Study Habits

Having both Attention Deficit Disorder and a problem moving information from short- to long-term memory has profoundly effected my life.  My IQ said that I was a genius.  My grades said something very different.  My high school GPA was a very average 2.6.

I didn't put the entire picture together until, at age 40, my ADD was diagnosed.  I managed to graduate from community college, sometimes only taking one class a semester.  I failed to get degrees from two Universities, in computer science and political science.

Once I realized what I was dealing with, it took me until about age 45 to beat back a lot of the bad habits.  It took me until about age 50 to start building some good ones.  It's a battle that I will fight every day of my life.

I was studying flash cards yesterday.  When I was done I realized how far I have come, even though it will always be a struggle.

I have been working on memorizing the top 10%, top 20% and top 50% of hands.  I need to know each of those ranges for different reasons. Most of the top professionals play about 20% of their hands, so I decided to open up my game and get comfortable playing that many hands.  I couldn't do that unless I knew what hands were in that range.

I opened my equity calculator (available free at equilab.com) and found out which hands were in the top 20%.  Then, as I have for top 10% and top 50% of hands, I put those ranges on flash cards.  For example, my flash card for suited hands in the top 20% shows the following:

A4s+ (ace-four suited plus, an ace paired with a four or higher of the same suit), K8s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T9s.

I have three flash cards for each percentage range: suited, unsuited and pairs.  Yesterday I worked on the 20% range for half an hour, then I added the cards for top 50% of hands and worked on those ranges for another half hour.

After I was done I realized what a big deal it was.  I pounded away on the flash cards for an entire hour!  Flash cards are boring, and people with ADD are very easily bored.  Memorization is very hard for me.   I told my wife, who for a while was a member of the Bible Memory Association, that  she could memorize in a day what took me a month, and it wasn't a huge exaggeration.  A few months ago it was a chore for me to work on flash cards for 15 minutes.  I'm a lot more diligent with my study, but I can never let my guard down.

I can only study when I'm in control of my environment.  There can't be any distractions.  If I hear just a few words from the television, my concentration is gone.  I study in a room by myself, with the door closed, wearing earplugs.  If I'm watching a coaching video, I listen to the sound on headphones. If I was getting a house built from scratch it would have a soundproof room.

I'm typing this between online SNGs and the time is 2234.  It's quiet outside, my wife is in bed and even the cats are sleeping.  I don't always have perfect study conditions, but I do everything that I can to control my environment, or failing that, to study or play poker online in as close as I can get to complete silence.  Most nights I play or study until well after midnight.

It is after midnight now.  It's 0142 and I just finished proofreading this before posting.  Time to play another SNG.