Mission: 8 Hours/Week Poker Study! 🤯 Help Me Not Go Crazy (And Actually Learn Stuff)!

[fortunatolf]

What's up, poker brains! How's everyone doing?

Alright, check this out: I went ahead and gave myself a "special treat" - setting a kinda ambitious goal for myself: dedicating 8 HOURS A WEEK solely to poker study. 😅 That's right, EIGHT. Long. Hours. I'm trying to actually take this stuff seriously to see if, you know, I can start winning some cash instead of just sponsoring everyone else at the table. 😂

The million-dollar question is: how the heck do I use those 8 hours without completely frying my brain and, preferably, actually learning something useful in the process? There's so much stuff to watch, read, analyze... my brain's already begging for mercy just thinking about it!

So, I humbly (and desperately) come to you, the poker wizards (and fellow grinders like me) of this forum, seeking enlightenment:

• Organization is Key (or so they tell me): How do you guys split up your study time? By topic (like, Monday is pre-flop, Tuesday is post-flop...)? Or just go with the flow?
• Tech to the Rescue (or is it?): What software do you think really makes a difference for someone on this grind? Any recommendations for reviewing hands? Any GTO stuff that doesn't require selling a kidney? Or is it better to just stick to the basics?
• Miracle Methods (or maybe not): What works best for you when it comes to actually learning? Suffering through reviews of your own blunders? Watching videos until your eyes bleed? Reading articles/books? Chatting with other players? Lay it on me!
• Anti-Procrastination SOS: Any ninja tricks for staying disciplined and not ditching study time for "just one more tournament"? 🙏
• Sponge-Level Absorption: How do you guys make all this information sink in and stay there without causing a total system crash?

Seriously, any tips, software suggestions, study routines, voodoo chants for focus... I'm all ears! Send me what's worked for you!

Help this poor student use these 8 hours to maybe, someday, stop being the official ATM at the tables! 😉

Thanks a ton for any help, folks! Counting on you!

Cheers!

 

[10gerka]

2 hours a day is fine for studying poker. There are many ways to do it. Always choose the one that best suits you. You can't generalize. We all learn in different ways, so go ahead, study and play always.

 

[Alex Houngan]

That’s an awesome goal! One of the best ways to actually improve is to play and then analyze your own hands—both the ones where you won (maybe it was skill, maybe luck) and the ones where you lost. Survivorship bias can be tricky in poker; if you only study "great plays" from winning sessions, you might overlook mistakes that didn’t get punished. A good habit is reviewing hands where you felt uncertain, not just big wins or losses. Use hand history tools or trackers to see if your decisions were actually solid over the long run. Watching strategy videos and reading theory is great, but nothing beats real experience combined with self-review. Keep grinding and refining—results will come!

 

[Pabloro10321]

Hello let's see if I can help you.
Divide your time into shifts of no more than 3 hours. Your brain needs to understand what it has learned over time. Do it tomorrow, afternoon and night. It'll be easier that way. And to make it easier, make a list of the hands you lose and how you lose them. In a week, you'll see that hand and your mistakes. That will reward you, you will feel that you are improving and you will not stop doing it.

 

[fortunatolf]

Wow people, really thanks a lot for the replies and awesome tips! Great to see folks helping out!
Suggestions were really good, everyone! I will definitely try mix these ideas for make the 8 hours worth (and maybe I stop being the 'villain's employee of the month' haha).

Really appreciate the help, people! Cheers!

 

[dannystanks]

Poker study is long hard work. You are going to have to really love doing it to keep yourself going. Getting into it trying to find the answers can be super satisfying. The more you learn the more confident your play will be. You will find better results in the long run the more you study.
I think the problem is what to study, and how to study. What I did was I joined a training site. After I felt I had everything I could get off that I quit and joined another. I’ve been on 3 training sites over the last 2 1/2 years of hard study. In between all that study is downloading poker audio books. Play the audio books anytime you are outside or in the car etc.
Once you start it gets easier because right now you don’t know what you don’t know. But as you study it will lead you into other aspects of the game you might not even considered. Then once you get it all it will be like a full circle and everything will start making sense. Then you can go in and really dissect small details like hand specific against this type opponent with this chip stack with this flop.
But first just start with the basics. If you find yourself questioning why something is, research it and take notes.
Taking notes is key. You need to be able to refer back because it’s just way too much to remember all this stuff.
I’m one of the lucky ones that actually has time to dedicate to study, I’m retired so the study has been my hobby, then when I play live it’s just way more fun now. Studying doesn’t entitle us to win, but it does entitle us to being able to identify mistakes being made by ourselves and the opponents.
Have fun, take it serious and see where it goes!