Enhance Your Poker Skills by a Thousand-Fold More Efficiently

Hey there! Some lad reached out to me on Discord, asking about my latest poker video and how to improve their learning methods. They're wanting to streamline their poker learning so they can climb those stakes as quick as a greased weasel. Here's some juicy tips on how to make your poker studying more effective.

Poker Study Strategies

I've seen folks break down poker into individual spots and build spreadsheets galore - been there, done that! But I'll show you how to make it a thousand times more effective. Let's take a peek at a spreadsheet this fella sent me:

This beauty is what he's currently rocking. As you can see, he's categorized the flop into a few different sections:

Broadway big hands
Broadway second hands
All others

There are around 58 lines in this bad boy, and there's a lot of information to cram in there. He's jotting down bet sizes, how the solver plays on various turns, and scribbling plenty of questions for analysis.

I dig a few aspects of this approach, and I got a couple of suggestions to make it even swifter.

To provide a bit of context on this fella's studying habits, I asked him to share his method. He said:

The nitty-gritty at the end is pure gold! Let me break it down for you with my previous poker learning approach.

My "Flop Master" Project and Its Flaws

I spilled the beans on this in one of my YouTube vids, but now it's time for a deeper dive. I call my former project "Flop Master." Before I turned pro in poker, my goal was to memorize the Nash equilibrium strategy on every flop in single-raise, 3-bet, and 4-bet situations. Check out these crazy images:

These little buggers are what I tried to memorize. The highlighted numbers on the cards show the frequency of bets for various hand categories. For instance, with I4B, I knew that second pairs bet from 60 to 100% of the time, depending on the overall bet frequency.

Can you imagine the tears I shed studying all that numbers? Not only did it take hours to cram it all in my brain, but crafting the charts was also a bear. I had clue how to program, so I just rolled up my sleeves and worked my butt off.

I was all set to dive in and fill all that data bit by bit. Now, the information I'm referring to is the frequency of betting various hands, and you can see that here for top pair on different boards:

Holy smokes! There's a truckload of data here. I jotted down notes while studying specific boards too. Then, I spotted similarities between various categories of boards and grouped them for easier memorization.

The whole process of pulling out frequencies from the solver, organizing them into numerous categories of flops, making visual charts, and committing all that madness to memory took a freakin' eternity. I probably stuck it out for over 1000 hours! Once I achieved my mission, I could look at you and spit out exact betting frequencies for specific boards, but let me tell you, it didn't improve my game much.

I could play well on some flops, but I didn't have a plan on the turn because I skipped over studying it. I buried 1000 hours memorizing flop frequencies, but I neglected studying a single spot on the turn or river, so it wasn't as if I was a poker goddess on the flop - I was just clueless in the game overall.

From Mindless Memorization to Effective Learning

My game game took a major leap when I started using mass data analysis. Suddenly, I knew which lines were better for bluffing, raking in a decent chunk of change and moving up the stakes. To get the most out of mass data analysis, I probably spent around 10 or 20 hours, compared to the thousand I invested in memorizing flop check-raise strategy.

But forget all that. Assuming you're already au fait with my previous bits, we're focusing solely on optimizing the study of Nash's part. You may have noticed a bit of familiarity between my "Flop Master" project and this dude's table.

There's a lot of notes and deep research into different boards, but that's all just trash information. Digging into a bajillion different boards is just extraneous info. In my previous stuff, I briefly talked about the method of questions as a means to filter the noise and just focus on vital bits. I'm all about that method in this dude's notes. He asks questions and makes super-concise bullet-pointed notes answering these questions.

In my opinion, using the method of questions like this is just a million times better than jotting down all the extraneous information. For example, he notes the frequency of checks and EV of different spots.

I don't think it's crucial to write down either of those things. I reckon it's more important to have a general idea of the overall strategy on various boards. The problem with writing down EV is that it doesn't give you much info. One player's EV will have a significant impact on the strategy, but it's impossible to work out EV in your head.

So, writing it down and just thinking about EV on different positions, all you're really learning is just guesstimating EV on different boards.

But if you're learning to guesstimate something, why not just guesstimate the overall strategy? Why not just estimate the overall frequency of bets, the average bet size, as well as the frequency of betting with all these different hands.

If you're going to remember something, you might as well memorize the most useful stuff. Useful means applicable. To me, shows this fella needs to think more broadly. The aim of studying a 4-4-4 board's counter-strategy is to understand some concepts that will help improve your play on a multitude of other boards you haven't studied.

And for that, you need to ask deeper questions about what's happening in the game. For example, "Why is the check frequency 29% of the time?" or "On which boards is the check frequency higher?" Then, for testing, just alter the flop, experiment with various textures, see how it changes, and form hypotheses and test them.

This is genuinely the best way to study Nash equilibrium. Everything else is just a giant headache. If you want to take it one step further, as many regulars do, you can create cards with your best notes, review them daily. But, in my opinion, the best way to learn is to create concepts and then test these concepts by analyzing different boards.

When you use visual cards, you're just going over the same info. But if you test concepts and ponder different boards, you're learning new info and refining your internal working model of the game tree. Therefore, in my opinion, it's always better to learn new info than to spout off old info. There's a whole lot of scientific backing for this approach.

Revamped Approach:

Break down the game into manageable scenarios.
Identify key decision points and focus on them.
Ask questions to filter info and focus on key concepts.
Iteratively learn by continually asking questions and testing your hypotheses.
Create concepts and test them on various boards to refine your internal working model of the game tree.
To effectively learn poker and enhance your understanding, consider analyzing poker ranges rather than focusing solely on individual spots and building extensive spreadsheets.
By categorizing the flop into sections such as Broadway big hands, Broadway secondary hands, and all others, you can create a more efficient study system for your poker learning.
Incorporating questions for analysis in your poker studies can help filter out irrelevant information and focus on key concepts, making your learning process more effective.
Memorizing Nash equilibrium strategies on every flop in different situations proved to be time-consuming and ineffective in improving overall gameplay, so it's better to focus on strategic concepts that apply to multiple situations.
To experience a major improvement in your poker game, adopt mass data analysis techniques, which provide insights into better bluffing lines and help climb the stakes quickly.
Furthering your education in poker and casino games through online platforms like online-education offers an excellent opportunity to improve your skills and strategies within the realm of poker, sports, and casino-and-gambling.