Todayโs question comes from King. He says: โHello. I really liked your โAsk SplitSuit a Questionโ videos and got really interested in working off the tables. I liked your example with hand reading and writing down ranges, but could you give more examples of things we can study? Thanks!โ
So, King, before we get started, good for you for taking the off-table stuff seriously, because this is the only way youโre going to become a top-level player, is by studying and taking that off-table time as seriously as possible, so good for you.
As far as other things that we can be studying, Iโm going to give you the one big thing that I think most people could do, wouldnโt take too long and would start seeing results much, much quicker if they started implementing this into their off-table study.
Assuming that you already have the fundamentals down, you already know the poker math, youโre getting good with your hand reading, you have those fundamental poker concepts down, the next big thing you want to start doing is expanding your brain. Your poker brain is a muscle and it needs to be exercised and this training or thing you could do off the table is going to be huge for that.
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What you do is you go through a hand history; it could be your own hand history, hand you saw on a forum, doesnโt really matter. What youโre going to do, is at every single inflection point, which means every point where you have an action, something you could do, I want you to sit there and say, โOkay, when would I do an aggressive thing and when would I do a passive thing?โ Donโt look at a hand review of the nuts, because thatโs really easy, youโre always going to take the aggressive line or at least most of the time youโre going to take the aggressive line. We donโt catch the nuts very often, so itโs not as important to study that.
Learn how to play things like top pair, two pair on not-so-great boards, flush draws, and those kinds of things. What I want you to do is at every single inflection pointโso pre-flop, you face a raise to your action, okay, when would you take an aggressive line and why? When would you take the passive line and why? Really, really hammer out the โwhyโ part of it. Why would you do that, why would that be good? What assumptions would need to be true?
What youโre really trying to do here is one, expand your brain to think more creatively. It also forces you to think about different lines and say, โOh, well, maybe this other line would be better, and I hadnโt really even considered it before because it didnโt fit into my default kind of thing to do.โ
The other thing that it does is it forces you to really understand the underlying poker logic in everything that you do on the tables, understanding when it would be better to do X or Y thing, when it would be better to do Z thing, and always understanding the โwhys.โ Once you really have a firm, firm grasp on the โwhy,โ poker becomes way, way, way more fun.
Honestly, if you just did a single hand history, it would probably take 10 to 15 minutes, depends on how many inflection points there are, but if you got in the habit of doing 1, 2, maybe 3 hand histories like this per day, after a month, your poker thought process would be so much better.
This isnโt necessarily going to be easy because youโre forcing your brain to expand. Youโre forcing your brain to look at spots that maybe youโve never even considered before, never seen before, but chances are youโre going to see it at some point in your poker career or youโre going to see a spot thatโs similar to it.
The more times you rep it off the table, the more you study hand histories, and the more you study hand histories really, really in depth and really, really creatively, in my opinion, is going to be super, super helpful in the long run.
As your brain expands, add a creative framework: Creative Poker Lines!
Youโre going to get stuck sometimes. Youโre going to be like, โOkay, I canโt really figure out the underlying reason here, Iโm getting kind of confused, I donโt know when I should do this, I donโt know what the heck I should do with this exact hand,โ or โI donโt know what I should do against this exact kind of player.โ When you get stuck, you want to ask someone. You want to ask someone that you respect, so if you have a poker buddy or a poker circle, definitely pitch it there.
If you donโt really have that yet, you might want to consider a poker forum. We have a great poker forum over at RedChipPoker.com, so you might want to consider that. If youโve never really done forums or are looking for a more friendly forumโmaybe youโve done the forum thing in the past and gotten burned on itโwe have a really friendly forum where youโre not going to get hammered on, so thatโs definitely something to consider.
You want to start asking other people, bouncing your ideas, saying, โOkay, this is where Iโm at so far, this is where I am in the hand. This is my thought process, what does it look like?โ Start that conversation, start that dialogue. Once you get that and get other peopleโs opinions and thoughts on it, again, itโll just help you expand your poker brain that much further. Not everyone is going to be right, but at least itโs going to give you some places to start, some things to consider and thatโs all you want to do.
Thatโs what your off-table time is for, is to expand your poker brain, make sure your poker logic is getting as strong as possible and then go on from there. Again, just studying like this nonstop is going to make you a much, much better thinker and a much, much tougher opponent.
If you want to improve your game as quickly as possible, my video “How To Study Poker & Improve” will be the best bet you’ve made all day.
