You want a plan, not another pile of links. Here it is: thirty days, 20 to 40 minutes a day, four weeks that build on each other. Week one is the rules and what beats what. Week two is position and which hands you open. Week three is the two pieces of postflop arithmetic you use most often. Week four is the review habit that keeps the first three weeks from leaking back out.
If you know nothing at all right now, start tonight with hand rankings and ten practice hands, and you are on day 1 already. You do not need a bankroll, a study group, or a stack of books to begin. You need a place to play hands where mistakes are free, twenty spare minutes, and something to write in. If you would rather see the same material as a step-by-step course than a calendar, the structured free path covers it that way, and how to study poker covers the methods behind the sessions. This page is only the calendar.
How this roadmap works
Every block of days names one task and one done-check, so you always know whether the day counted. The weeks are ordered the way poker teaching is usually ordered: mechanics first, then preflop discipline and position, then postflop decisions and the arithmetic behind them. Get the order backwards and you spend week one memorizing pot odds you cannot use, because you are still losing pots to hands you did not know beat you.
| Week | Theme | Outcome by the end |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rules, rankings, table flow | You can read any finished board and name the winner without hesitating |
| 2 | Position and preflop | You open a sane range from every seat and fold the rest without arguing |
| 3 | Postflop numbers | You can count outs, price a call and fold a draw at a bad price |
| 4 | Review and repair | You have a repeatable session and a written list of your own leaks |
Week 1: rules, rankings, and reading the board
Days 1 to 3: what beats what
Learn the ten hand ranks in order, then the traps: a flush beats a straight, three of a kind beats two pair, and the board can play. Read poker hand rankings once, then stop reading and start naming. Done-check: deal out five community cards and two hands, and call the winner correctly ten times in a row without looking anything up.
Days 4 to 5: how a hand actually runs
Blinds, the four betting rounds, minimum raises, all-ins and showdown order. Texas Hold’em rules has the full sequence, and poker rules for beginners covers the parts new players get wrong at the table. Done-check: explain out loud, to nobody, what happens when a player is all in for less than a full raise.
Days 6 to 7: play hands and keep notes
Play 50 hands. Do not study while you play. Write down two hands you did not understand. Done-check: two written hands, with the board and the action you can remember. They become your first review material next weekend.
Week 2: position and preflop discipline
Days 8 to 10: where you are sitting
Position is the reason the same two cards are a raise from one seat and a fold from another. Work through poker positions and then watch your own hands for it. Done-check: name your seat before every hand you play for a whole session.
Days 11 to 13: what you open
Now attach hands to seats, using one setting so the answers are comparable: 6-max cash, about 100 big blinds deep, nobody in the pot yet. Preflop ranges you can memorize teaches the position-first method, and the preflop charts are the reference you check afterwards, not during. Done-check: write your 6-max opening range for the cutoff from memory, then compare it against the cutoff chart.
Day 14: your first review
Look at the hands you flagged. For each one, write what you would do now and why. Done-check: one leak named in your own words, for example “I call raises with weak aces from early seats.”
Week 3: the postflop numbers
Days 15 to 17: outs and pot odds
Two skills, one week. Counting the cards that improve you, then turning a bet size into the percentage you need. How to calculate pot odds is the whole method, and counting outs covers the outs that are worth less than they look. Done-check: the pot is 100 and your opponent bets 50. You are calling 50 to win 150, so you need to win 1 time in 4. Say “25%” before you work it out on paper.
Days 18 to 20: draws you can price
Apply it. Every time you hold a draw, count outs, work out the price, then decide. Being wrong is fine this week; guessing is not. Done-check: three hands written down where you counted your outs and named the price before you acted, whichever way you decided.
Day 21: review again
Same routine as day 14. Compare the leak you named last week against this week’s hands. Done-check: the leak is either smaller or better understood.
Week 4: build the habit that outlasts the month
Days 22 to 25: review like it matters
Poker writing is consistent about this one: reviewing your own hands away from the table is how good decisions become automatic. The method is not this page’s job, and how to study poker has it in full. Your job this week is only to schedule it. Done-check: four sessions, each ending with one hand reviewed before you close the app.
Days 26 to 29: make the session smaller
Cut the session to something you would still do on a bad day. The 15-minute daily routine is built for exactly this. Done-check: three days in a row where the short version ran anyway.
Day 30: test yourself, not your notes
Play a session with no charts open. Afterwards, write your opening ranges from memory, name the winner on five finished boards and price one draw. Done-check: you got through it without looking anything up. Whatever you missed is your first project for month two.
If you fall behind
You will miss days. That is not the same as failing, and the only thing that ends the month early is restarting it.
- Missed one day? Carry on from where you left off, on the next date. Skipped days do not get repaid.
- Missed a week? Do not repeat the week. Take its done-checks, pass them, and rejoin.
- Short on time? The minimum viable day is 10 minutes: five hands played, one hand written down.
- Lost interest in a topic? Swap the reading for playing. Playing teaches more than reading in every week of this plan.
The done-checks matter more than the dates. Somebody who finishes this in six weeks with every check passed is further along than somebody who finishes in thirty days having read everything and tested nothing.
After day 30
Month one builds the floor. What comes next is not another calendar, and this page stops here on purpose. How to get better at poker owns the practice loop that follows, and how to study poker owns the shape of the sessions inside it.
If you want the practice half of it on your phone, the app checklist covers what a learning app should give you: feedback on every decision, not just a table to sit at.
Common questions
Can you get decent at poker in 30 days?
You can get competent at the fundamentals: reading the board, knowing what beats what, entering pots with hands that are worth entering with, and folding when the price is wrong. That is a real change and thirty days of daily reps is enough for it. Poker writing does not attach a timeline to being good, though. The standard the books use is beating a low-stakes game consistently over a long sample, which is a sample size rather than a date. Treat day 30 as the day your habits are built, not the day you arrive.
How many hours does it take?
This plan asks for 20 to 40 minutes a day, so somewhere between 10 and 20 hours across the month. The split that works is roughly two thirds playing and one third reading or reviewing. Long weekend sessions feel productive and teach you less than short daily ones, because the point of the month is repetition, not exposure.
What should I do first, tonight?
Learn what beats what, then deal yourself ten practice hands and name the winner out loud before you check. Hand rankings are the one piece of knowledge every other decision sits on, and they take an evening. Everything else in this roadmap assumes you already have them.