You have to balance playing with studying

In my time playing and studying poker then I have to confess that I have spent too much time studying the game and not enough time playing it. I think that in order to earn more money from the game then you really need to gear down when it comes to studying once you reach a certain level of play.

This may sound strange at first but not once you understand what I am trying to say. Let us say that you are making money from poker at a rate of 5ptbb/100 and your level is NL20. This means that you are making $2/100 and if you are seeing say 300 hands per hour then you are making $6/hour at your level.

Any winning earn rate is a good earn rate but if you spend 20 hours a week reading books and websites and watching videos then that is costing you $120/week. This is fine if your poker study is leading to you being able to increase your earn rate or your level of play.

But too many players are spending too long studying poker and not enough time playing. If you have no desire to ever play at the middle limits or even at the higher end of the lower limits simply because your attitude to risk is too low then what is the point in spending hundreds of hours reading about poker when you could be using that time to earn money playing?

Let us say that you have no desire at this time to ever play higher than $10 games at NLHE. You do not need to be Phil Ivey or Doyle Brunson to beat this level of play. Simple straight forward poker will do the job quite well with a strong dose of money management. I think that poker is simply one of those games where you really need to be playing most of the time. Playing poker and only playing poker will give you the feel that you need at the tables and no amount of studying or watching videos will do this.

There are differences and sometimes huge differences between players at different sites who are on the same level. I think that ratio of 80% playing and 20% studying is about right even if you are a novice. It is amazing how effective studying can be when it is combined with many hours of playing time.