How much time should you spend working on your poker game?

One of the numerous things aspiring poker players are told is to constantly keep learning, and to study hand histories from your sessions. But the question is, how much of my time should I be devoting to these activities? After all, if you play poker 4 hours per day and make $30/hour you seem to be doing quite well, but if you are spending a further 4 or 5 hours per day studying then your win-rate is a lot closer to minimum wage!

When it comes to studying in poker my feeling has always been that the less you know (the less experience you have) the more studying you need to do. For instance, when you first take up the game you should spend at least 50% of your time studying away from the tables: Browsing and posting in forums, reading strategy books and articles, or going over your hand histories.

This period, where you are spending at least half of your time studying and working on your game, shouldn’t last very long, and as you progress in your understanding of the game, the amount of time you spend studying away from the tables should eventually become as little as 10% to20% of your total workload.

So, how will you know when you can cut back on your studying? The best way to decide how much time to put in working on your game is to set benchmarks, and perhaps even more importantly to be honest with your progression in poker.

These benchmarks could be centered around bankroll goals, win-rates, the stakes you play, or virtually any other benchmark you can keep careful track of. For example, a new player will likely benefit by looking at virtually every single hand they have played where they see the flop; on the flipside, a 3-year veteran of the game will only need to look at the most marginal hands they play, and can simply gloss over the clear-cut hands they have played.

Additionally, there will come a time in your poker career where you realize there is nothing you will learn from the run-of-the-mill poker books on the market. New players and struggling players will take away plenty from these books, but for an experienced player these are more likely going to be a waste of time. This doesn’t mean you have nothing to learn from books, but it does mean you don’t have to read every book on the market, and you can quickly gloss over sections and concepts that you know already.

The final reason you will see your study-time decrease as you gain experience is because you will work smarter. Finding and going over the data in your PokerTracker database becomes second-nature, and unnecessary information can be brushed aside. You’ll also know who to talk to when it comes to Internet forums and friends, and where the best places to seek advice are.