I started playing poker about seven or eight years ago the same way many people here and elsewhere did: with freerolls and low buy-in MTTs. I learned by making mistakes along the way, clicking buttons and hitting rivers (or not hitting). I enjoyed the relaxation it gave me as well as the thrill of winning a huge pot.

I have always loved strategy games and, to me, poker is a form of this, but I didn’t realize how much time and effort goes into the game that I love so much. At that time, it was more of a hobby and something to do in my downtime. Since I was still at work in a nicely paid job, any winnings would pay for an extra holiday or some sort of treat for the family.

When the recession hit, I was still playing poker as a hobby, but the winnings were subsidizing my income for the general bills. As the global crisis deepened, I relied on poker more extensively to provide for my family, as the income from my first job did not comfort my family’s needs nor mine. At this point, I needed to transform my game to turn a hobby into a full-time career.

I would do this by reading articles here on PocketFives, joining poker forums, and learning from a growing number of resources available on the Web. This allowed me to slowly build my game into a winning formula, which enabled me to progress to the next level.

So how can we continuously improve our game? As poker players, most of us have the luxury of picking the best time to play and the best time to study. What I want to do is focus on the latter.

Studying is the most important aspect of increasing the level of your game and it should be done continuously. Reading part of a book or watching a video or two is not going to increase your game to the level you would need to do well consistently. I would like to describe in detail what I do during an average day to show you what works for me.

Before I grind for the day, I try to wake up around 11am to Noon, sit at my desk while having breakfast, and put on a training video from the selection here or from other sites I belong to. This is to get my focus up mentally and physically.

Once that is done, it is time to get into the nitty-gritty. I will review a couple of games I played from the previous day – the most successful and the least successful ones – dissect key hands to see if I could have gotten more value out of my opponents, and understand where I could have played hands differently and where I lost a large amount of my chips. I do this by using the many tools we, as poker players, have at our disposal such as Flopzilla, which allows me to analyze specific hands to provide the correct odds to call, fold, or even check-raise depending on my opponent’s range.

If I don’t have any interesting games of my own, I might use one of my students’ games and check their hand histories, taking notes as I go. After I wrap things up with my studying, this is where I will surprise many players: I go back to bed! I do love my sleep, but I take another rest for a totally different reason.

Picture the peaceful sleeper nestled under the covers: body at rest, breathing and pulse slow and steady. Beneath that serene surface, the brain is hard at work processing the events that have just occurred. It sorts and files, makes connections, and even solves problems.

Many memories that are stored during the day are not remembered. One of the main reasons for that is that we have to rehearse memories in order to keep them. When you practice and rehearse, you increase the likelihood of later remembering, and a lot of our rehearsal happens when we don’t even realize it: while we’re asleep. So, while I take that nap before my actual grind, my mind is going over all of the points I have just been looking at and, like a video on repeat, will brush through and focus on those points in a continuous matter.

When I start my poker session, my memory bank will automatically filter through all of the scenarios I have put into this brain of mine, making my decisions much easier without me even realizing it. How many of you have run on autopilot without even knowing it? We all have! This will help you focus and be at the top of your game for longer, as the tournaments require this kind of skill.

You cannot just wake up, switch on the computer, and click buttons. Preparation is key to success in any field, including poker. This is a fine way, I believe, to prepare for the day ahead of me and improve my game on a day-by-day basis.

Good luck on the felts! If you’re looking for poker coaching, please contact me at dommaindealer@hotmail.com or @domchief on Twitter.