When we plan to improve as poker players and put some hours into studying, we want to be as efficient as we can since we are missing our precious time on the poker table and not making money. This is why we want to focus on the most frequent spots and textures that give us the most EV, which we will use in the future to compensate for missed time on the table.
Most Important Single Raise Pot Spots
It is best to start with the most frequent spots in 6-max no-limit poker, and these are the spots where we get to act most often. Single raise pots are going to be our main priority, so SB vs BB, BTN vs BB, HJ vs BB, CO vs BB, and UTG vs BB are the spots that bring us most EV, as the combination of frequency of the spot and size of the pot when raise and call actions happen.
Study spot importance SRP
So, when we want to get better at poker, we start with these spots and study the heuristics of the spots. We should do a ton of drilling to develop our intuition in the spots. The image above is based on GTO Wizard’s reports, which considers that we are equally skilled in each spot. If we get better at a certain spot, our study priority for the spot will decrease.
Most Important 3-Bet Spots
To nobody’s surprise, in 3-bet pots the story is similar, 3-betting from the blinds against late position opens, so SB vs BTN, BB vs BTN, SB vs CO, BB vs CO and also two spots where BTN 3-bets against CO and HJ plus BB vs SB spot. These spots are significantly less frequent than the single-raise pots but with much bigger pot sizes that still bring us big portion of EV.
Study spot importance 3BP
Most Important Textures
If we want to get even deeper into study prioritization, the most common and important texture we will see as poker players is ace high, non-paired, monotone, which should be our study priority. We want to know what we should be doing with each type of hand prioritizing study in previously mentioned spots. This texture shows up 17.9 percent of the time.
A close second, just slightly below ace high boards, we have paired or tripled boards that show up 17.2 percent of the time, and they are also high study priorities.
In third place, we have low boards 4-9 high, unpaired, not monotone, which show up 15.2 percent of the time and can be tricky to play.
In fourth place, we have king high, unpaired, not monotone, which shows up 14.9 percent of the time. These textures close our list of the most important textures that we should focus on when studying or drilling.
The rest of the list of other important textures we should focus on is (Queen high, unpaired, not monotone textures, which show up 12.2 percent of the time; Jack high, unpaired, not monotone textures, which show up 9.8 percent of the time; Ten high, unpaired, not monotone show up 7.6 percent of the time, and monotone textures show up 5.2 percent of the time)
Poker is a huge game that demands a ton of practice and drilling in many spots. It is essential that we prioritize our studies because we, as humans, just can’t go over every single possible spot. We can also get massive benefits by first mastering the most frequent spots and the spots where most money goes into the pot. We should also look at it from the perspective of big samples and not just one hand.