Why More Study Won’t Fix Your Game (But This Will)

One of the most common frustrations I hear from serious poker players is this:

“I’m studying a lot, I understand the game better than ever, but my results and execution don’t reflect it.”

On the surface, this doesn’t make sense.

If your technical understanding is improving, your results should follow.

But there’s a missing link most players overlook.

Performance doesn’t improve from more knowledge, it improves from more reps.

Players often talk about volume as a discipline problem, “I need to play more.”

But volume isn’t just about hours.

Volume is about reps.

And reps are what turn knowledge into execution.

You can think of it like this:

• Study raises your technical ceiling

• Playing reps raise your ability to execute when it actually matters

Both matter, but they’re not interchangeable.

When Knowledge Outpaces Execution

If you’re studying a lot off the tables, your technical game is rising.

That’s real progress.

But if your in-game execution is lagging far behind your understanding, all that knowledge stays theoretical.

At that point, the problem usually isn’t mindset.

It isn’t confidence.

It isn’t even discipline.

It’s a volume gap.

Your mind hasn’t had enough real situations to integrate what you know.

What the World’s Best Players Have in Common

When I speak with the best players in the world, there’s one thing they all share.

They’ve all gone through periods of extremely high volume.

A great example of this is Pedro "Biluzin" Toledo.

Pedro recently won the CoinPoker Cash Game World Championships.

We spoke about this in depth on the Mechanics of Poker podcast.

In the months leading up to the championship, he was playing 200,000 hands per month.

Let that number sink in.

200,000 hands.

200,000 reps.

200,000 real game situations for his mind to learn from.

When Pedro sat down against the best players in the world, what do you think he relied on most:

• Solver work?

• MDA?

• Detailed opponent prep?

All of those mattered.

But in the biggest moments, he relied on something else.

His intuition.

An intuition built from millions of hands.

From seeing patterns repeat.

From feeling spots rather than forcing them.

That’s what high-level execution looks like.

Elite level intuition and the ability to execute in game is something you have to earn through repetition.

What This Means for Being a Poker Athlete

A Poker Athlete doesn’t just have a good understanding of the game.

They can express their skill when it matters.

Of course you need to be studying and working on your game.

But that alone is not enough.

You also need to play enough volume for your intuition to form.

And that number is likely a lot higher than you think it is.

With enough reps however, you learn to stop forcing decisions.

You stop overthinking spots you’ve already seen a thousand times.

You learn to stay with what’s actually happening in front of you.

You become more present.

And presence is what allows intuition to take over in the big moments.

If you feel like you’re doing the work off the tables but still not getting the results you expect on the tables, the answer isn’t always more theory.

Sometimes the next level is earned by getting back into the action — not just to grind, but to train your ability to stay present under pressure and trust yourself when it counts.

This is one of the highest-level skills I teach inside the Poker Athlete program.

Poker isn’t just about building better strategies.

It’s about building a version of you who can show up fully and trust your game when it matters most.

Adam