3 Tips for Crushing an Online Poker Series — From Benny Glaser

15 Jun 2025

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

These recommendations come from a recent podcast with Benny Glaser — the all-time leader in SCOOP and WCOOP titles. In it, he shares three key tips for preparing for a SCOOP grind.

So imagine someone who’s getting ready to play a SCOOP grind (or any huge poker tournament) and wants to optimize their performance during it. What would be your top three tips to increase their results or just survive a series like that?

I guess the first thing would be the assumption that they won’t move time zones for it. So, let’s say they’re going to play from wherever they normally play online. For me, my main consideration during a series like this is that I basically decided to go back to Vancouver, even though it's too early of a time zone for me. I would have preferred somewhere a bit more east of there.

I was debating going there also just because I like the whole environment, basically the atmosphere. I sort of curate it in a way like I’m planning to be focusing on this series during that time. Also, I know roughly what I’m going to do in the evenings — I could go to this gym, I can attend some classes like yoga or something like that. That’s going to be nice for me in the evening.

You probably know the things around your house that you can do, but think about how they might complement the grind (or not) and how you best operate for those kinds of things. For example, before and after the grind, is it nice for you to work out? How do you decompress after the grind before sleep?

Schedules for this are very important, obviously — sleep schedules are, of course, a big thing. It’s hard to give clear advice on that if someone is living in a certain place with a specific routine. But thinking about all those factors and how you can optimize them would probably be the main thing.

Other ways, I guess, it depends on whether you’re a full-time player, part-time, or recreational. If you’re looking at these factors, you can maybe plan how your series is going to look. You can look at a schedule and think about what events you want to play, which ones you’re going to prioritize, how much you’re going to play each day, whether you’ll take any days off—things like that. Sort of plan and envision how your weeks are going to go.

How else are you going to use those breaks? Maybe you’re going to have little four-minute meditations or something like that, something you’re going to be able to do so you’re better for each next hour after those five-minute breaks, basically.

So these are, I think, quite important, that hopefully each person knows how they work best in those environments, so they can think: “Oh, those four minutes — I’m going to…”. Sorry, those four minutes.

I’m going to run through things that I had from that last hour, and then they will not be on my mind for the rest of the day—something like that. If it’s hard for you to let go of the last hour, that might help. Or if you just want to take your mind off things, go see the sunlight for four minutes and then set yourself up for the next hour — that’s perfectly great. Obviously, it works differently for each person.

Then there’s the question of whether you’re going to study before the series, how you’re going to prepare and work for the series. Again, this varies for each person. Some people might just want to take their brain off poker for this series because that’s what they’re going to do for those three and a half weeks — they focus only on playing. Others might want to study and feel really ready to go because they feel switched on.

In that way, anticipating how you’re going to be for this series is very important in terms of both ability and confidence, execution, and all these things. Because you’re going to need to be executing on day seven, or even day seven of the series, when you’re tired and trying not to autopilot or whatever.

So you have to be prepared to struggle in a way — to be prepared to be tired and have a tough time. If you have this study to back it up, then you will do better at executing in those tough times, right? It’s important.

If there are ways that help you relax for, let’s say, a final table where you can feel confident, that’s very important. Knowing that all the money is up top on final tables — this is probably going to define your series in a lot of cases.

Those are the main things, along with the preparations you might want to do before each day. Are you going to want to sleep until a certain time? Are you going to want to go outside, see some fresh air, see some friends, get some exercise? Are you going to want to prepare or meditate before a session?

Just focus on how you think you’ll do best. It’s a bit hard for me to say because people are so different in these aspects. So hopefully, you know how you optimally work in these kinds of environments.

Well, that was a master class in what to consider to prepare yourself for a series. What was evident is how much planning, preparation, and intentionality goes into everything—from your environment to your routine, to your evening wind-down, to when to take breaks, what to do on breaks, when to eat, what to eat, your grinding schedule, whether to take days off, or whether you need to grind or study before.