When it comes to improving at online poker, most players are focused on learning the odds and reading opponents. And this is for good reason since it's very important to know odds and how to study other players. But there are other intangibles of poker that people should think about beyond what happens on the cyber felt.

And one of the most overlooked intangibles is creating a plan for how you're going to improve at poker. Just like any other endeavor where you wish to experience success, creating a schedule can really help out a lot. This being said, let's discuss what you should include on a poker schedule and how it will really help you boost your skills.

Mapping out how Many Hours to play

Assuming you're like 95% of the rest of the online poker world, you aren't dependent on the game for income. And if you work another job, you won't have time to play poker 24/7. That's why it's crucial to map out how many hours you can afford to dedicate to the felt each day.

For people with kids and a job, they might only have 1-2 free hours. For college students with few responsibilities outside the classroom, this could be 5-6 hours a day. Whatever the case may be, it's important to look at your specific lifestyle and think about how online poker fits into the fold.

Leave Time for Studying Strategy

If you're truly serious about making money with poker, then it's highly important to study poker strategy. And this works best if you do so on a consistent basis, which is where the schedule comes into play. In the beginning, it's nice if you can spend at least one hour a day learning strategy to improve your skills. And it's great if you can put even more time into this matter.

When studying poker tips, some good resources include articles, books, training videos and coaches. The latter two options are especially good for aspiring grinders. Coaching can get pretty expensive, but it's the perfect way to improve if you can find the right coach. As for training videos, paying around $30 a month gives you access to a number of videos that can truly change your game for the better.

Set Goals

One final aspect to creating a poker schedule involves setting goals. Now when we discuss goals, we're not talking about the monetary variety, such as I want to make X amount of dollars by this point. After all, poker features a lot of variance and predicting profits is impossible. Instead, it's nice if you can put more measurable goals on your schedule such as the following:

- I want to play X amount of cash game hands by this date
- I want to play X amount of tournaments by this date
- I want to have put X number of hours into studying strategy by this point
- I hope to have moved up to X stakes at a certain point

Your goals may vary from this, but you get the idea. By seriously considering how many hours you can dedicate to the tables/strategy and setting goals, you can improve your poker game at a quicker rate and hopefully start earning profits.