Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

I'm trying really hard to get better about reviewing hands after a session, but I'm playing *way* too many games to review more than a handful of the games I'm playing (playing 30-50 matches in a 3-5 hour session is pretty typical for me).

Given the choice between picking a few games at random to review the entire game, or putting together an amalgam of all the big pots of the night to review individual hands, any thoughts on which of the two is going to give me the most bang for my reviewing buck?

Or would it be better to be taking notes during a session for specific spots to review? That might be a little tough, since I'm 3-tabling, but I suppose I could type "review" or something in the chat window, and then hook on that when scanning through.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

This is actually something I've been thinking about as well.

I find that reviewing contextless individual hands doesn't help me that much, as so many of the factors to consider in the playing of a hand depend on prior actions.

I'm actually working on building a web app that might help - thought I'd post a screenshot and see if people have any comments. It has almost zero functionality right now, other than being pretty to look at, but I'm going to add the ability to comment street by street.

I find this way of looking at a hand history tells me a lot more about the story of a HUSNG, because it's easy to see, at a glance, whether a lot of pots were being played postflop, how aggressive (or not) both players were, etc.

If several people interested in something like this, I might try and make it more fully featured. I'll probably do that anyway, as I'm having a lot of fun learning about web programming.

To relate this back to the OP (apologies for the hijack), I think something like this would allow you to quickly scan through a number of HUSNG's, making it easier to find the critical spots without losing much context.

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...screenshot.jpg

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

From previous posts Im under the impression that you are still struggling to escape the lower limits. I (as well as most others would) recommend that you play less and analyze more. Review matches immediately after you played them. Make notes during your play when you arent 100% comfortable and sure of your decisions to review the hand later.

If you were a 10 - 15% winner playing 3 - 5 hrs a day you should be at a point now where your skill limits your progress, not your bankroll. If thats the case, review more and play less. If thats not the case, review more and play less.


Thats all I know.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
[..] If thats the case, review more and play less. If thats not the case, review more and play less. [..]

Thats all I know.

[/ QUOTE ]
Brilliant!

By the way -- the link to that popopop replayer is down, could anyone please upload the file to some site for us who do not have it yet? Thanks!

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
From previous posts Im under the impression that you are still struggling to escape the lower limits.

[/ QUOTE ]

I dunno, do you consider $50 and $100 SNGs "lower limits"? Right now, I feel like the main thing keeping me from advancing is variance. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

At the beginning of last month, I was playing $100s with the occasional $220, and hit a *really* bad run, obliterating my bankroll almost completely.

The bad run I experienced (I dropped $3k over a period of about 2 weeks) had a base in bad luck (as in extraordinarily horrifically bad, running worse than I thought was possible), but it *completely* destroyed my confidence level. It felt like I was running insanely bad, but anybody around here will tell you that huge drops are almost always playing bad as opposed to running bad and it would have to be so bad as to be highly unlikely, so I really didn't know what was going on. I didn't know if I was playing so much worse than when I made that $3k in the first place (which was originally built from a $100 bankroll, and was actually quite a bit more than 3k, since I've cashed out a number of times), or if the original upswing was just insanely good luck, and the losing streak was the true reality, or what.

I've seen a lot of people on this forum talk about runs so bad that they seriously consider quitting poker entirely. This was my time.

In hindsight, it seems fairly likely that over 5500 games, there's going to be at least *one* extraordinarily, disgustingly bad run, but of course, hindsight is 20/20.

Then I spent a few days doing nothing but going over hand histories, and realized that although there were definitely some things I needed to fix, a big portion of that downswing really was running bad. Cooler after cooler after beat after beat. It was seriously sick to watch, even the second time through.

When I started playing again, I started playing short sessions followed by long review sessions, going over every hand of every match. I wasn't quite done with the running bad at that point, but at least at that point it slowed down, and I wasn't adding tilt money into the equation. More importantly, I was able to verify that I hadn't opened some massive hole that wasn't there before that I was just throwing money into, and that my game, although certainly far from perfect, was at least consistent.

Had I been aggressively reviewing after a session through that downswing, I would have fixed the things that needed to be fixed much sooner (which certainly would have made some amount of difference), but I would have realized that yes, I really was running *that* bad, and done my best to shrug it off, rather than letting it affect my game.

About a week and a half ago, I was down to $80. Since then, I've advanced through the levels pretty quickly with a 60-65% winrate, with about $1300-$1400 profit, over that week and a half. Unfortunately, my bankroll isn't really at $1300, because I decided to give HUCASH a go the other night, and got destroyed to the tune of about $650. Oops. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Anyway, the short version of all of this is that I'm not wanting to review because I think I'm stuck and don't know why, or because I'm not advancing through the levels, but because I want to make sure I keep improving, and to keep my confidence up.

