So I've been thinking of doing a PG&C for a while but haven't really thought of a specific goal or challenge. Then came this thread by Spikeraw22 and MpethyBridge* (the latter making his Ali-like return to the LLSNL ring. Spikewalker says only 1% will follow through with this. GobblyGeek says he might... but won't accept a last longer bet.

So I'm going to give this a shot. 1 year of collecting live hand histories and more or less following the “year of homework” outlined in that thread. I will post the curriculum once I've made a few modifications and once I've seen how painless I can make the HH data collection task.

Why live poker is better or worse than online...

Recently I witnessed a 3 way all in. There was a lot of commotion so I looked over from an adjacent table. Js 9c 2c read the flop. One of the three contestants, a large African American gentleman, was yelling rather loudly and somewhat incoherently something about a “mother ****ing one time”. The other a quiet Asian fellow was meekly holding a pair of Queens, one red one black out in front of him where I could see. The third guy was unremarkable. On a King turn the fist pumping started and an offsuit trey sealed the deal.

The large dude with the one time slapped his KJo face up on the felt and began a rant that can only be described as a profanity laced exhibition of poor winnermanship (new word?). QQ mucked and the third player who I presume had a worse 2 pair was shaking his head staring at his hole cards. “Muck your mutha****ing hand muck your mutha****ing had muck...” and with that One Time's false teeth flew out of his mouth and landed in the metal cup holder with a “clank”.

Now online players may not fully appreciate the biological masterpiece that lies at the bottom of a poker room cup holder but the mens room urinal at the Rio during the Collosus might be more sanitary. Nonetheless One Time grabbed the fake chompers out of the cup holder slapped them in his mouth and insta-shut up... I mean not a peep out of him. 60 to 0 in 2 seconds flat. I couldn't contain myself. This is an experience you cannot have on-line. Had I stayed home in my pajamas grinding Bovada I would have missed this. And thus live poke is superior to on-line in this regard.

Online we have the benefit of recorded hand histories. Fire up holdem marnager or poker tracker and start filtering away to determine that completing the SB with Q8o is costing you .05ptbb/100 hands or whatever. Live we do not have this luxury. We just say “I can out play them post flop” toss a couple bucks in the pot and then lie to ourselves a lot. Once the pot is pushed and the muck is squared, there is no remaining record that the hand ever took place let alone what my two cards were... AK perhaps.

Anyone wishing to study their hands in live play immediately is confronted with the challenge of how to record a hand history. For this reason on-line poker is obviously superior.

In the away from the table study thread Mpethybridge suggests a spreadsheet for logging, or more precisely transferring transcribed hand histories. Because of the daunting task of recording these hand histories in adequate detail, he suggests focusing on specific types of hands for various periods of time. Those specific hands being ones which are prone to leaks.

Data Collection

My plan is to gather the suggested hand histories at a minimum but also to gather more. I have set up a database on my iPhone for doing this. It still involves some typing of betting action post flop but The Position, hole cards, preflop action, opponent are all entered via a single tap from a pick list. Additional flags for “ISO play” “Steal” and a couple other categories are also noted with a single tap. This database is able to be exported into Excel and from there can be filtered in sort of a poor mans Holdem Manager manner.

My goals:

• Collect detailed hand histories from every session.
• Perform a session review ASAP after each session. This is just looking at the basics of the session. Did I seat game select ok, seat select, quit appropriately, was I tilted etc. As part of this I will import the sessions hand histories into the spreadsheet and expand on any detailed notes.
• Weekly (probably over multiple days) I will review the recorded hands in detail using equilab and another spreadsheet tool I use to perform a detailed analysis of those hands.
• I will post some of those here and any that are worthy of discussion I will post in the LLSNL strat forum.

So that's it for now. Hopefully something interesting will come of this but at least it will provide some additional motivation to stick with the homework.

TL;DR cliffs... Mpethybride is a poker geek and responsible of a self obsessed PG&C. Live poker is awesome because it's live and involves “characters” like “One Time”. Study is difficult because it's live and there are no Hand History files. I haz homework.

1st, ill story

gl in your ventures young lad

GL commando. I'm not sure if it's good or bad that my claim to fame is that comment.

in

Lolz at teeth story, awesome.

Good luck and I hope you're able to stick it out for the whole year!

I have a feeling I still might tap out early. I'm doing the "low volume" homework and only tracking AA/KK and 30bb hands. The good news is that it is easy to narrow down the hands that have to be recorded (lolz, I only recorded 9 hands in my first 11.5 hour session). The bad news is that I feel like I'm not getting the whole picture, so unless the AA/KK and 30bb hands show obvious mistakes (which they might), I'm not convinced I'm catching what I need to.

