How do I become a master player in poker? Let's take a closer look. As poker players, we all have one goal in common: improving our skills. The definition of mastery is quite misleading because we have a very subjective understanding of it. After all, to a player playing at 5ct/10ct blinds, every reg who plays at 1$/2$ may look like a master, while to Phil Ivey no player looks like a master. So it all depends on your point of view.
For simplicity's sake, let's agree on a point of reference in our definition. We will say that excellence is "the highest level of experience in a particular field". So we might call a concert pianist, a chess grandmaster, a professional athlete, and in poker a consistent mid-high stakes pro.
The science of mastery has been well explored by Malcolm Gladwell in his book "Outliers", which was largely based on the research of Swedish psychologist Anders Ericsson. According to this study, mastery is acquired through environmental support and sustained effort, and is not some innate quality of genius. Recent research has also revealed two key elements in achieving mastery: 10 000 hours of deliberate practice and an experienced mentor. We will now talk more about the former.
10 000 hours is a bit scary. If we take this figure literally, a player who has been playing poker for 5 years, playing 360 days a year, would need to play about 6 hours a day, every day, to reach 10 000 hours. If you play poker for 8 years, the figure jumps to 3.5 hours per day. These calculations may seem daunting, but it's also important to remember that there are different levels of success - you can be at the top playing at 2$/4$ blinds and average playing at 10$/20$.
In addition, recent research has shown that the 10,000-hour rule that Gladwell insists on pushing is not so well defined - depending on the field, the number of hours can vary between 8,000 and 25,000 hours. There is a good chance that the lower limit is sufficient for poker, as it is a relatively new game and most poker masters have been playing for less than 10 years (whereas the best piano masters have been practising all their lives).
Finally, you shouldn't take this magic number of hours you have to play too seriously, just realise that you have to play a lot to reach the highest level of the game.
Haseeb Qureshi
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