Now that I've got my confidence back, I want to do everything I can to make sure that the next bad run doesn't destroy it again.

That's the reason I've been trying to get better about reviewing games or hands after a session.

I'm just trying to figure out how to get the best bang for the buck from it, and was wondering what other people did, how they picked what to review.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

OP,

My coach and I tend to review our HHs in the POPOPOP replayer. Sometimes we do it randomly on bad days, sometimes I pick out HHs as soon as the match is over because I know that it will be interesting.

Reviewing HHs is great, but I've found the BEST way to improve is to make a video of yourself playing, and then get your coach to make a video of his comments, while he watches your video (video within a video). You will need camtasia software to do this, and I usually do a video like this every 2 weeks.

Also, reviewing HHs by yourself is doable, but I find it much easier to get somebody to help me do it.

Indy

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

In cash games, I usually review only hands when I saw turn in Pokertracker. There are the most important decisions made. Preflop and flop is almost automatic. I am giving HUSNG's a try now. It is hard to review all hands, I agree and is not such a pleasant bussiness. It is easy to say - I will review just big pots I lost and those I won, but you miss those very important small pots which are very important to review.

Pokercurious, this would be a great program. I hope that others will agree. Would be great if you added a favorites section, something like that (I don't have a clue about programming). I like that idea of adding comments for every street. Looks great. Great job.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
My coach and I tend to review our HHs in the POPOPOP replayer.

[/ QUOTE ]
So you review entire match histories for the most part? If you had the ability to easily pull out all the big pots for a night and throw them into one popopop replay session, would that be useful at all? Or do you lose too much without seeing how the rest of the match played out?

[ QUOTE ]
and then get your coach to make a video of his comments, while he watches your video (video within a video).

[/ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately, I haven't recovered enough from the big drop that I can afford my coach yet.

It might be interesting to record a video of me 3-tabling the $50s for 30 minutes or so, just to see how disgusted he can get with some of my play. I wonder if I could actually manage to think outloud while 3 tabling, since I'm pretty sure my brain works much more quickly than my mouth, although you'd never guess that from the average length of my posts here. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

It seems to be working, though. Either that, or I'm on an insane heater that rivals my evilbad run last month.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My coach and I tend to review our HHs in the POPOPOP replayer.

[/ QUOTE ]
So you review entire match histories for the most part? If you had the ability to easily pull out all the big pots for a night and throw them into one popopop replay session, would that be useful at all? Or do you lose too much without seeing how the rest of the match played out?

[ QUOTE ]
and then get your coach to make a video of his comments, while he watches your video (video within a video).

[/ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately, I haven't recovered enough from the big drop that I can afford my coach yet.

It might be interesting to record a video of me 3-tabling the $50s for 30 minutes or so, just to see how disgusted he can get with some of my play. I wonder if I could actually manage to think outloud while 3 tabling, since I'm pretty sure my brain works much more quickly than my mouth, although you'd never guess that from the average length of my posts here. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

It seems to be working, though. Either that, or I'm on an insane heater that rivals my evilbad run last month.

[/ QUOTE ]

We go over all the hands from a HH...just looking at the big pots will not allow you to fix some very important leaks obv....

If you cannot afford a coach, make a vid of yourself playing and post it here on the forum....perhaps some guys will look at it BUT TO BE HONEST, you'd be best off saving your pennies for a good coach to look at it because 2+2 has limited value in what you can get for free in my opinion.....ever wonder why the big guns don't post that much? Its because they aren't gonna spend their time really digging into your questions w/o getting paid for it.

Indy

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately, I haven't recovered enough from the big drop that I can afford my coach yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you cannot afford a coach

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Key word bolded from my quote. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

When my bankroll was sitting at 3k, I didn't bat an eyelash taking a few sessions with cwar. Now that I'm sitting at $650, I've got just a little more work to do before I can afford him.

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately, I haven't recovered enough from the big drop that I can afford my coach yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you cannot afford a coach

[/ QUOTE ]

Key word bolded from my quote. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

When my bankroll was sitting at 3k, I didn't bat an eyelash taking a few sessions with cwar. Now that I'm sitting at $650, I've got just a little more work to do before I can afford him.

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Think creatively...hell if i were you and i wanted to get better at poker i'd try to make a deal with some of the better players here in the forum LIKE offering them a cut of your profits, OR washing their car, OR painting their house etc etc.....

