I talk every now and then about my friend who got me into poker.

One time a few years ago after a session where I watched him play for a few hours I said to him, "Do you remember the hand where you had XY and did ABC?" He said, "I remember *all* my hands."

Bob148 said something similar to me very early in my 2+2 "career".

At the end of a live session, I barely remember a single hand I played. The same thing happened to me when I used to be a performer (guitar, singer etc. - yes, I used to do that and people used to pretend to enjoy it ). The same thing happened when I played tennis. At the end of a concert I didn't remember a second of it. At the end of a tennis match I would maybe remember 1 or 2 memorable points but other than that I just had to kind of take it on faith that it happened.

Usually when I go see standup comedians, I remember laughing myself to a stomachache but I hardly remember any jokes - it's like they go from one joke to the next so quickly there's no opportunity to "commit one to memory" before moving on.

Lately I've started taking little notes on my phone between hands, like "AKs flopped a flush draw". Sometimes that little pneumonic helps me access the part of my brain that holds the rest of the hand and I recall all of it, other times I'm like, "What was I smoking when I typed THAT?" (and I don't even smoke!).

Anyway, the point is, am I probably not as far along in my development now as I would be if I'd had better ability to recall pasts hands for the last several years?

Is this a problem I should try to solve for the sake of my ability to continue to improve in the future?

Advice will (as always) be appreciated.

DTXCF

Interestingly, and amusingly, I recall that conversation haha.

Maybe you should look into how the brain processes memories: short term memory is somehow turned into long term memory by the brain. Perhaps you need some sort of "cue" in order to form long term memories.

Me? I just remember **** somehow. It's natural to me. So what works for me may not work for you.

When you studied for school, were there any tricks you played on your brain to help form memories? Like does writing stuff down help? Does verbalizing help?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-term_memory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_memory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

Take less drugs.

And how do you remember a friend your hand played after a few hours, but not your own?

In fairness, probably about 80% of the hands you play aren't worth remembering.

This is less about memory and more about taking the time to thoughtfully develop a note-taking method that you understand.

Remembering more doesn't equate to being able to use that information in a useful manner. However, you do make it harder on yourself to learn from your mistakes if you don't remember much of anything about how you played.

It is possible that there's a general attentiveness issue here and that not remembering much is a mere symptom.

You might try this experiment: Set your phone timer for 30 minutes. When it goes off ask yourself what you remember about the previous 30 minutes. But do this only once. At the end of your night, see what from the 30 minutes you can still remember.

If you can't remember much of anything, you might not be paying attention and you might just be floating through on autopilot. You might need to be more proactive in your thought process to help drive things into your memory.

you need to give attention to a thought in order for it becomes a memory. The brain is presented with Billions of bits of information throughout the day. If you don't revisit a thought the brain just discards it since it deems it uninportant. How many times do you drive a familiar path and then not remember any of it once you reach your destination? If while you drive you look at a sign and then 30 seconds later picture that sign in your mind you will probably remember it. Think about the sign 2 minutes later and the memory becomes more solid. Do the same thing at the table with players and hands. Repition is key. I'll try to recall a specific memory each time I watch a player act.

I'll sometimes attach a crazy, silly image to the player to further help the memory process. If an interesting hand with QQs occured I may visualize huge boobs on the player that keep knockng over chips. If they peel lightly I may see them slip on a bannana.

Try to create a file in your head. I may use my house or the place were I work. Place a crazy memory in a room, or bed, or desk. This allows you to find the memory kinda like finding a library book.

Evertime there is a dealer change, revisit plays. Repeat as many times as possible. Then let it sink in and do a sesssion review the next day.

80% of the hands you play aren't worth remembering but you should practice remembering them anyway.

First, as your game improves, you're frequently going to go back and dissect hands. For example, you may consider raising a flush draw on the flop for a free card a standard play now; in the future you may realize sometimes it's bad, and go, wait, havr I been playing it wrong for years?

Secondly, you want to create minigames for yourself or things to help you focus. Pretend you're someone in the hand and see how predictable they are. For example, "Seat 3 raised UTG, I would 3-bet 88+ AJo+ and fold otherwise. Seat 7 called, he'd 3-bet the same range but coldcall down to 22 76s. Flop is A65r, if I were Seat 7 I'd be calling 87 76 66 55
..." If the hand gets to showdown, keep track of how often you're right and how often you're wrong. And then go back home and check each of the steps you did - what range did you put Seat 3 on? Is 88+ AJo+ too loose? Too tight? How reasonable is it to call 76 against Seat 3's range? Should you raise 66 and 55 immediately?"

Hand recall is absolutely one of the most important skills I've learned. I think my progression at it can be attributed heavily to the fact that I was a lazy student and relied more on information recall versus note taking.

I'd recommend discrete note taking at the table. It's okay if some points are missed (was it 3 or 4 limpers? Was it QhJh6c or QhJh6s?), and to flag certain spots that you found to be challenging.

What detailed notes will help you do is practice your thought process away from the table, and also give you lab material. Not to mention that when recalling hands to others, you can spot flaws that you may be unconsciously incompetent with, making it impossible to fix the leak yourself (because you're unaware of said leak)

Somewhat random thought:

4 limpers, I'm on the BTN with AJo and I raise. UTG 3-bets and UTG+1 WTFcaps. I flop a J on a dry board. No cards higher than a J come on the turn or river and I end up paying off UTG's QQ.

I think we can all agree folding top pair in that gigantic pot would be a mistake barring crazy action.

So do you think it's worth committing to memory those few times when our TPTK was actually the best hand? The obvious intention would be to mentally help us make mathematically correct turn and river calls, not to turn us into calling stations

Hope that made sense
DTXCF

I'm more concerned with remembering UTG lrrs with big pairs in EP and paying attention to whether it's more than that.

The danger in trying to derive calling frequency by statistics in a live game is that you're very prone to recall bias. You tend to remember the times your opponent LRRed with QQ but forget the times they limped with 73s and then check-folded the flop. As a result, you get skewed percentages of when you're good.

As someone posted above, the key here is knowing where you stand against a range. How does AJo/TPTK do when someone LRRs with QQ+? How does it do against a wide range of like top 60% minus top 5%? What if they LRR with QQ+ but also AKs-76s? Assuming you don't have the statistics on whether their LRR range is QQ+ or QQ+ AKs-76s, how often does the latter range need to show up to justify a call?

The things you ought to remember are the action and the player. The questions you want to answer are things like "Did I overplay my top pair against this guy?"

No. Relying on your memory to help you calculate whether calls or mathematically correct or not by remembering hands you won won't help you at all.

Also, you're showing a LOT of bias already, because "those few times" when you won with TPTK is actually quite a few times, relatively speaking. You've probably forgotten the overwhelming majority of times you had TPTK and won the pot (either at showdown or before).