player notes.

handsfree

i'm tring to get a template in which to make taking notes easy. this will involve a series of questions like what hands 'what kind of hands does the player limp in with'.etc... Anyway i want to turn this into a table where i can just stick in what ever cards a player just showed and from this be able to catagorise each player play by the data i have on them.

i want 1 to know from experienced players is this what they do
2 if it isn't do u think it will work
3 suggestions on the types of questions that would be helpful.

i going ahead with this experiment during christmas when i finish my exams no matter what the out come of this survey is. so sometime in january i'll tell u if this worked for me. if i haven't explained this concept well i'll have another go tomorrow.

youcantseeme

Good stuff if you have the patience, keep us updated.

hotspur

99% of my notes just say "retard", but more useful info would be the difference in their preflop bets with their AK AQ type hands and their AA KK QQ JJ hands, and also how they play smaller pairs preflop. Then how they react to the flop when they miss with AK types, and do they continuation bet on the turn if you call their flop continuation bet. Also a good piece if info is the opposite - does a player need 2 barrels postflop to make them believe you have the goods, that is will they call a flop bet with a raggy board thinking you missed but fold if you make a strong bet on the turn also.

Most important info you can have is what their all in play means. Some players do it with the nuts others with a bluff. Finding out how they tend to play when the flop comes high paired relative to what they hold can be profitable. And do they bet their flush draws hard, just check call, or pathetically make small bets when 1st to act to try to keep in for cheap

These are the kinds of info which would be useful. But you have to be playing with the same players all the time really for this to be worth bothering with. This means 1) high stakes - which you won't be playing, and the good players there mix it up anyway 2) a small site not on a large network with a small pool of players who play at your stakes.

Overall most players don't tend to embark on anything resembling what you're proposing to do. If it encourages you to pay attention to the betting habits of players then it's a great idea as this is one of the most important skills in poker. Best of luck with it.

handsfree

thanks hotspur, thats really useful. i'll put the table on the boards when i'm done if it works. the plan really is that if you have enough time spend about half an hour to an hour observing, playing tight then when you have enough info start playing. if it works and i have enough time i might write a computer program to make it easier to implement but thats futher down the line

RoundTower

I think this is a very good idea, especially if like hotspur says you are in games with a small player pool. But to save you the effort, there are programs like PokerTracker which will do stuff like this for you. Never used them but I understand they're very useful for playing several tables at once when you can't keep track of all the players in your head.

Imposter

hotspur's advice is good but perhaps a bit too advanced imo. If you are playing at lower levels you play with a lot of players and most will only be seen once of twice.

I record general info like:
- what game I seen them play in (if you play different games this is important)
- what their buy-in was (this can allow you to make some generalisations - which can be dangerous, but is mostly surprisingly accurate)
- Whether they are Tight/Loose, Aggressive/Passive both pre and post flop and also for different stages of a tournament. Gametime or PokerAce is super for this (first 2 bits)
- Whether they are straight forward or tricky - record any unusual plays you've seen

Then once you have that info you can start into hotspur's suggestions.

handsfree

i'm aware of poker tracker but i think my aim is to become a better reader of the game. this excercise will hopefully improve my live game preformance where poker traker is unavailable. hotspurs suggestions are exactly what im looking for. these skill can be implemented probably better against weaker players as they tend not to vary their game so much. Against strong players who do vary their game this could pick out the pattern of play over a longer sample. my idea is to keep it very simple so quick decisions can be made, if u can do this it would make multitable play easier.

roryc

I used to take notes but I don't really see the point anymore. Usually my notes are something along along the lines of 'fcuking retarded fcuker just cost me $100 fcuking prick called all in with A5 and cracked my full house with runner runner straight flush fcuking american lucky fcuking wanker dik'


So as you can see these notes aren't much use to me the next time I play an idiot such as this.

Also I have yet to run into a player I have played against before. I have taken notes on about 100 players and never saw any of them again. Not that it would make a difference. If they're gonna river me notes won't make a difference!

Imposter

roryc wrote:

I used to take notes but I don't really see the point anymore. Usually my notes are something along along the lines of 'fcuking retarded fcuker just cost me $100 fcuking prick called all in with A5 and cracked my full house with runner runner straight flush fcuking american lucky fcuking wanker dik'


So as you can see these notes aren't much use to me the next time I play an idiot such as this.

Also I have yet to run into a player I have played against before. I have taken notes on about 100 players and never saw any of them again. Not that it would make a difference. If they're gonna river me notes won't make a difference!

I wonder how you'd get on if you took a positive attitude to the whole thing!

roryc

Been there done that bought the t-shirt etc.... Tried every approach possible. Tried playing super super tight and only playing the nuts, tried playing wild and making stoooopid calls (actually made money doing this!), tried playing drunk.... I've gotten to the stage where I try and guess WHEN the villian will get lucky and hit his 2 outer. I have a positive attitude towards it now in that I've totally given up on online 'poker' and laugh at how ridiculous it can be. I'll be finished with it soon anyway....

TacT

Seems a bit much but I have at least a good paragraph dedicated to any player who frequently crosses my path at the stakes which I play. A lot of them have mechanical betting patterns for different hands and it's nice when you can call down an AK raiser who has nothing from the board with pocket 2's and take down a nice pot because he missed but can't stop himself betting at the pot with Ace high.