The best advice I can give an up and coming poker player like yourself is "Don't wait for somebody to tell you how to get better, figure it out yourself and do whatever it takes to become a poker baller."

In other words, be a republican, not a democrat:) Get industrious and you will succeed....bitch and whine and ask for a handout and whatnot and you will go nowhere.

Indy

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
The best advice I can give an up and coming poker player like yourself is "Don't wait for somebody to tell you how to get better, figure it out yourself and do whatever it takes to become a poker baller."

[/ QUOTE ]
That's what I'm trying to do!

Just trying to get a handle on where to best focus my efforts. Sheesh.

And I tried that "take a cut of my profits" thing with cwar. He wouldn't bite. And frankly, the way I've been playing and running for the past 300 games or so (I'm still getting my fair share of coolers and beats, but now it doesn't feel like *EVERY DAMN GAME*), it would be a lot cheaper for me to save up for the $100/hr. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The best advice I can give an up and coming poker player like yourself is "Don't wait for somebody to tell you how to get better, figure it out yourself and do whatever it takes to become a poker baller."

[/ QUOTE ]
That's what I'm trying to do!

Just trying to get a handle on where to best focus my efforts. Sheesh.

And I tried that "take a cut of my profits" thing with cwar. He wouldn't bite. And frankly, the way I've been playing and running for the past 300 games or so (I'm still getting my fair share of coolers and beats, but now it doesn't feel like *EVERY DAMN GAME*), it would be a lot cheaper for me to save up for the $100/hr. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

what you could also do is find a "friend" here and you guys review each others HHs....then you could put together a good list of questions from that and post them here.....or just get your friend to chop the costs of a coach and go in together on it....its not that hard really.

Indy

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

You know...

Everything I've said so far has meant to be in a friendly, jesting tone, which is why there's one of these [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] every other line.

But it's really starting to sound like you're beating up on me just a little bit, like maybe I'm too lazy to figure out how to improve on my own.

I'm not bitching, whining, looking for handouts, or trying to get anybody else to do my thinking for me. In fact, the original post here was me asking a very specific question, "where is my study effort going to be best spent", at which point somebody misinterpreted *why* I was asking, so I tried to explain as fully as possible.

I had already tried at least one of the things you implored me to "Think creatively" about as far as coaching goes (although, to be fair, I never considered offering physical labor), and to be frankly honest, where trading hand histories is concerned, I feel like there just aren't that many people who I would get anything useful from that would actually get anything useful from me, and vice-versa. And maybe I'm wrong on that point, but it just really seems like two players (or a group of players) would have to be pretty close in skill level and style for it to be much more than a purely social event.

As far as chopping coach costs goes, it didn't feel like I was that far off from being able to afford cwar's time again (I've only been in recovery for a week and a half, but if I hadn't donked so much at HUCASH, I'd probably be asking cwar for a session this coming weekend, and still might depending on how things go), but if you're still running a weekly coach chop, let me know, because I would still be interested in that. (The past couple times I asked you about it, the timing just didn't work out for me)

But seriously, I don't know where you got this idea that I'm not willing to put in the effort or time to improve anywhere in this thread, but either I'm massively misreading you, or you do seem to have that idea, and it's starting to sting just a little.

The original post in this thread wasn't "how do I get better", or "improve meh plz", it was "I'm going to be spending a fair amount of time reviewing my own hand histories, where are the best places to focus that effort?"

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

LOL I cannot believe you took that personal and I cannot believe u spent this much time writing this up....but i didnt mean it as an attack, I was trying to help u....that's my approach, brutal honesty...take it or leave it.

Best Wishes, Indy

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

It wasn't that much time.

I type fast.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

Oh, and with quotes like these:

[ QUOTE ]
Think creatively...

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Don't wait for somebody to tell you how to get better, figure it out yourself and do whatever it takes to become a poker baller.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Get industrious and you will succeed....bitch and whine and ask for a handout and whatnot and you will go nowhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
its not that hard really.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you at least understand why I might have started to take it a just a little bit personally? Especially when the original post should have clearly indicated that I was more than willing to "figure it out myself", and that further posts should have clearly indicated that I do recognize the value of coaching?

Or maybe I'm just being moody. That would be a first, wouldn't it?

Leader, please consider this thread as further evidence that I fully deserve the custom title "Forum Drama King".

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

Tnixon , are you in the mood to talk about standard deviation tonight ?

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

Note:Tnixon, please no more math posts.

