Mailbag: The Learning Process

Q: What’s your process for improving as a player?  Do you review your hand histories or take notes while you play?  Or have a master list of tips that you review regularly?  Like most “normal” people, I have a family and work full time and must do the bulk of my learning away from the table, either by reading books or blogs like yours.  Video training seems like a good idea but it takes even more precious time away from my few weekly playing opportunities.  And personal training cannot be cost-justified due to the small stakes I’m at.  What would you suggest for someone like me who only has about 10 hours a week to improve efficiently?

A: Good question, this is something I’ve been working on recently. My process is still very much a work in progress, but I’ve put a lot of thought into it that would be helpful to others so I figure I might as well share with you where I am now. It draws on two major sources: what Jared Tendler calls the Adult Learning Model and some things I’ve picked up about teaching and learning from my time in education.

Unconscious Competence

I haven’t read Jared Tendler’s The Mental Game of Poker in its entirety yet, but a friend of mine has it so I’ve flipped through it and we’ve discussed it a bit. One thing Tendler emphasizes is that your ultimate goal should be to learn new concepts so well that they become second nature to you. He calls this “Unconscious Competence”. When a concept is in your Unconscious Competence, you implement it correctly without even thinking about it.

Concepts enter your Unconscious Competence via Conscious Competence. That is, you must first actively work on implementing a concept correctly. Only with this kind of deliberate, targeted practice will it become second-nature.

The catch is that our conscious minds are easily cluttered, such that most people have difficulty working actively on more than a few things at once. Trying to do too much risks doing nothing well and consequently learning nothing well. So it’s important to be focused and deliberate about what you are working to improve at a given time. We all have many leaks, but we don’t do ourselves any favors by trying to plug them all at once.

Leak Finding

The process that I use now, both in my own continuous improvement and with my students, is to start by identifying one or more leaks that you would ultimately like to plug. This moves those concepts from Unconscious Incompetence, things you didn’t even know you were doing wrong, to Conscious Competence. You are now aware of the things that you need to fix.

It’s best to be as concrete and specific about this as possible. So rather than saying “I need to stop continuation betting so much”, resolve to “Decrease my flop continuation bet frequency by 10% by identifying spots where it’s best just to check and fold.”

This is a step to take totally independently of playing. You might review your own hand histories looking for mistakes, share some hands with a friend, post hands on a message board, use a program like Leak Buster, or hire a coach to help you identify things you need to work on. It’s unlikely that you would come up with a very good list just by sitting down, playing, and thinking to yourself “I should really work on that” any time you believe you make a mistake. You need a more objective, holistic, and big-picture perspective, and it’s worth devoting some time away from the table to developing this.

Studying

The next step is to study, slowly moving from Conscious Incompetence to Conscious Competence. Now that you know what you don’t understand, you can work on understanding it better. This is the time to read poker books and strategy articles, watch videos, discuss concepts with friends, or work with a coach, depending on your needs and budget. Again, this process takes place largely away from the table, though I do think it makes sense to include this as part of a pre-game routine- more on that in a moment.

Practicing

Once you’ve done your studying and know what you are supposed to do, it’s time to get in there and practice doing it. Remember, the key here is not to do it all at once. If you need to work on continuation betting, then read up on the subject, resolve to work on that, and set some goals for your next few sessions. Accept that you may continue to make some mistakes with regard to bluffing the river or 4-betting pre-flop. Those might be things to work on next, but for now set one goal and stick to it until you see progress.

Pre-Game Routine

Many of the teachers I respected most followed a common formula: Tell them what you’re going to teach, teach it, and then tell them what you taught. It’s good for student and teacher to be on the same page about their goals, even when you occupy both of those roles yourself. I also think that it’s good to have some sort of pre-game routine, a set of things that you do before you start playing that prepare you to perform at your best and learn from your play at the same time.

Some of these things might include meditation, visualization, or other exercises that tell your body and your mind that it’s time to set aside whatever you’ve been working on and thinking about in order to focus on poker. Your routine may also include practical things like getting a bottle of water and a piece of fruit to keep handy when you play, emptying your bladder so you won’t need to interrupt your session, and/or locking your children in a sound-proof closet so that they won’t disturb you.

Whatever else you do, you should also review your goals with yourself. You can’t control whether you win or lose during a session, so that shouldn’t be your benchmark for success. Instead, if you’re working on continuation betting less often, then you should resolve to check-fold in a few spots where you previously did not. If you do so, then you can consider the session a success no matter the monetary result. Thinking about what you want to do and how you are going to do it ahead of time will help you to play the way you want when it counts.

Post-Game Analysis

Set aside some time after you play to review how you played. A lot of people will tell you to look at biggest pots won and lost, which is a fine habit, but I also think you should look specifically at how you performed with regard to your goal. If you’re working on continuation betting, filter your database for spots where you had the option to c-bet and then review those pots. Make note of both the ones that you played well and the ones that you did not.

If you’re going to continue working on the same concept during your next session, then save one or two examples of hands where you implemented it well. As part of your next pre-game routine, look at these hands to remind yourself both what you’re striving for and that you are capable of it. It’s important to build up your confidence before you go to play, so I think it’s much better to frame it positively (“I can do X perfectly, I’ve done it before, and I’m going to do it today”) rather than negatively (“OK idiot, you always X, but none of that today! You can’t afford to keep making that mistake!”).

Where to Start

This turned into a really long post with a lot to take in. I do think that having a process is important and it’s worth investing some time in getting it right, but it shouldn’t be such a big project that you don’t know where to start. Remember: anything is better than nothing, so you can start just by picking something you want to work on. Find and read one article or strategy thread about it, or maybe watch a video. Then before your next session, take a few minutes to think about what you’re ready to start doing differently as a result of your studying. Play your session with that in mind, and afterwards review a few key hands and think about how you did. What did you do well, and what do you need to keep working on next time?

Now you’ve got the ball rolling. Keep using that process and slowly build on it if there’s more you’d like to be doing. Maybe even subtract a thing or two that isn’t working for you. Just start being a bit more deliberate and thoughtful about your learning and see what feels right. That’s what I’m doing!

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