GcluelesshomeworknoobG

Leggo. Going to try HW too, but I plan to post in the COTM thread per M's invitation. Following your story...

+1, the "One Time" story is one for the ages!

subbed, GL

Shame he didn't slow roll a set of 9's.

Subbed.

First post is great !!!

or a deuce...

probably had AcJc

Week 1

So week 1 is in the can. I've played four sessions since beginning this “challenge”. I've spent the better part of the last week refining my data collection process. Both at the table and on my computer at home. Although I plan to make some improvements to this, I feel I have a very good system in place now. I will post a little detail about that shorty.

I've also massaged Mpethybridge's original study plan to a schedule (subject to change) that I think will work for me given the hours I typically put in I'm going to try and collect The data in 2 month intervals rather than 1 in hopes of getting a little more sizable population of hand histories. So for example I have begun collecting blind play and AK data (October) already and will collect AA/KK data throughout October. I will still do the monthly analysis but I will do it again at the end of 2 months with the additional data.

Schedule of Leaks to Examine
September: AA/KK and >30bb Pots
October: QQ, JJ, AK and AQ and >30bb Pots
*Bi Monthly Analysis*

November: Blind Defense and >30bb Pots
December: Cold calling—split into: broadways, suited connectors and pocket pairs.
*Bi Monthly Analysis*

January: Isolation plays and >30bb Pots.
February: Button Stealing and 3 betting
*Bi Monthly Analysis*

March: Button Stealing and 3 betting
April: Isolation Plays and <30bb pots
*Bi Monthly Analysis*

May: Cold Calling: split into broadway, suited connectors and pocket pairs.
June: Blind defense and <30bb pots
*Bi Monthly Analysis*

July: QQ, JJ, AK and AQ and <30bb pots
August: AA and KK and <30bb pots.
*Bi Monthly Analysis*

So I thought I'd post a bit of detail about the “workflow” I've established.

1. I enter the Hhs into my List Master app at the table mostly. Sometimes I expand on them during a break or whatever.
2. At the conclusion of the session I email the csv export file to myself.
3. At home I imprort the HH file.
4. I review the hands for errors and perform a cursory quick evaluation and make any additional notes.
5. I summarize session data using the filtering tools in the spreadsheet. The Session summary stats are a separate tab in my spreadsheet.
6. I enter a brief session review where I log hours played. I rate Game selection, Seat Selection, Emotional State, Big Pot Play and Quitting practices. I then note any weaknesses exhibited from a “running weakness list” and enter a very brief comment about that.

Steps 2-6 takes me about 10 minutes.

Most of my sessions are played on weekends. Throughout the rest of the week I will go through the hands individually and do some analysis of each as appropriate.

Here are some screenshots of the App I'm using on my phone.

This is the HH entry screen (top half)


(bottom half)


Table View

After each session I export a csv file of the HHs via email. When I get home I simply import the csv file into my spreadsheet. By assigning the hole cards, position and preflop action to individual fields they come into the sreadsheet that way and allow for filtering by Hand combo, position, ISO, Steal flags, prefop action etc.

I've included an option to record a voice memo which is embeded in the database record for hands with complex details if needed. This can be played back from right in the hand history record.

Entering a hand takes about as long as doing it short hand in the notepad app but keeps the hands organized and auto imports into the spreadsheet which is a big pus for me as transcribing hands from shorthand is the part I always procrastinate on.

Here is a screen shot of the data after importing into the spreadsheet.



In this image you can see that I have filtered the data to show only hands played from the Cutoff.

So the mechanics are out of the way...

This past week was mostly a disaster in terms of results but whatever... Here are some LOL Sample size stats:

I've logged 79 Hands. Of those 40 were bind play. When logging blind play I try to do it in blocks. So if I'm logging blinds, I log all of them whether I complete or not for some period of time then I stop logging blinds when It becomes burdensome. In this way I get a fair snapshot of completion rates within that block of time.

All stats are from 1/3 NL

My stats from the 40 Blinds recorded

Small Blind: Won $48, Folded 66%, Completed 27%, Raised 7%
Big Blind: Won $486, Checked 48%, Folded 26%, Called 13%, Raised 13%

My stats with AA and KK
Had AA 2 times for a loss of $286 (once was AIPF vs. KK and you can guess how that went).
Edit: Make that 3 times for -$486 (had another AA v KK flameout last night)

I wil be posting Equity Adjusted Win rates for these hands at my monthly review.

