If you’re serious about your poker career and want to reach the big leagues, there are steps you need to take to get there. Poker can sometimes be chaotic and emotional, which can cause us to lose sight of our long-term goals and how we should approach them.
Before anything else, we need a plan and must trust the process. This won’t happen overnight, but only after our technical skills, experience, volume, pool knowledge, and mental game have reached the right level. Poker is an ever-evolving skill, and to beat the field, we have to stay ahead of the curve—games get tougher every few years, or they require a more specific approach to exploit them effectively.
What Goals Should Ambitious Poker Players Set?
Volume
One of the main goals should be putting in enough volume, regardless of the stakes you’re playing. This year, I will aim for a minimum of 1.2 million hands as a fast-fold poker player. This seems like a lot, but it works out to an average of 3,287 hands per day—or around 3.5 hours of fast-fold poker per day—which should be realistic if I stay disciplined.
Study
You can study poker in different ways, and different approaches work better for different players, so everyone should find the best combination that’s most efficient for them. What I like to do is drill common spots and those I feel least comfortable with, so they become ‘muscle memory.’ Once they’re second nature, I can make in-game decisions about whether to deviate from them based on the player I’m facing. I recommend GTO Wizard for this.
The other thing I do is try to node-lock hands, look for exploits in certain spots, and test whether they work in-game. By doing this, we can discover that our opponents are not defending enough or being aggressive enough with some marginal hands, and we can exploit them by adjusting our actions to their actual ranges.
I also perform database analysis of my play every 200,000 hands to check if my numbers are reasonably close to GTO. If they’re not, I need to understand why and determine whether the adjustments I’m making are earning more money. I usually filter hands by position and preflop action to see if those lines are profitable over decent sample sizes.
This last one is something I do the least, but I still do it from time to time. Hand history review—I just don’t think I get as much benefit from it as I do from the previously mentioned study types.
My goal is to play around 1,000 hours of poker in 2026, and I want to study at least 50% of that time—so that’s 500 hours of poker study in 2026.
Move-Up in Stake
Depending on the limits you’re playing, it’s good to set a goal of reaching a certain stake by the end of the year, as this will keep you motivated when you don’t feel like playing or studying. In my opinion, it’s important to build a decent sample size at a stake before moving up, since there will be doubts and uncertainty if you’re truly beating it.
I will set my goal to move up two stakes this year, but if you’re playing micro stakes, you can move up more than two stakes—as long as you have a decent sample at each stake.
Metal Game
The mental game is often neglected in the world of poker, as most of the focus is on the technical game. However, technical knowledge isn’t useful if you can’t perform at the tables when the pressure is high and emotions are running strong. It’s important to maintain good sleep, diet, and workout routines to build a higher baseline of mental stability and to be able to perform your A-game for longer.
I will try to work out 3–4 times a week, while on the off days I will try to stay active (walking, hiking, etc.).
Conclusion
Tracking and writing down the number of hands you play and the hours you study, while maintaining a healthy lifestyle, is the ‘secret sauce’ that helps us move up in stakes, make more money, and continue developing as well-rounded people—without stagnating in other areas of life by focusing solely on poker.
Everything we do should be viewed as a long-term project, because nothing great comes easy. Being able to play poker, enjoy freedom, and make a good living is one of the best things you can do—if poker is something you truly love.
If you want to additionally improve your process and increase your win rate, you should check out our article about Poker Site Selection by clicking here.
