It's called Donkey Tracker. It only tracks "call" or "raise." It costs a few bucks. It's obv not super informative but it's still enlightening, especially when you take their ranges and play with them on Flopzilla.

For instance, take a relatively straight forward TAG with a 20/8 over 1400+ hands. He opens MP and I 3-bet TT. Flop is A22. I'm losing 70% of the time. Probably closer to 95% when he takes an aggressive action.

Friday Frenzy - $15/$30: Finally, a decent session.

Super-Sized Sunday - $30/$60: We have 2018 sugar!

I haven't played in a while, but got the itch so I deposited a few hundred on stars. How beatable are the 1/2-3/6 games these days? Is there any action at 5 and higher? I have no idea how their new promotions work, and I assume the rake is getting consistently worse.

I just want to donk around, not even use a tracker, but I'd prefer to be able to stay in the black with reasonable play.

I think I still have RB on party but I assume the lhe ecosystem there is dead.

Marathon Monday - $15/$30: sick, epic, record-breaking session alert

Nice score.

Wow! Nice work. Nothing better than running pure.

How do you know everyone's stats?
Surely you don't meticulously track every hand played by every player all night long?

^^^

Surely I do. The app makes it really easy. I mean it is kind of a pain in the ass, but it's worth it IMO. Not only do I track the stats, but I write my blog at the same time. I miss some hands while I'm writing and definitely when I'm away from the table, but I track over 90-95% of the hands. I also figured out a way to input each session's stats into an Excel spreadsheet with automated formuals so I can track everyone's stats over the long run as well. When the game gets 6-handed though, I stop tracking because I don't want anyone's overall numbers to get skewed by short-handed play.

Seems bad for the game.

You mean... in the same sense that the site that you're posting on now is bad for the game?

I doubt it's going to have any affect on the game at all. How many people are really going to put in the time and effort?

I dunno how I feel about this.

Pretty standard 7 handed, must move 20 with two obvious spots. Solid tag waiting for the 40 opens UTG, laggy/kinda tricky/generally bad Asian guy wearing reflective sunglasses calls, I 3! Red KK SB, tag 4!, lag calls and I just call.

Flop is TT8hh, I CR and tag 3!

At this point the lag pauses, is looking at me (I think) and puts out one more bet next to the original bet he called. I pause, new dealer doesn’t realize what is going on, I wait some more, dealer finally notices and tells him it is three bets. At this point lag mumbles something, sort of feigns trying to take the second bet back, then puts out the third bet.

I 4! and they both call. Turn is a blank and they both call. River is a K, I bet, Tag folds and lag calls while saying “I pay off king king” in broken English. He flashed ATo. So after the hand he says “you notice on flop I try to trap by out only one more bet out” or something like that.

So do we say anything. I guess it isn’t really an angle but I found it annoying.

Hf

I think he meant that you tracking stats and taking notes while playing would be bad for your game.

I would care 0% about that situation and be thinking in my head "yeah good one, genius." I guess it's a little bothersome because it could cause a burn-and-turn, but really that's just an assist to a dealer error, not the actual cause.

I don't think he meant that.

Laser focus at the table has never been a strength of mine. Tracking this data helps tremendously.

dont say anything

the only time I speak is to make myself look like an idiot

or to be friendly with anyone at the table that isn't an amazing jerk.

I'm almost certain he meant it's "bad for the game" in the same way hunting for the jesus seat in an obvious way or berating fish for bad plays could be considered "bad for the game".

Ironically, I'm actually more curious about the topic you presented, as I feel like it would be really hard to play, write, and track at the same time w/o losing some ev. You have to be an excellent multitasker to pull it off, unless I'm overestimating how much time and energy it takes to do all 3. But I could see how writing/tracking could help some focus and play better than they otherwise would. I can at least be certain of one thing: the more flhe content out there these days, the better

Yeah as I mentioned before, paying attention when I'm out of hands has always been a weakness of mine, so writing and tracking stats isn't really hurting me in that department. In fact, it's made me much more in tune with the game flow and exactly what kind of players I'm up against. Plus, when I'm home I can take their numbers and get on Flopzilla and really dig into their ranges. It's going to make me a much better player imo.

Also, I do think I multitask incredibly well. I've always considered it a strength.

The writing part is more difficult. It is way easier to take notes and write a post later, but as far as time management goes, it is easier to do at the table while I'm playing. Plus, my readers seem to enjoy the live updates a lot.

How many hands of theirs do you need before you put their ranges into Flopzilla?

People who think they are good at multitasking are actually bad at multitasking.

In fact, they simply tend to be the most distractable, and ironically slower at completing a group of tasks than someone who admits they are a poor multitasker and focuses on one task at a time. But the whole time because their attention is flicking back and forth between a bunch of things, have the self-evaluation that they're amazing.

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/37/15583.short

There's absolutely no reason to write down every hand or every hand you're involved in, and the time spent doing it is almost certainly better spent getting more hands played. Fundamentally, most hands played should be uninteresting - if you're not able to ignore 90% of hands as standard, then you probably need to revise your definition of standard.

Instead of writing down hands and trying to build a massive database of what your opponents have, you should simply mentally put them on a range and then count how often you're right. If you're right less than, say, 90% of the time, then expand your range, and if you're right more than 90% then narrow it.

Most of your opponents are not special flowers. They fall into one of four or five categories, and when you figure each of those out spend some time figuring out how to pwn a generic member of that category.

Then spend all your excess time shooting the breeze with your opponents so that they're playing their C game while distracted by your idiotic defense of the Patriots' blantant cheating or agreeing with your idiotic observation that that cocktail waitress is definitely not wearing underwear or your idiotic rationalization for shorting $WYNN stock, while you play your A game as a background task because everything is standard.

Or I could keep doing what I'm doing because I enjoy it and it works for me? I think you're overestimating how difficult it is to use the app. And I don't write down every hand I play. I'm guessing you don't actually read my blog.

^ this gave me a mental hardon.


Also I read your blog, it's fun.

I'm with callypygian.

As long as you pay attention at the table you should be able to construct peoples ranges pretty well after seeing them play.

And often your range construction will be more accurate than any stats from a small sample, especially because the 60%+ vpip players don't really have a linear stat distribution. They might not be playing the top 60% of hands, but rather some random sampling from various ranges.

Second, I'd be pissed as hell at you if you were data-mining the fish at my table. It could easily ruin a good game if someone notices and has an issue with it. Don't tap the friggin glass man.

Third, its dangerously close to machine-assisted play, making it at least a little scummy and maybe even borderline cheating. Sure, its no different than using stats in online poker, but that is basically tolerated because its impossible to enforce against.

Agree with this sentiment. Stop the tracker. Stop touching your phone while you have cards. You are *blessed* and I mean ***BLESSED*** to be playing in the games available to you in this day and age. One of your biggest assets is your reputation because that's why people gamble with you. If you don't believe that's true imagine what it would be like if everyone that looked at you at the poker table thought "scumbag cheater". Don't risk it for the short term return of what this app gives you.

And ffs stop opening J9o in the HJ.

Word. I'll quit the app. I can see where you guys are coming from.

You fold J9o folded to you on the button? I doubt that. So if I know the two players behind me are folding...