future, like using solvers and higher concept applications.

Let's dive into learning something & do something approach. First, most people just watch a training poker video or they read a chapter in a book and they 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? My answer is: no, you didn't. 

Now, repetition builds effectiveness. Back in school, you were taught that two times two equals four. But you didn't hear it just 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 answers to three times six and twelve times twelve. Now that repetition, even if you intuitively grasp the concept to start, that's what led you to actually learning multiplication. 

Grasping the concept plus repetition leads to ingrained skills. That same thing that happened when you were a little kid happens now later in life in poker. So progress in your studies, it's going to take time. You probably won't ingrain anything in your skill set on your first day of study. But that's OK. 

By studying today, you're going to work 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. In order to get your studies on, you need to: 

• Decide what one skill you want to build this week;
• Choose the skill and then find a YouTube video to study;
• Watch the training video, and take notes in your poker journal;
• Practice the strategies that you learn in game. 

And then afterwards, you're going to review hands related to your poker strategy focus. Now, this is the simplest way to get your studies on by yourself. Now, you might be asking: how often should I study?

Now, you will encounter some challenges and you might even have some like nagging doubts and questions in your mind right now. First off, you might say: oh, I'm not used to studying. I'm 45 years old. Last time I studied was when I was 18 years old in high school (27 years ago). Here's the thing about study. Studying is just a skill like any other skill, like any poker skill that you want to build. 

If you're not used to study, I want you to block time in your daily schedule for five 20 minute study sessions each week. Scheduling your studies helps you to get it done every week, and it builds the habit of studying. 

Another challenge for you, beginners can be super excited to study, but they push themselves to do too much, and they end up getting burned out. Let's be realistic and start super simple. Maybe you've never studied poker. Like I said, 27 years ago, 18 years old was the last time you studied anything.

Everybody has 20 minutes a day to study. And it's less than an episode of television. And heck, 20 minutes a day will not burn you out, and you can learn a lot in that very short amount of time. And like I said, we're starting simple. Over time, as you learn to enjoy studies, you get more out of it and you want to study more. Increase it 30, 40, 55 minutes. 

Another challenge you might face, 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 note taking will help you intuit what notes to take. Now, your first set of notes might be a full two pages of notes on a five minute video. But over time, you'll become more efficient with note taking. You'll whittle out the unnecessary stuff and just keep the most important stuff that you want to take with you into the future. 

Some poker videos are super long. I'm sure you've pulled up 30 to 40 minute videos on YouTube in the past. Now, this is where learn something, do something steps in. You're watching a long video. As soon as you learn something in a video and you say to yourself, hey, I need to practice that. Stop the video. Take note of this timestamp. You have your poker journal open. Note that at four minutes and 44 seconds, you stop the video. 

Now play a session and practice that thing that you learned that you feel is absolutely necessary, that you must practice tomorrow. Just return to that four minute and 44 second timestamp and resume your studies. And here is a top recommendation for players new to studying. Study time is warm up time. So do your 20 minutes of study right before you play and you practice for one or more hours. 

Now, here's my simple one week study plan for you. We're going to start on Mondays, right? Everybody studies on Monday. Study and take notes with your poker journal. Choose one thing to practice, then open up one or two tables and practice it for one or more hours. Next day, day two — Restudy that item. 

Let's imagine you were just watching a five minute video. Rewatch it. Add to your notes and then practice for one or more hours again. Now, if you just watch five minutes of the video, but there's still 25 minutes. Hey, resume at that five minute mark. Add to your notes, and practice for one or more hours. 

On Wednesday, let's take a rest or maybe just play and practice. You've already studied for two days. You have tons of notes to review, review that stuff and then practice. Thursday, this is fun. Review some hands in your poker tracker for a database related to that strategy that you're practicing. Find any mistakes that you make and then practice again and work to not repeat your mistakes. 

Here's the thing about finding mistakes. You just now learned a brand new strategy. It's your first time ever practicing as well. You might not catch any mistakes on this first day, Thursday of reviewing hands. But tomorrow, if you review some hands, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, if you review some hands, I guarantee you'll start finding mistakes. Bad bet sizes, bad boards to focus on, bad opponents to tackle. 

You're going to notice in prior hands when you're done screwed up. Trust me. Then, of course, everybody's favorite day of the week, Friday. Just practice today for one or more hours. And it's a good idea on that Friday to warm up by reviewing your notes. 

On Saturday, restudy that item that you studied or resume from a timestamp. Add more to your notes and then practice for one or more hours. And then Sunday, a rest day or just play and practice with the strategy. And of course, if you are going to play, warm up with your notes. 

One of the great things about this is week one, you'll see some benefits that will naturally lead to week two, then week three and week four. You're going to find some progression, of course, in your skills and your results, but in your study skills as well. 

So on Monday of the next week after week number one, assess your progress with the strategy that you're studying. Continue with that same strategy or move on to a new strategy if you feel it's necessary, and then repeat that same one week study plan Monday through Sunday with a couple of rest or maybe play only days. 

At the end of each week, you will have studied one strategy. This is great, right? For an hour and 40 minutes. Think about all the years that you've been playing poker up to this point. Have you studied any given week for over an hour, even over 20 minutes in a week? There's a very good chance that you haven't. You follow this plan. You will have studied for at least one hour and 40 minutes. You will have played with purpose and practiced for over five hours. 

You used to be one of those 95 percent of your competition that you are currently doing more than. I want you to stick with this five day per week study plan, and I guarantee you will see continual improvements. 

That improvement will lead to more study motivation because you're going to say: holy cow, last week I studied an hour and 40 minutes. I played for over five hours. I practiced all my strategies and my skills are exploding through the roof. My results are better than ever. I need to study more. And with that additional motivation, it's going to lead to more improvement and then more motivation and more improvement, a beneficial cycle. 

And this will ultimately skyrocket your results, grow your poker bankroll, and help you climb the stakes faster. Now it's time to take action and put this five-day self-study plan into play. But if you want expert guidance to accelerate your progress, our experienced poker coaches are here to help — check them out. See you next week!