I’m using the PAO (Person-Action-Object) system to memorize poker situations and strategies.
My system works as follows:
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Person — a specific poker situation (e.g. position, players’ actions, and other relevant conditions).
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Object — my hole cards (a specific hand).
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Action — the action I should take with that hand in that particular situation (e.g. raise, call, or fold).
I’ve created images for every hand, every situation, and every action. This allows me to combine them into memorable scenes that encode specific poker decisions.
For example, in the screenshot below, the situation is represented by Michelangelo. In this spot, the hand TT (pocket tens) should be played as a raise approximately 50% of the time. I encode the frequency using a separate image: a runny egg yolk.
So the resulting image is: Michelangelo raising a runny egg yolk.
The problem is that, despite remembering the images very well, I don’t feel that I’m making any progress in actually learning the poker strategy.
I successfully decode the images every time I encounter the corresponding cards in Anki. The intervals gradually increase and have already reached several weeks. I’m using FSRS and generally choose Good when reviewing.
However, for most hands, I don’t notice any improvement in my ability to independently recall the correct decisions. It feels like I’m getting better at remembering the mnemonic images, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into a better understanding of the strategy.
At the moment, I’m memorizing approximately 500 hands per cycle, adding around 50 new hands every day.