OK, I have a confession....
I haven't read a poker book, read a strategy thread, responded to a strategy thread, read strategy on irc, reviewed a session, talked strategy with anyone for a few months.
Basically, I'm in a working 'groove' of 4ptbb/100+ poker while playing mega-tons of tables.
It seems I know the game and am responding quite well these days.
I'm afraid that if I read something, it will make me change and negatively effect my earnings.

Is this rational?
Do you guys also get into 'not studying' routines?

I'm normally a huge study nerd of the game. It feels odd to me. But, i don't want to screw with a good thing.

I spend the majority of my time studying and I'm still going the wrong way.

Maybe I should take your approach.

Put in lots and lot of hours multi-tabling at 4ptbb/100 and it won't take you long to move up the levels. If you can still make 4ptbb/100 multi-tabling NL$100/$200+ then power to you It's more likely you'll need to make adaptations and adjustments along the way which will force you to seek answers through study.

Remember that ultimately you make money from hours played not hours studied. That said it's not quite so simple since if just 5 hours study a week increased your win-rate by 0.1ptbb/100 it would usually be a worthwhile investment of time.

Funny you mention it MT2R.

I'm on the same jag right now. I had a "breakthrough" in my game about a month and a half ago, and right now I'm trying to "burn it in" /
"work though it" with varying success. I'm finding my reads have gotten better, my gut is right more often, and I'm trying to play as much as I can to "learn" how to listen to that inner voice.

Like you, I am normally a huge study-nerd of the game. 40 hours a week reviewing strat thread, reviewing sessions, reading books, etc. was not uncommon for me the last 2 years. And that's down to about 5 hours a week over the last month or so. If feels weird, but to be honest I don't think I'm too far off trying to figure out what these new "spidey senses" are trying to tell me.

But I put in my April goals to read a poker book. Time to get back to the grind imo - a 2ptbb/100 lifetime winner in the microstakes has no place getting stagnant. PNL or math of poker???

Kurt, I don't suppose you feel like telling me what your breakthrough moment was? I could shag a breakthrough moment right about now!

this is gonna sound bad but..... Yeah i do intentionally try not to read any posts in the foruma unless i know many good posters are in it(ussually highstakes/midstakes forum) cause if i read idiotic thoughts ill still absorb them at some capacity. It helps sometimes in hand reading, but can spill over into my game which sucks. cause your all like "hey why the hell did i defend me blind there and then cr the flop with 88 on 427 baord, o yeah cause i read something about merging ranges/bluffing/value maxingments"

Don't want to derail the thread, but I had a chance to play on a stake which made me a lot more willing to throw bets and raises at pots when I "couldn't" lose. There was some spew and some good plays, but the breakthrough was basically that air and TP are essentially the same hand on the flop. Both have a ton of FE and if played back at both are devoid of showdown value. This is not true against players you have a history with and not against solid thinking players, but at 100NL I find it largely true, and it was a fascinating revelation.

Edited to add: oh, and I welcome being flamed for this!

Most of my growth as a poker player has come from independent analysis of the game. This is true even though I spent considerable time reading the forums and reading the literature.

But much of what I've read hasn't been the best study material. The books are way behind the times and most of the respondents in the forums aren't the better players. There are some pretty obvious reasons for the latter.

I think the best study material right now would have to be one of the poker training sites with videos.

And there of course is nothing wrong with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach.

damn you KurtSF,
I just read strategy now.... argh

I would say that a solid 98-99% of my play is derived from my own thoughts and study and not on the help of anyone or books.

I learned basically all the most basic concepts from here/books and after that it has mostly been on my own.

I don't study a lot, but when I do it's mostly for MTTs. I would really like to get better at cash games as I think there's more money to be made in the long run vs. MTTs.

For those that have done both, if I do decide to put forth the effort to improve my cash game, do you recommend study or coaching or a combination of both?

Thanks kurt - I'll ponder that some more

Yup.
Especially if they are really strong opinions to borderline flames like "folding that hand is uber-******ed" or something...when actually there really IS some room for debate, etc etc.

Some of the studying I do just seems so counter-productive and ends up in me playing worse. I have some real difficulties getting the most out of the strategy forums because of a lot of this stuff.
I really believe I end up absorbing more of the bad stuff than I do the good.

qft. When I'm actually playing hands and consider hero laydowns I always see SABRs "doh/fail" pictures in my head and call. He owes me about a grand IYAM since I'm always wrong when I call. Reading 2p2 is -ev.

I have trouble believing that reading strategy forums does anything other than help.

ever since i tried shrooms a month ago or so i had an "ah ha" momment and have looked at the game in a different way and have been pwnhousing ever since. my recommendation is not to study but instead do lots of psychedelic drugs

GM, did you play while shrooming? I've had trouble operating a mouse on psychedelics in the past. Did you do anything to focus on poker during your trip? Or was it just on your mind at the time?

I guess this is an admission that I'm seriously considering taking your suggestion, so now would be a good time to let me in on the level.

i don't "study" very often besides re-analyzing my own hands in PT and sometimes the hands of people i played with that day.

i think at some level outside sources cease to be helpful.

for a low limit player who is plateau-ing i think coaching or massive video watching is the best idea.

not sure which one is better.

that is actually eerie that you brought it up today. last night for the first time, i opened up a vid on deucescracked and started watching a foxwoodsfiend vid of 2/4 6 max. i watched like 10 minutes of it and then turned it off. i was worried that it would mess with my full ring instincts, and actually made me a little uncertain of myself already with just that 10 minutes. i agree, as long as you're thinking internally about your game and improving, no need to read the latest books and other people's strategy because it may not mix with your natural game.

fwiw is had my "epiph" whilst smoking weed after having quit for like 3 weeks, and have been pwning evar since.

ldo...........drugs are +ev in a vacuum =)

I don't. Haven't you ever overheard live players explaining that they did something ******ed because they read it in a book. Just recently I had a guy tell me his $300 preflop re-raise of a $12 bet at 1/2 was good because he read it in Sklansky's NL book. He'd read the section on the Sklansky-Whoever numbers and totally misinterpreted it.

You generally have to actively think while reading strategy, and thats even more true when its strategy riddled with minefields from the internet.

haha no, pretty sure playing would be very hard. basically when i was on them I was thinking lots of **** in different ways then normal and after it was over i kinda translated it to poker. basically i kind of just started looking on lots of things in life in general from different perspectives and tried not to be a one-way thinking robot like lots of morons in this world are

I'm trying to get into better habits. People will probably disagree with me, but I think the midstakes games I play in are getting a LOT harder. At 2/4 you see people showing up "rebuilding" from high stakes, a mass of regs, and plenty of good players making their way up through the ranks. I do have a desire to succeed at a high level, and that's something I've always fell short of. I've been trying to study on my own more and more...and post more, but honestly I hardly see any content here. I totally agree with 1PokerBoy above...a lot of good players just don't want to share their thoughts, and it's rational: Why would they want their opponents to get better?