If you don't have the sort of capacity for mental recall that allows you to do the spreadsheet work you're describing, you probably shouldn't be playing with any regularity. Conversely, if you play only occasionally, forget keeping metrics.

Say you make three questionable calls in a session and lose them all. Add them up. Now over the next 20 hours you play ideally. Do you think 'ach, I gave up x dollars in y sample and look how it's torpedoing my WR' is a statistically significant observation?

Lol to keeping track of EV on a per sample basis, too. It's just meaningless quantification that shouldn't affect your play in the slightest.

This. Also having trouble finding a spatially convenient way to include V characteristics, etc. in the spreadsheet.

I've only been recording AA, KK and >30 BB. Finally transferred a session worth of hands to spreadsheet tonight. Four hands total in 5.5 hours. Took probably 30 to 40 minutes to enter.

Oh crap. I played a long session over the weekend where I basically ran perfect, booked a nearly 5 buyin win, and there's like zero chance I can recall all the >30bb hands.

1st world problems...

Sorry to hear M.

GbestwishesG

From a noobish point of view, I think studying hand histories has great benefit in that you can catch obvious gaping leaks in your game and you can learn to apply concepts by going thru working examples of HHs.

I think he's coming too much from an non-noobish vantage point, where he's aware of the concepts and how to apply them, so obviously wouldn't have nearly as much benefit. However, even going thru HHs as a non-noob has its benefits, such as keeping your poker mind sharp between sessions. I'm guessing most pro golfers spend countless hours on the driving range; does he think that's a waste of time?

GcluelesslearningnoobG

Anyone else experiencing COTM run-goodness? 4/4 in sessions this month, running at 12.6 bb/hr over ~42 hours.

I only tracked AA/KK and $100 hands. 30 in total. At first I thought that was a relatively low number of hands, but now I'm thinking that's actually kinda large. I mean, I'm typically committing myself quite a lot if getting in $100, so that means I'm putting myself to stack commitment decisions (or getting AA/KK) every 1.5 hours or so, which seems really high to me.

GcluelessstatsnoobG

Yeah, seems high GG.

I was having COTM run-badness, but then decided I was just spewing in 30bb pots.

Quickly went over them. Only 23 $100 hands, so that cuts things down a bit. And, lol, the most I ever lost in a hand was $123 (yesterday my top set was busted in a lol pot), although I did get in a BI bad in a setup hand and sucked out.

Grock,probablygranite,butmaybeevenkryptoniteG

Oh crap, I'm so confused... how do I categorize an AA/KK hand that was for >30bb?

Record it as both.

For October, we are supposed to track JJ, QQ, AQ, AK, and +30bb pots, right? While still tracking the AA and KK hands? Or do we stop tracking AA and KK?

Drop AA and KK

This thread and cammando's note taking tutorial has really inspired me. Assuming I put in the work, I'm sure this could easily be one of the most influential threads I've ever read. Step one is going to be buying an iPod touch and setting it up with the list app that is suggested. I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone responds to the homework challenge. Good luck!

COM run-good continues; 5/5, producing 6 wins in a row (my longest winning streak of the year).

GstillthinkingmyleaksareinhandsI'mnotcurrentlyreco rdingG

Interesting thread.

To be able to have a database of your live hands would be immensely valuable/enjoyable.

But I agree 99 percent of the people reading OP will not go through with the data collection over any significant period of time.

My feeling is that this thread touches on something potentially very significant, but we need to figure out how to make ingame recording much easier; and also what exactly we should be recording.

Personally, I want to improve my game, but I don't want to be spending too much time typing on my phone during my play.
There are many potential disadvantages to the ingame recording suggested in the OP.
Less focus, less interaction with opponents (=fewer tells, more serious vibe...), less enjoyment, etc.

I would enjoy an app that would let me type in just a few things, maybe something like :
- holding/position (JTs OTB)
- preflop action (UTG raise 4bb, 2 callers, I overcall)
- HOW I RATE MY PLAY (maybe street by street) from 1-10
- maybe the possibility of a short customizable note

This would take an effortless 10 seconds to type in after the hand is over.

The goal is not necessarily to fix leaks (which I can do by other means), but to make sure that I hold myself to my own high standards, in other words that I bring my A game to every pot.

I often find that when I play bad pre, I'm playing badly in a general sense, and when I feel I'm playing badly, I can often track it down to bad preflop decisions.

If I'm playing hands like QTs v.s a tight UTG open, or set-mining every pair, completing all my small blinds, etc. then I should be snapping out of my loose-fishy mindset and playing proper poker.

Recording all the preflop stuff provides with some interesting info later; how many hands you play an hour, how hot you ran preflop, etc. And it makes you accountable - to yourself, to your peers.
Recording my evaluation of my play for every hand is much quicker than typing in all the cards/bet sizings etc. but I feel very useful.
If I play 3 hands in a row where I have to type in that I rate my play average/poorly, it snaps me out of whatever bad game I'm playing.
I can no longer play a ****ty hand oop, lose a 30bb pot and forget it straight away because my brain choses to remember the 150bb cooler that came up the very next hand.

