Most basic of all- What is your system for remembering cards?

[PokrLikeItsProse]

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What about pen and paper? (I'm not being facetious here.)


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I couldn't write fast enough when I used to try and write down all the hands played and board cards in hold em. There's no way I can keep track of all the folded cards in stud without developing some sort of shorthand notation.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

I think new players don't need to bother with this. At low limits remembering cards really isn't worth it unless you can do everything else easily. It's value is miniscule when other people aren't practicing any real hand selection.

As you move up it becomes more important because people are practicing hand selection so combined with remembering the cards it becomes much easier to narrow down their range and makes you better at reading hands.

[Wetdog]

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Live, no one writes the cards down. If you start writing all the cards down while playing online, you're not going to do yourself any favors if you aspire to play in live games.

DocAZ's old posts linked in the FAQ are great. I used to organize the folded cards in my head by rank, but in the last couple of years I've found that organizing them by suit makes them stick better. I tend to compress the information as the hand goes along.

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They are now dead links. Probably because of the forum upgrade coming next month?

[Andy B]

Fabulous. Has anyone saved them to their hard-drive? I haven't had any luck with the search function in the new archives. Knowing a date and a subject line would be a big help.

[Phat Mack]

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Fabulous. Has anyone saved them to their hard-drive? I haven't had any luck with the search function in the new archives. Knowing a date and a subject line would be a big help.

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Unregistered





Science of card Memory Post no 2
02/09/02 01:03 PM


(Dear forum friends, This is going to be a long post, so for those of your that don’t want to go through all of the details I have placed a synopsis at the end. You may want to fast forward.

Dear Keith,

In the first post we discussed the physiology of card memory. This time we will discuss techniques to augment your memory.

1 Monitor your card memory and your mental alertness. Being mentally alert means money when you are playing poker. In your poker diary BEFORE you go to the casino write down your mathematical alertness quotient.

But how do you monitor your alertness. Answer: Get a watch that measures in seconds. Now measure the number of seconds that it takes you to count down from a hundred by threes. 100-97- 94-91-89 etc.

You will find that that will typically takes you certain number of seconds that we will call X.

By observing your poker diary you will also eventually discover that on days that you are particularly alert i.e. On days that your mental alertness quotient is lower than usual because your count down is faster i.e.. X minus 3 or 4 seconds, that your average winnings for those nights will tend to be higher than usual.

You also will learn that on days that you are not as sharp (from chronic fatigue, “a bug coming on” Anxiety or what ever) your X times will increase. For example your Quotient might be (X plus 5 or 6.)

On those days you may find the best thing to do is to grab a nap before you go to the casino.

Or the best money maker technique may be not to risk money on days during which you are more likely to loose money. So you might “do best “ by going to a movie or working in your yard.

Poker is one of the few jobs where when you are a “little sleepy” that day it may mean that rather than going home from a typical job with a guaranteed $200 dollars for the day.

You may end up paying your table $ 200 dollars when you are not sharp. So be prepared to cut your losses.

If you want an even more definitive X number you can measure the time that it takes you to count down from 100 by threes and then to count back up by sevens. This more exact technique will give you an XY quotient.

This technique can be really being helpful as a method to rule out the “pseudo alertness syndrome.”

In this condition you may have played so long that your body puts out burst of adrenalin and you “feel pseudo great” or even “super pseudo alert” but you really are on an adrenaline rush”

If you do a X or an X Y quotient test during stages that you are playing unusually long sessions, you may find that even though you think you feel great, your alertness quotient might be an X plus 10. (Danger !)

This phenomenon explains how we can sometimes join a table where a good player (who might have played all night) is four racks up and then drops three racks in an hour. His alertness and reason simply have worn out. There have been situations where I have seen friends getting caught in this trap an I have called them aside and said

:“Hey buddy, you are an excellent player, but you are exhausted. As a friend I would recommend that you take the winnings that you have left and go home. Get some rest and come back tomorrow. And incidentally tomorrow when you are sharper, I am going to do my very best to kick your A--. So sleep tight, the game will always be here.