Reviewing sessions helps out a lot, even though I don't do it anymore because my computer doesn't save hand histories. When I did do it however, it worked. A lot of it is going through and asking questions such as:
"was it neccessary to raise the turn there when much of his range is bluffs?"
"Is that really a good vbet-am I really ahead more than 1/2 the time he calls?"
"Should I have raised there instead of calling?-there are so many cards that allow him to catch up and/or kill my action."
"What's the best way to counter this guy's strategy?"

The more you study, the more things come naturally. These days, because I can't go through histories, I learn by reading current posts and archives of 2+2. I probably read 2+2 just as much, if not more, than I play.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My coach and I tend to review our HHs in the POPOPOP replayer.

[/ QUOTE ]
So you review entire match histories for the most part? If you had the ability to easily pull out all the big pots for a night and throw them into one popopop replay session, would that be useful at all? Or do you lose too much without seeing how the rest of the match played out?

[ QUOTE ]
and then get your coach to make a video of his comments, while he watches your video (video within a video).

[/ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately, I haven't recovered enough from the big drop that I can afford my coach yet.

It might be interesting to record a video of me 3-tabling the $50s for 30 minutes or so, just to see how disgusted he can get with some of my play. I wonder if I could actually manage to think outloud while 3 tabling, since I'm pretty sure my brain works much more quickly than my mouth, although you'd never guess that from the average length of my posts here. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

It seems to be working, though. Either that, or I'm on an insane heater that rivals my evilbad run last month.

[/ QUOTE ]

You said you can't think outloud while 3 tabling? Me neither. But in order to make a video, you don't need to think outloud while you are playing. There is a little trick to that and I am surprised no one mentioned it and that no one uses that method. You shoot yourself playing and then you play the video in Winamp or whatever player you are using and shoot the video again and make a comment during that. Easier, right?

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

lol, you guys are cute.


@TN , I completely mistook your for somebody else. Dunno how that happened.


you (almost) have a PM.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

Tnixon,

I make my posts to help you out....beating around the bush about stuff won't help you...i have nothing against you whatsoever, its just my style and im sorry if my posts have upset you.

Love, Indy

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
I make my posts to help you out.

[/ QUOTE ]
Don't get me wrong. It's appreciated. And I completely understand and believe in brutal honesty.

But brutal honestly is something that you generally reserve for people who disagree with what you're trying to say, but need to hear it anyway.

I was agreeing with everything you said, and had already done a number of the things you suggested, so it seemed like the brutal part was just a little bit undeserved.

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

vinetou, u can do the same thing in camtasia, its called voice narration, appears on the left on the main page.. should be much easier...

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
vinetou, u can do the same thing in camtasia, its called voice narration, appears on the left on the main page.. should be much easier...

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I used Camstudio, will download Camtasia for the next time. I just figured that most people talk while they are playing and didn't know why.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

The one advantage of doing the talking while you're playing is that you get the real thoughts of the moment. I've tried to go back through and make comments after the fact before, and there does seem to be some amount of loss and difference there.

Maybe that's just because my memory sucks though.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
The one advantage of doing the talking while you're playing is that you get the real thoughts of the moment. I've tried to go back through and make comments after the fact before, and there does seem to be some amount of loss and difference there.

Maybe that's just because my memory sucks though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite the opposite with me. I discover new things and maybe more like what I should think in that moment instead of what I actually thought in the moment. Videos are a great way to improve your game. More enjoyable than going through HH's. if you play 3 at a time, it is different.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

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Quite the opposite with me. I discover new things and maybe more like what I should think in that moment instead of what I actually thought in the moment.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the thing though. To really get a good analysis, you really want to know what you were thinking at that moment.

What you *should* be thinking in that moment can be very different from what you *were* thinking, and adding commentary afterwards can throw a wrinkle into the mix.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

I usually know what I was thinking in the moment. But even if you don't, it is better to know what you should be thinking, in my opinion.

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

[ QUOTE ]
But even if you don't, it is better to know what you should be thinking, in my opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree with this, if the goal of reviewing the video is to figure out spots where you played poorly and why.

If the vid has comments reflecting what you were thinking at the time, then a later review of the movie allows you to compare what you were thinking against what you should have been thinking, and look at reasons why the two might be different. And I think those moments (where you weren't thinking what you should have been) are probably the most important moments to really understand throughout a game.

Also, memory gets colored by things that happen afterwards, so I think it would be really tough to *really* know what you were thinking at the moment.

Then again, like I said, my memory sucks. Maybe that's a lot easier for most of the rest of the world.

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session
 

I am interested in chopping some coaching.

PM me if interested in going in with me.