Planning Your Poker Review Calendar Around Leaks, Not Feelings
Many poker players review their play in a vague way. They replay a session they found frustrating, skim a few hands, and move on without a clear sense of what they were looking for. A review calendar fixes this by assigning each review block a specific target. Instead of asking 'what went wrong this week,' you ask a narrower question, such as whether you are folding too often to a single bet size on the river. This article walks through a planning method for building that calendar, with attention to the questions you should answer before you commit your time.
Start With a Leak Inventory, Not a Study Goal
A study goal like 'get better at river play' is too broad to schedule. A leak is a specific, repeatable mistake: calling too little against overbets, overvaluing middle pairs in multiway pots, or giving up on the turn when a backdoor draw is still live. Before you plan any review, write down five to ten leaks you suspect you have. Each one should describe a situation you can recognize in a hand history or a session note.
Keep the list honest. Suspicions based on how a session felt are useful as starting points, but mark them as unverified. A leak only moves to the active list once you have seen it in at least a few hands with a consistent pattern behind it.
Assign Each Leak a Review Format
Different leaks call for different review methods. A preflop range question can be checked by working through a chart and comparing your opening decisions to what you actually did at the table. A postflop problem often needs a hand-by-hand walkthrough where you note your reasoning at each street. A tilt-related leak is harder to review from hand histories alone and may require session notes that record your emotional state and time of play.
Matching format to leak keeps your calendar from becoming a pile of random tasks. When planning, ask yourself what evidence would actually confirm or rule out each suspected leak, and whether you have that evidence available.
Build a Weekly Rhythm With Fixed Slots
A practical calendar uses a small number of repeating slots. For example, one block per week for hand-history review of a single leak, one block for reviewing session notes from the previous week, and one block for a conceptual topic that connects to your current leaks. Fixed slots prevent the common pattern of spending all your study time on whatever you happened to think about last.
Keep each block short enough that you can finish it. A ninety-minute review focused on one question is usually more productive than a three-hour session with no defined end. When a block ends, record what you checked, what you found, and what question remains open for next time.
A Short Checklist Before You Commit to a Plan
Before you adopt a review calendar, answer these questions in writing. Which leak am I targeting this week, and how will I know whether I have seen it? What hand-history or note data do I need, and do I have it already? How long will this block last, and what does finishing it look like? What will I do with the result, whether I adjust a strategy, collect more data, or drop the suspicion?
If you cannot answer the last question, the review is probably aimed at curiosity rather than improvement. That is not a failure, but it is worth recognizing. A calendar is most useful when each review feeds a concrete decision about how you play next time.
Revisit the Calendar Every Few Weeks
Leaks change. A problem you fixed may fade while a new one appears, especially after you change stakes, formats, or opponent pools. Schedule a short review of the calendar itself every few weeks. Ask which leaks you have resolved, which ones remain stubborn, and whether any new patterns have appeared in your notes.
Treat the calendar as a working document rather than a fixed promise. Its job is to keep your study tied to evidence from your own play, and that job continues as long as you keep feeding it real observations.