Pokeriad / Learn / How to get better
Updated November 2026
To get better at poker, fix one leak at a time: learn a tight opening chart, drill pot odds until they're automatic, and review two or three hands after every session. Solvers, tells and fancy bluffs can wait until the basics have stopped costing you money.
None of this needs to cost much. The plan below uses free tools, a notebook and about 15 minutes of practice on the days you don't play.
Learn in the order that saves the most money at low stakes. The time next to each stage is our estimate for someone practicing most days.
Pick one hand, write down what happened street by street, then answer the five questions on the card above. Do it the same day, while you still remember what you were thinking, and try to stay in the decision. "I lost" is a result, and it doesn't tell you anything about the call you made.
The third question is the one most players skip. Working out the price takes about 20 seconds, and it turns a vague feeling into a number you can argue with.
A worked example, at $1/$2 blinds:
You raise to $6 and the button calls. Both blinds fold.
You bet $8 with top pair and the button calls.
You bet $20. The button, who hasn't raised in two hours, makes it $60. You call the extra $40.
You paid $40 for a final pot of $151, so you needed to win 26.5% of the time. That price looks fine until you ask what this player raises with. King-jack beats very little of it, and there's still a river bet to come. Next time you fold the turn.
The ones that made you stop and think. A big pot you weren't sure about teaches you more than ten easy ones, and so does a pot you won without knowing why.
Leave the bad beats alone. If you got your money in ahead and lost, there's nothing to fix, and going over it only makes you angry. A session with no interesting hands is fine too: spend the time on a drill.
Too many people only play, and a few only study. Set your hours and your level, and the plan shows you a split to start from. It's our suggestion, so change it once you know what helps you.
Yes, and quite quickly for beginners. In a 2008 study from Case Western Reserve University, students given strategy material beat students who read poker's history, over both 200 and 720 hands.
A study of 354 online players found experienced players brooded less and thought things over more than inexperienced ones, and they made better decisions in the test hands. Going back over a hand calmly is a habit that good players have and new players can pick up.
Mostly from your decisions, because your results are too noisy to tell you. With a swing of 90 big blinds per 100 hands, your win rate after 10,000 hands is only known to within about 18 big blinds per 100, and that's as big as a very good win rate.
Keep a score you can trust: how many drill answers you get right, how many hands you play per 100 by seat, and how often you can say why you made a bet. Those numbers move within weeks.
Big blinds per 100 hands, 95 times in 100.
When your bankroll says so, and not when a good week says so. A common rule is to move up with 30 buy-ins for the next stake and back down at 20 for your current one. Bankroll management has a calculator showing what each choice risks.
Twelve spots in three rounds.
Fifteen minutes on most days works better than one long session a week. The best way to learn poker has the research behind that.
If you play online, it's useful once you've got the basics. At a live table, a notebook does the job.
Look at where you lost the most in your last few sessions, then check whether those hands should have been played at all. For most beginners, the answer starts before the flop.
You can learn most of the decisions from drills. To learn how you behave when the chips are real, you need to play small stakes at some point.
Send them the plan.