The Basics: session review & " Deconstruction"

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Poker - how do you play yours?

are you a TAG a LAG a sLAG a nit ?

However you play and whoever you play against one often overlooked part of paying goot is reviewing the hands you play afterwards and looking to see what good decisions you made - what bad stuff you did and trying to not repeat the bad stuff again and versa vice.

Often times I find myself playing on autopilot - I get the poker fired up I open up 3279874574305790428590480 tables - I look through the players that are sitting choose what tables I want to play and off I go. An hour or two later I finish up happy that I ran goot or mad that I lost monies and I go do something else.

Sound like you?

A lot of mediocre players play like this - they know the basics they know what plays are goot and what are not - for the most part they make the right plays most of the time - hey nobodies perfect right.

I think this is a one way ticket to breakevensville.

How do we make $ playing poker??

We make more with our good hands and lose less with our bad hands than the other players we play against. We make less FTOP "mistakes" than the rest of the opposition - thats it.

It's *very* hard to get out of the "woot I won x buyins today I rule" or the "Holy sheet I ran so bad I am down $x" mentality when you finish a session. All we ought to really care about is whether we made goot decisions or not and think after a sesh "woot I made some great +EV moves today ++ Sklansky bucks for me" or "man I really sucked calling there and sucking out for 300bb"

But if you play a bunch of tables you don't have nearly enough time to review how +/- your EV was for the big decisions you made that session. Here are some handy steps that help me after I play a session to get a handle on how well I am playing - and in what spots I really need to work on and improve.

i) Open up notepad or use pen/paper or something - open up the tracker s/w and filter it to show the big pots you just played.

ii) Open poker stove - replay the big hands you wanna look at in the replayer and pause the action when you had to make a decision. Punch the hand into the stove take your time and put the villain on a range and check your equity vs that range.

iii) MAKE A NOTE! - and move onto the next big hand.

This takes you 15-20 mins after you're done playing for a 90 min 4table session or thereabouts. If you got all-in pf AAvKK and stuff ignore those - just focus mostly on the hands where you had to think a little.

You should end up with a notepad file that looks like...

Session 5th Nov - Party $50NL

i) raised a 19/16 MP TAGs "CB" with air on rags flop - folded to shove - villain plays v tight from E/MP - but can't continue with whiffed OC's - OK play.
ii) called a b/3b all-in OOP vs TAG on flop w TPGK, V had naked fd. Good call - he is often semi-bluffing.
iii) ...

etc.

Save these then once a week look back through your cliffnotes and see if the same spots come up often - get into the habit of writing down why you did x in y situation and I find it helps me to think better at the table and overall make less FTOP "mistakes".

Which leads me onto "Deconstruction"

Basicaly taking other peoples games apart - and looking for ways to possibly exploit their weaknesses.

We all maintain large databases of opponents play - we ought to use these more.

Once a week I sit for an hour - pick out a villain I play against often that I have a LOT of hands on and I look at what moves they make - how they lost the big pots they played - how often they fold to a re-raise - what size of raise is need to get value - or to get a fold. I write up a huge pile of notes on this villain and either import them directly to the poker s/w or I notepad them and copy/paste them in later when I see them again.

Some villain giving you trouble at the table? - instead of keeping out of their way get under their skin, figure them out and be better armed next time you play them.