Reccomendations for reviewing hands after a session

TNixon · #1 10-01-2007, 05:34 AM

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.

pokercurious · #2 10-01-2007, 06:33 AM

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.

hra146 · #3 10-01-2007, 10:41 AM

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.

Noodles. · #4 10-01-2007, 10:50 AM

[ 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!

TNixon · #5 10-01-2007, 03:37 PM

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

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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.

Indiana · #6 10-01-2007, 03:56 PM

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

Vinetou · #7 10-01-2007, 03:57 PM

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.

TNixon · #8 10-01-2007, 06:13 PM

[ 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.

Indiana · #9 10-01-2007, 06:32 PM

[ 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

TNixon · #10 10-01-2007, 06:46 PM

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

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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.

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