My mission in poker is to be better today than I was yesterday: always striving for improvement.

I’m doing this through dedicated daily study and play.  My play every day revolves around what I studied earlier in the day, so as to put into practice on the felt what I’m studying off the felt.

My goal with this site is to relay to you all the poker play and study strategies that I put to the test and employ (either successfully or unsuccessfully) in my games.

I’ll relay what I learn to you through my Smart Poker Study Podcast, poker strategy blog posts and training videos.

Please join me on my journey to poker excellence.  And when I say “join me,” I truly mean it.  Let’s work together to unleash our poker genius, so with that in mind, if you ever have any questions or requests for strategy content, shoot me an email to sky@smartpokerstudy.com.

More about me below.

My Story

I’m Sky Matsuhashi.  I’m a 39 year old who aspires to make a living as a poker player and coach.  I started playing live poker back in 2003 in home games and at the local cardroom.  I graduated to online poker in 2006/7 and play most of my poker there, with occasional forays into live games and the WSOP.

Until recently I was a full-time corporate employee for almost 12 years with a 10-unit restaurant company.  I’m a full-time father of two boys and I have an awesome wife and a loving family.  In my free time I’m dedicated to becoming a world-class poker player through daily poker study and putting the skills I’m learning to use in each session I play.

I received my university degree in Economics back in 2000.  Unfortunately, I never put that degree to use, though lots of the skills I gained in math and accounting during that time have served me well.

While I was at university I unlocked my first teacher achievement as an SAT Math instructor in classroom settings as well as one-on-one.  This was a great experience; it paid really well and didn’t take a ton of time.  I was able to help my students achieve up to 140 more points on their Math portion of the SAT’s by giving them a solid foundation in understanding how the SAT is structured, and how to exploit the ways questions were asked and the multiple-choice answers they offered.

After university I unlocked two simultaneous achievements:

As an English Teacher, I learned that everyone came in at different levels of proficiency and had different goals.  It was my job to figure out where they were at now, where they wanted to be, and how to get them there.  These were great skills to learn for life, and I’ve constantly put them to use over the intervening years.

Click here to read more of my poker journey and struggles.

Why the Smart Poker Study Blog?

With this blog, I intend to become an online resource for players to improve their games through concentrated and focused study.  Through my years of teaching experience, I’ve learned that being able to teach a concept ingrains it in my own mind even more.  If I can teach my readers poker strategy, it will foster and build the understanding of those strategies within my own game, and I’ll become a world-class player while helping others to reach those same levels.  I’ve faced many poker challenges and frustrations, and I’m here to help you face yours.

I’m continually challenging myself to become a better poker player.  I do this by studying longer and better with each passing week, learning from other coaches’ training materials, then teaching my readers and listeners the things that I’m learning.

Your Challenges and Frustrations

I know that you’re lacking knowledge of what to study, how to study, and you’re inundated with too much extraneous poker strategy from a variety of sources.  I know you need to focus on Mastery Vs Overload.  This was my issue for many years, and I’m going to help you overcome it.  I’ll get you off of studying infrequently and on unimportant topics, and get your focus on big ticket items that will vault your game to new levels.  You don’t need to be a master at everything poker, but you do need to be a master of foundational skills and those that will lead to the greatest gains.

I’ve always espoused the benefits of hard work and I’ve never believed in short-cuts to get you where you want to be.  I enjoy teaching and have 3.5 years of teaching experience that I am putting to use on this site.  I’ve been a leader within the restaurant industry as a restaurant GM and now as an employee at the corporate level.  I love this game and would someday like to spend 6-8 hours per day playing and another 3-4 creating content and coaching.  I think I’m well suited to the game of poker because of my mellow nature and I know I can not only help with poker strategy, but I can help players keep calm and collected during their play and to help them resolve their issues on tilt.

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Not only will the blog posts on this site give great strategy content, but the Smart Poker Study Podcast and the poker training videos will as well.  I’m a one man team for now, but hopefully with some success I can bring other dedicated poker players and coaches on board.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope to hear from you soon!

Cheers, and make your next session the best one yet!

-Sky