2. Sit in seat positions number one. “ The 5 second advantage”

80% of all-important Stud decisions are made on Third Street. If you are sitting in seat number one you have 5 extra seconds to memorize your cards. And 5 extra seconds is a LOT of time.

Example: Since you are in seat number one, you get to MEMORIZE your hole cards before any one else even gets their second down card.

Let’s say that you look at your hole cards, and you have the King of hearts and the Queen of hearts.

So the first thing that you do is to repeat to your self, King of hearts Queen of hearts four times, (that’s how you memorize them)

Mean while every one else is getting their second hole card.

Now even before the door cards come out ,you know exactly which 29 cards you want to keep track of. (11 flush hearts)(6 Kings and Queens)(12 straight cards Aces, Jacks, and tens) And that is a big advantage in your being able to strategically analyzing the three dimensional potentials of your hand.

3. Memorize your hole cards. By repeating your hole cards 4 times when you first look at them, you don’t have to look back at your hole cards as the hand is played out, giving away tells. Also since you really know your hole cards, your mind is free to focus on the more important task of analyzing the changing dimensions of the hands in play.

4. If you can’t see your opponent’s cards because your vision is weak, then you should improve your visual acuity.

Example: If you are in position seven and as the door cards come out they are King, but to you the next card is probably an 8, but you can’t see well enough to be certain that it’s not a 9 or a 7, during the time that you should be spending memorizing your opponents door cards you are wasting part of your time just trying to figure out what they are. And then during the rest of the hand you can’t be really sharp because you are spending half of your time just trying to read the cards.

Methods to improve your visually acuity.
A. Move to positions 4 or 5 or 1 or 8. Just being able to see your opponent’s cards clearly makes a major difference.
B. Go to your eye doctor and have him prescribe an inexpensive pair of glasses. That rather than maximize the quality of your vision at 20 feet, (that’s what 20-20 vision means) have him write a prescription for a set of “Poker only glasses at (12-12.) Twelve feet is the approximate functional length of a typical stud table.
C. Wear a brimmed hat or visor. Just like turning off the external lights in a movie theater (which improves your ability to see the screen well) your vision at the poker table is improved by 10% by just wearing a brimmed hat or visor. The hat or visor improves your acuity by removing the distracting glare from the overhead lighting.

5. Take a short break from the game every hour to stay mentally sharp.

Even in medical school the professors made us take 5-10 minutes an hour during their lectures to keep sharp.

So every hour get up from the table for go for a short walk (the exercise will really refresh you) gets a cup of coffee or a soda.

By doing this one trick you probably will find that you can stay sharp for 2 or 3 more hours a session than you usually would.

6 Don’t eat food or drink drinks that mentally slow you down.

Fatty foods tend to make you groggy. Either just drink a glass of juice or a soft drink an hour, or eat a couple of small non-fat meals.

When you eat a big fatty meal at the table there is a huge fluid shift from your body and brain, to your digestive system. That why you can get the “after thanks-giving dinner syndrome” after eating a fatty meal. Where all that you want to do is to lay on the floor and let your belt out and put your feet up.

Drink NO ALCOHOL until you leave the table. Some players feel that alcohol helps them, because for a short while it removes their inhibitions and tends to let them play looser and more aggressive.

But there have been a hundred studies (usually related to driving and job performance) that document, that in the long run alcohol is going to impair your alertness.

Ok 6 new topic is plenty for now. The next post should allow us to finish our review of the science of card memory. At that time we will discuss the memory changes of maturing players.

As I said before, I feel that if you aren’t using your mind to strategically analyze the impact of the cards that are exposed in stud, you simply can’t play advanced stud well. (PERIOD).

. And I suggested that you write abbreviated examples of the points, that we have discussed, in one of your copies of Seven-Card Stud for Advanced Players.