Thoughts?

^^^^ You might want to check out cAmmando's PG&C thread regarding recording hands.

GcluelesshandrecordingnoobG

My new goal is to have my September analysis up on Wednesday.

For October, I plan to record my Broadway hands. As I was recording other stuff in September, I kept feeling like those were a problem in some way. Same for limped pots.

Limped pots and Broadway hands together is going to be quite a lot of hands, so it'll be interesting to see if I have any trouble.

"There are many potential disadvantages to the ingame recording suggested in the OP.*
Less focus, less interaction with opponents (=fewer tells, more serious vibe...), less enjoyment, etc.*"

These are all just excuses. In my busiest session last month, I think I recorded 14 hands. At 30 seconds a pop, that was a whopping 7 minutes of distraction in an 8 hour session.

I probably spent that much time, on average, texting with my wife, and more time than that posting on 2+2. Half the players at the table spend more time on their devices than I do doing all of those things in one session. You don't draw any attention to speak of recording hands. Not that iit's definitive proof, but nobody ever said anything to me about recording hands. All they could see is that I was typing on my phone every now and then, and, as I mentioned ed, I was as likely to be posting here or texting as to be recording a hand.

Ok, for those of you who feel like recording hands is a distraction:

Don't track your limps and your Broadway hands in the same month. I recorded 54 hands in an 11 hour session last night. I don't have a lot of patience for those of you who feel like recording hands is an inconvenience, but, I gotta say, I felt like I was typing pretty constantly.

I think that was an unusual amount of qualifying starting hands, and I know I got a little tilty and started limping hands I would usually fold, but if the number of hands I need to record stays even close to that number, I will probably stop tracking one oor the other and pick it up next month.

I'm not sure if I've recorded 54 hands in my career.

Last night I recorded 26 hands in a 6 hour session, for 80 hands in 17 hours in the past two nights. So recording Broadway and limps is definitely making for a busy month.

I don't know if it is a coincidence or not, but these two nights in which I have had a ton of Broadway and limps were also losing sessions. I'm not suggesting the recording is the issue. Rather, I have long suspected that a typical losing night is built on run bad with these types of hands. Last night, for instance, I had 14 Broadway hands and flopped one top pair which netted me an $8 win. I lost every other time I saw a flop with broadway. Similar, but not as dramatic story with the limped pots, in which I also lost.

So that is sort of the anatomy of a losing session. Last night I lost $524. I lost $226 AIPF KK v. AA, and (on the very next hand ) lost $162 with a flopped set of 3s against a flopped set of 8s (thank god for donks, he should have stacked me for 150bb. I lost about $160 on the Broadway hands, and about $40 in the limped pots. So that's about $588 in losing categories, meaning I made back about $64 with my other hands.

This is one of the side benefits of recording hands, ime. I look back over the hands I played and I see that it was basically impossible to not get slaughtered on a night like that. It doesn't help at all while it's happening, but afterward, you can look back at the hands and say, yeah, I lost the minimum, or yeah, the only questionable play was getting it in with the kings. But you can see that you were simply at the mercy of the poker gods and they had just decided to have some sport with you that night. You can go back and determine fairly accurately the extent to which you and the poker gods are responsible for you getting pounded. You don't have to wonder if tilt or bad play made the night worse. You KNOW.

Other notes:

I'm only recording the Broadway hands I play. So I'm not recording stuff like when I get JT or QJo in EP and just muck it.

The good news is I will have decent samples to analyze, lol.

I'm still hoping to get my September analysis up today. Gonna finish it up in the next few minutes when I finish my coffee.

I find any night where I'm limping, or limping and folding, to be a bad one. The chip bleed from missing those hands is killer. Same with calling or making reasonable preflop bets and missing. Pop it to $12 with KQo in L/MP, A87 flop, bet and call in front, eject, etc. Call $10 multi-way with JTs and whiff, etc.

Now I really want to figure out a method of recording that works for me.

My guess is that that your losing nights are similar to your winning nights in this regard except you don't hit your one or two hands that you get paid off huge in.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I've made and got paid off on some big hands over the last 5 recorded sessions (all wins), and yet of course I end up shipping far less overall due to what you mention above. I've wondered if I should just totally rock it up even more than I already do (for example, no light opens in LP trying to steal limps / isolate a single player, which can get expensive when a few cbets don't succeed, etc.) or whether this light bleeding (is it really bleeding or is it just *slightly* profitable?) is just the normal cost of doing business in order to have the potential of getting paid off in other hands (but would I have anyways?).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I've noticed that I'm up huuuuge with iso'ing and b/e when cold calling.

Sensing a trend...

Then again I haven't seen a set since god knows when, so who knows...