So i am struggling to learn how to study poker and play good consistently. I can play pretty good it seems and go on some good heaters but then i crash just as hard and tilt just as bad. But i am mainly struggling on how to study poker. I mean if i can remember correctly i ve joined the upswing lab, i have the the run it once from the ground up course and i think i ve even tried a free trial of johnathan little course.

I ve tried all these courses but i am just not grasping the concepts in them. I get discourage when i watch their videos and i just stop watching them and just go play poker. I am not getting anywhere. I am a slow learner it seems and it take alot to drill things in my head. I even bought flopzilla but i dont know what the heck to do with it and how to study it, is this normal? I would love to feel like i am getting somewhere with my studies and yeah i am a micro player stuck at 2 nl and 5nl. Please help me guys thanks.

learn to walk before you learn to run

I should add i do know some of the fundamentals like preflop ranges ,3 betting ranges and i do stick to them so i am not a whale or anything like that but i feel there is alot more to learn. Especially about cbetting. I find alot of the time when i dont connect with the board i ll just check and my opponents see this as weakness i am sure and they always bet to get me off my hand and i end up doing it. It makes me feel handcuffed so i always fold. I like what you say learn to walk before you run thats some good advice.

These are are just some of my stats i want to share i am not sure what stats to include here but these are some of them if you guys could critique on them maybe.

It's quite possible that you are trying to learn three languages all at the same time with all the 'tools' that you've acquired/look at.

The first and foremost thing in poker is to be able to be honest with yourself, otherwise you will end up missing important details on what to avoid and how to correct certain issues.

You mentioned going on a heater .. that has little to do with how good you are at poker .. all they do is pad your bankroll and band aid over your faults. Heaters are usually misleading as to 'how' you are playing. Were you ahead or behind? Did your opponent actually have a holding that you would expect them to have?

Since you play online you have LOTS of data to review. Look at both your big wins and big losses and breakdown those hands.

Do you have any betting or timing tells? Are you balancing your non-c-bet spots with both misses and hits?

Depending what site you play on poker is still pretty tough online no matter the stakes.

Correct the surprises .. study why your stack got in the middle or when your opponent has a hand you were caught off guard against.

Unfortunately you actually need to reduce the number of times you suck out. The better you play the fewer times you will be crushed and 'need' to suck out.

Be willing to fold .. be less curious. Unfortunately you do need to try and balance your online stats since they can track your tendencies..

Play Position .. Play ABC .. Maximize profit with 'opponent' correct bet sizes. GL

Tighten up a lot, not because it is optimal but because you will play "better"
Make it simpler for yourself, try to have a higher % of good hands. Having someone outkicked often, for example, is going to help your winrate At the limits you are playing you don't need to outplay anyone. People will give you money if you play solidly. You don't need to defend wide or 3bet bluff much etc etc
Just play a tight range and learn to play it solidly and omce you feel you are consistently winning rather than losing - then you can look to expand your ranges

It’s tough if you playing live 1/3 because the players there don’t study or use any of these principals. You can be in position raise perfectly preflop and get six callers and two of them hit the board. Upswing has a podcast on YouTube you should watch that has a lot of good info for low stakes live called “live poke is incredibly easy”. You’re likely playing against people that have no clue what a three bet range is so checking a flop you miss on probably is the right move. A lot of the courses you’ll see are not for low stakes……

“3 betting ranges” arent what I would describe as fundamentals. Preflop ranges are what I would call advanced fundamentals. My personal advice is to learn poker , for now, not as range vs range but your hand vs their range. especially since your post is about being scared to play postflop. I almost dont see a problem here; youre learning to play at 2nl and 5nl and havent yet crystallized postflop concepts. standard. do you know the different types of flops and what they mean?

Get a consistent preflop range for each position, then beyond that try to play poker more closely to the way it is traditionally played. Try to read your opponents. Try to think about whether you have the best hand or not, if you think you do you can bet a lot and if you think you dont you can fold. Think of strategies to beat your opponents based on their tendencies.

Also, if youre always checking your weak hands and people realize youre doing this, then in that case you should check your other hands too.

learn a bit about how gamblers think. watch kaiji and akagi. in addition to ranges try to put your opponent on an exact hand too. The more you can narrow down your opponents range the better youll perform.

At 2NL and 5NL the strategy of checking when you miss and folding to an opponent’s bet actually is not a particularly bad strategy. If all you ever want to do in poker is crush these levels, then that isn’t a bad way to go about it. Most of your profit at these levels is going to come from the players who just can’t bring themselves to fold that top pair hand regardless of kicker or board texture. You will take them to value town with your big hands. There really is not much need for balancing your flop checking range at this level.

Of course if you ever want to move up, it is a completely different story. The best way to handle the situation you described is to include some big hands in your flop checking range rather than cbetting all your strong flops. You may still have opponents who try to bet you off the hand when you check, but if you are check/raising them at a reasonable frequency, this will not be an issue. You make up for the losses on the hands that you get bet off of by making more on the big hands that you c/r.

Don’t take this too far, though and try to get too fancy and trap too much. Just do it with some frequency to protect and balance your check range. Usually big hands make more by betting rather than checking.