As a professional poker player, my job doesn’t start and end with my time at the tables. Simply showing up and punching a time card is just not going to get it done (believe me, I’ve tried). To be truly successful, you have to put in a ton of time and effort away from the tables as well. This is why you need a pregame routine to prepare yourself mentally prior to starting each session. If you have the discipline to stick with it, you’ll be on your way to creating good habits, which will ultimately lead to you playing your best every time you sit down.
From my short time as a professional athlete (not as glamorous as you’d imagine) as well as coaching high school football (American), I know the importance of a structured routine before playing the big game. Can you imagine leading a team of 70+ players into a game with minimal to no preparation at all? If I did no film study, I would have no idea of the other team’s strategy, their tendencies, strengths, weaknesses and more. If my players didn’t do drills all week, their fundamentals would be lacking. If they didn’t stretch, they’d pull a muscle.
I could go on a long while but hopefully, you get my point. And that is to think of poker in terms of preparing for a sporting event. Obviously, you don’t need to match up physically, but the mental preparation is very similar. When you implement a pregame routine that rivals professional sports, you’ll have a huge edge on the players who half ass their study or none at all. Of course, poker is unlike anything else where you are rarely guaranteed to win when there are still cards to come, but that’s completely irrelevant from a long-term perspective.
The first thing is to make sure your basic needs are taken care of and your state of mind is good to go. If you’ve just been in a huge argument with your significant other, it’s probably not the best time to play or even put in a ton of study time. Other things of importance include a good night’s sleep, eating healthy, exercising regularly, having good hygiene, and more. That’s not to say a fat slob with yellow teeth can’t succeed in poker, but the alternative is always going to be much more +EV. These things aren’t really part of your pregame routine, per say, as they should already be part of your daily rituals.
The first poker-related items on my pregame routine are my daily exercises. In keeping with the sports references, you can think of these as practice drills. Doing these every day, whether you play or not, create good habits and discipline. These drills don’t always have to be the same day in and day out but should always be fundamentally-focused. Do you think a professional basketball player doesn’t regularly practice basic layups and free throws? Of fucking course they do!
Being a professional in poker is no different. Equity calculations, basic hand reading exercises, reviewing basic poker math, analyzing preflop all-in situations, working with Flopzilla, and discussing hands in the forum are all things you should be doing on a regular basis. You don’t need to spend an eternity on this stuff but at least 30 minutes per day is a good place to start. Eventually, you can start incorporating things like PioSolver and/or CardRunners EV into your routine but the fact you’re even reading this probably means you’re nowhere near ready for something like that.
After my daily exercises, I like to review any marked hands from my previous session. This allows me to really spend some time analyzing my own play in certain situations as well as create any additional notes on my opponents. If a situation comes up that I’m unsure of or would like a second opinion on, I can easily post the hand in a forum or in one my Skype groups. Getting in the habit of doing this is great but you also need to be honest with yourself as well as open-minded when discussing a hand with others. So when reviewing your previous session, do so with a clear head and always look for spots to improve.
Once I’m happy with my session review, I’ll move on to the next step in my pregame routine. If I don’t plan to play on that particular day, or anytime within the next few hours, I’ll focus my attention on a particular concept that I feel needs some improvement. This can be anything from defending the blinds to dealing with donk bets on the turn. Any detailed study I do here is highly specific but also needs to be somewhat of a common occurrence. What I mean by this is there’s no point in wasting valuable time on situations that rarely come up. Your time and effort are on the line here, so select your study topics wisely.
If I plan to play after study time, I always, always take a break in between. I’ll go workout, get some lunch, take a nap, run some errands, whatever. I do this for a couple reasons. One, I’ve already spent quite a lot of time on poker for the day already and stepping away for a bit is good to balance things out. Two, I don’t want to instantly jump into a session if I’ve just learned something new. Doing so is a great way to level yourself and end up in the red.
Before you start playing is not the time to learn, it’s the time to reinforce what you are learning so you’re more likely to execute it while playing.”
– Jared Tendler
Regardless of whether I’ve studied a particular concept, the time is now to start getting into game mode. This is a quick period in my pregame routine where I like to review both my short-term and long-term goals. Goal setting for poker players is highly important in my opinion because it keeps you on a structured path to success. I also have a running bullet list of “do this, not that” type of reminders. You would think after playing poker for 15 years I wouldn’t need something like this, but hey, it seems to help. Sometimes, I even review it during a session! Anyway, my point is to get yourself prepared mentally so you can be a killing machine while ditching any emotional play. You can also try meditating, visualizing, or breathing exercises, just find whatever works for you.
Next, I like to decide how long I’ll be playing. Obviously, this can change due to game conditions, stop/loss, etc. so making adjustments here on the fly is completely fine as long as your decision is strategic in nature and not an emotional reaction. Having a set time makes poker more structured, however, and will strengthen your mental game so try to set some limits ahead of time. If you want to make a game out of it, you can always flip a coin or roll a dice, and have each outcome be the time you’ll play. When I plan to play long sessions, I’ll sometimes set a timer every hour as a reminder to assess both my mental state as well as the current game conditions.
Before loading up any tables, I like to remove all non-poker related distractions. This should really go without saying, but I can’t tell you how many players routinely have Skype chats open or Netflix playing on their other monitor. Anything that will take your focus away from the action for more than a second needs to go. It’s unprofessional and will surely affect your play at some point. If you have to go to the bathroom or grab a last minute snack, now is the time. Otherwise, it’s time to hit the tables and crush!
I like to warm up by only playing two tables for the first 10-15 minutes while trying to limit any difficult situations as much as possible. Once I’m comfortable and ready, I’ll look to add more tables as long as conditions are good. It’s great when I can profitably play 8-12 tables but I’m not going to sit at a bad table just for the sake of volume. For the sake of your win rate and your sanity, I recommend you don’t either.
So hopefully you’ve got something out of this article and can use it to help form a pregame routine of your own. If you already have a pregame routine or warm up, give us a breakdown in the comments below. I’d love to hear it!