After summarizing today’s points I will add the synopsis of the points that we reviewed in Card Memory Post No 1.

6. Monitor your mental alertness quotient. Example: count down from 100 by threes or down by threes and then up by sevens.
7. The memory advantages of sitting in seat number one. “The 5 second advantage”
8. Memorize you hole cards. “Don’t be a continual hole card reviewer”
9. You can’t remember cards if you can’t see the cards clearly. Change seats, Get a pair of “Poker only glasses”. Wear a hat or visor. But DO WHAT IT TAKES to be able to see very well.
10 Take a break from the game and include a short walk for 5-10 minutes an hour, to stay mentally sharp.
10. Avoid Fatty foods and Alcohol when you play

1. Rank sequence memory technique: break ranks cards into groups of 3 or 4 and then mentally repeat each group, in the sequence that they were dealt 4 times each. (You may need to repeat this during the hand)
2 during a hand mentally change your opponent’s names to the rank of their door cards. I.e. Change Joe’s name to 6, Mary becomes 3, Tom becomes 2.
3.As each following street’s exposed cards are dealt, mentally imagine yourself as a commentator announcing the hand. I.e. “ Look 6 just caught a dangerous suited connector 7!
4 Mentally vividly conceptualize imaginary hands and mentally play them over and over again card by card. Using every possible strategies and counter strategies.
5 Work up to doing an hour’s worth of aerobic exercises a day. Try exercising and then going directly to the card room. You should be much sharper for 4 hours.

Thank you for raising this topic which I feel is vital to playing advanced stud well.

Most Sincerely,
DocAZ

[Phat Mack]

The science of card memory post no 1
02/01/02 02:29 PM
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My Good Stud friends,
I sincerely feel that this is a very important topic. But to do it justice it will take some detail to explain. If you just want the key points of this post, you may want to fast forward to the end of the post where I have summarized the key points. Doc.
Keith I am going to go over you question in detail, but to try and help other forum members I am going to review the entire topic. It should take 3 posts. don't forget to read posts 2 and 3.

Dear Keith,

You raise a couple of critical questions. I’m going to take this opportunity to review some basic concepts on card memory, as well as discussing progressive memory loss that occurs in EVERY human as he matures.

Topic number one: How to enhance your ability to remember your opponents exposed cards by rank, in the sequence that they were dealt.

Example number one

Charlie’s opponents door cards as they were dealt by rank are 3,6,2,Ace,Queen,and 7.
How does Charlie's brain remember the sequence of those ranks?

Answer: As Charlie’s mentally reads to him self the ranks of the exposed cards the neurons (located in Charlie’s memory center) lay down a very thin peptide chain (collection of amino acids) This chain is the start of memory. Each time Charlie reviews the ranks of the cards that peptide chain gets thicker and his memory of this sequence becomes more permanent.

2. Why is it easier for Charlie to remember ABCDEFG than it is 3,6,2,Ace, Queen, 7

Answer: Because Charlie has laid down the ABCD sequence so many thousands of times, that it’s peptide chain is so thick, that it has become a permanent part of Charlie’s consciousness.

3 What can Charlie do to temporarily improve his ability to remember his opponents door cards?

Answer; If Charlie breaks his opponent’s door cards into two groups of three, and then silently repeats them to himself, in the sequences that they came out 4 times. He can prolong the length of time that he remembers that particular rank sequence.

Example: Silently say 6,3,2 Ace mentally 4 times to your self.

632Ace, 632Ace 632 ace, 632 Ace. Now ask your self “what door card rank did the player located between the player with a 6 and the player with a 2 in the door have? Answer 3 of course.

By breaking the card rank’s into the sequences that you want to remember into groups of 3 or 4 and then silently repeating them 4 times, you have made the peptide chain of that sequence in your brain thicker.

It may be only thick enough to remember them for 3 minutes, but that is all the time that you need.

4 What is a memory technique that you can use to remember the sequence of cards as they were dealt on fourth fifth and sixth street?

