Optimal vs. Realistic - Designing the Perfect Plan for Poker

In the world of poker, we're often obsessed with the optimal way of doing things. We want to maximize our volume, we aim to make our education as efficient and fruitful as possible, we're searching for the best poker rooms and the best tables, finally, we're trying to solve the game itself by discovering the game theory optimal way of playing it.

This constant strive to be the best often makes us forget that we're not robots, we're frail human beings with a limited amount of focus, biased minds, and busy lives. By trying to optimize everything we ignore the limits of our minds and bodies, which often leads to sub-par results.

In this article, we're going to discuss the difference between the optimal and realistic approach to poker and try to figure out the ways that you can improve your routine without sabotaging your ability to enjoy life.

The Power od Adherence

Our society views success as a result of some sort of grand, explosive endeavor. The phrase 'overnight success' is popular for a reason. The truth, however, is much more mundane. Success is usually the effect of disciplined, consistent effort over a long period of time, often coupled with the ability to stay on the good side of the expected value graph. It's impossible to suddenly become wealthier, healthier or happier, it takes time and dedication.

In order to become a great poker player, you have to study for thousands of hours and spend a ton of time testing your strategy at the tables. At the same time, we're only human and if we decide to go overboard with the effort it will impair our ability to recover both mentally and physically. Because of that, short, heroic bursts of effort are much less effective in the long run than a small, concentrated and consistent game plan.

Now that we've established that a plan for getting great at poker involving database analysis every 10k hands and 36-hour long poker sessions will usually bring you more harm than good, let's discuss how to design a more modest and effective plan of attack. It's vital to make sure that your poker schedule is realistic, enjoyable and flexible.

Playing more than 3-6 cash game tables will have a negative effect on most people's results and yet so many players favor massive multi-tabling, over the approach of playing a few tables in order to maximize win rate. Some people can get away with grinding 12+ tables at one time and for some of them, the hourly win rate will be worth it.

That being said massive multi-tabling is harming many poker players and it's a great example of an unrealistic approach to playing cards. Even if you think that study group is one of the best forms of poker education but you're an introverted person who's drained by interactions with other human beings, you're not going to enjoy your study group sessions, which will render them ineffective.

Examples of Realistic Approach in Action

First of all, we've already mentioned that most players are doing themselves a huge disservice by playing more tables than they are able to handle. In a very similar vein, many people play much longer sessions than they should.

If you're playing a poker format that allows for short breaks in the middle of your sessions - like speed cash games or hyper turbo tournaments - you should consider taking a very short break every 30 minutes or so. If you're a tournament player you should aim to make the most out of your 5-minute breaks. Speaking of playtime in the broader sense many of us overestimate the amount of time we can spend at the tables in any given week.

Poker is very mentally draining and even if you have all the time in the world, the assumption that you'll be able to maintain a high level of focus playing 8 hours per day is obviously unrealistic. Shaving two or three hours off of the 8-hour plan and making sure you're getting plenty of breaks will lead to much better results in the long run. If you're a hobbyist, don't commit to playing tons poker in the evening if you want to maintain a social life.

Don't commit to playing 200k hands per month because of a rakeback promo, no matter how good it looks, unless you're in the peak mental condition, your schedule is air-tight and you're used to playing more than 100k hands per month. Don't commit to a coaching session if it costs more than 5% of your bankroll. Try to figure out which form of education brings you the best results and double down on it even it's not considered 'perfect'.

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