Answer: In your mind mentally verbalize an imaginary occurrence.

Try this experiment, as a hand is being played mentally pretend that you are an ESPN announcer calling a stud hand play by play, to a national audience, for the world championship at the WSOP (world series of poker)

Research has shown that the more vividly you make the imaginary experience the easier it is to remember.

First change the names of the players to the rank of their door cards. For example Joe, Marry, and Sam will now have different names.

Joe’s name is now 6, Mary now is 3, Sam’s name will now have been changed to 2.

So your mental commentary might sound something like this;

“Door 6 catches a dangerous suited connector 7! Poor 3 caught a partially dead Ace, the bring in player 2 just paired his door card!”

“Watch out folks, Suited connectors and paired door cards can be dangerous. 2’s paired door card may not be as dangerous because 2 was the forced bring in.”

“ Hitting Aces are always a risk but it may not be as much in 3’s case since there already was one Ace out when players Ace, Queen, and 7 folded.”

(Note to my friends, if this technique is starting to sound a lot like the way that I dictate my hand analysis's, its because, this IS the technique I use. And once you have done it 100,000 times it becomes automatic)

5. When you have free time mentally play imaginary hands out card by card. Mentally play each possible strategy and counter strategy. In your mind ACTUALLY SEE THE CARDS as they are dealt. Repeat the hand over and over again, so that when you encounter it at the Casino your moves become almost automatic.

Ok so we have reviewed several techniques that you can use to keep track of the exposed stud cards. Now lets talk about memory enhancement in normal humans.

There are 3 major techniques and 4 minor techniques that we can use to enhance both or short term and long term memories.

No 1. Aerobic exercise. This has a major impact on memory. Chess playing became an obsession in the Soviet Union, and since Chess brought the USSR quite a bit of international prestige they had their scientist go to some lengths to find ways to enhance both memory and strategic analysis.

They divided their beginner Chess players into two groups and started one group on MILD aerobic exercise.

I.e. Walking or slow swimming, and what they found was that there was a profound increase by the exercises in both memory and strategic logic

(This is especially true for the first 4 hours after you exercise.) Try this experiment do a mild hour of aerobic exercise and then go directly to your poker room and see how you feel.

Answer: You will feel strong, sharp, and alert. Usualy for the first 3 or 4 hours.

When NASA started having our pilots do aerobic exercises they documented the same findings.

This is the end of post number one. But we still have some very exciting materials to cover. That I will cover in posts numbers 2 and 3.

And I’ll bet that before we are done, we will have taken your card memory capabilities to levels that you have never reached before.

That is if I can just remember those other 7 techniques that are!

One final important step!!!

Since card memory is so critical to playing advanced stud well. I would like you to take your copy of Seven-Card Stud for Advanced Players, and go to the blank pages in front of the table of contents. Or you can use the page in the back after the index.

Now write abbreviated summaries of the topics that we have covered.

1. Rank sequence memory technique: break ranks cards into groups of 3 or 4 and then mentally repeat each group, in the sequence that they were dealt 4 times each. (You may need to repeat this during the hand)

2 During a hand mentally change your opponents names to the rank of their door cards. I.e. Change Joe’s name to 6, Mary becomes 3, Tom becomes 2.

3.As each following street’s exposed cards are dealt, mentally imagine yourself as a commentator announcing the hand. I.e. “ Look 6 just caught a dangerous suited connector 7!

4 Mentally vividly conceptualize imaginary hands and mentally play them over and over again card by card. Using every possible strategies and counter strategies.

5 Work up to doing an hour’s worth of aerobic exercises a day. Try exercising and then going directly to the card room. You should be much sharper for 4 hours.

Thank you for raising this topic which I feel is vital to playing stud well.

Most Sincerely,
DocAZ

[Andy B]

Thanks, Mack. FAQ updated.

I notice that a couple of other links are dead as well. I'll deal with them at some point.