Had KK twice. +92. Won a cool $7 when everyone folded to my PFR and won a modest pot check/calling on an A high flop.

Big Effin Slick
Yep the Grandaddy of disasters over this stretch has been my play with AK. I missed recording the uneventful raise and take it hands but of the 3 AK hands I recorded I'm -$885 punting like it's my ****ing job. I'll post a couple AK hands later when I post a few hand evaluations.

Meta Data
HRS: 29.1

Weaknesses displayed:
-Hero Calling polarized bets too often.
-Missing value in some spots due to sub-optimal sizing or missed river VB.
-Experiencing some “Entitlement” tilt during my current downswong.

Just found this GL Commando. Subbed!

Semi-Bluff with minimal fold equity vs. Calling

So someone posted a hand history in the LLSNL strat forums asking when do we semi-bluff at the risk of being blown off our hand and when do we play it passively given correct immediate or immediate plus reasonable implied odds?

My response is essentially that if I'm getting drawing odds in a spot where I expect villain to be strong (and by strong I mean his perception of strong) I'm going to tend to call and where I expect him to be weak I'm going to semi-bluff. If Villain is strong, our implied odds are going to be their more often and also when he's strong we are going to get raised off our hand more often. Conversely when he's weak we can't expect to get paid unless our draw is very hidden (double gutters for example) and we are far less likely to get raised off our hand.

So in a multiway pot where someone makes a weak probing/stabbing bet ott and it gets called I'm far more likely to raise as semibluff with my flush draws for example.

On the other hand we have spots like these:

$1/$3 NL
V ($270) BTN: wants to play pots with me. When I first arrived at table he had decent stack. I have barreled him in two nice sized pots. Then I beat him with a flopped set of 8s that went to show down. Since then he's rebougt and seat changed to my immediate left. Seems to want to play pots with me specifically.

1 limp to Hero (covers) in C/O who raises to $15 with KQdd
V Calls OTB blinds and limper fold – heads up.
Flop ($33) Jd7d3
Hero bets $25 V min raises to $50Hero calls.

My thoughts here are that I am behind. With a FD on board, Villain's min raise is not super strong. Draws are limited to Fds which I block many of and I expect him to raise larger as a semi-bluff a lot. I really expect this to be top pair a lot and often AJ specifically. I have 2 overs and a 2nd nut flush draw. He wants to beat me in pots, that's clear so I just doubt he's ever folding. Further, of my 9 houts 8 will be undercards to the board ensuring that V will retain top pair almost 90% of the time I hit my flush which will set me up to make a bluffy looking shove that under the circumstances should get looked up a lot.

Pot was $33 OTF, with my bet and villain's raise I am looking at calling $25 into $108 laying me 4.3:1 on a call. Even against a worst case range of:
JJ,77,33,AJs,KJs,QJs,JTs,AdTd,AJo,KJo I'm 44%

and against the probable range of:
AJs,KJs,QJs,AJo,KJo,QJo I'm 50%

So as a coin flip with dead money I should be willing to get it in right? I am, but I think here I can take advantage of the price I'm being laid and play the turn straight up. Specifically because I am not expecting Villain to fold. Therefore I have no Fold Equity and I expect to have little difficulty getting paid when I hit. When I miss the turn and V bombs it I fold... that was my thinking. Is it correct?

So what is the EV of each option? Let's compare a flat call with a 3! ship OTF.

Assumptions: V never folds. And V will Shove all non diamond turns when checked to forcing us to fold.

The 3! AI:
Pot is 108 to me+ my call = 133, Villain has 205 behind. EV of Shove assuming even 50% equity would be: .5*543=$272.
$272-$230(cost of shove)=+$42 EV

The Flat Call:
Outcome 1 – 20% of the time we hit our flush OTT and get all the money in. With the exception of a 3d all diamonds give us 98+% equity OTT. The 3d gives us 90% since it makes river boats possible. So our equity on diamond turns is on balance 98% when we hit our flush.

If we call flop raise then GII on turn the 20% of the time we hit our flush our EV is:
.2*((543*.98)-(230))=$60

When we call 25 OTF and brick and fold to Villain's turn bet 80% of the time:
.8*-25 = -$20

I have to subtract these right???? Gawd I should know this.
EV of flatting=60-20=$40

So based on those assumptions It is actually very close. In reality I likely have some fold equity with an overbet ship and of course some of the time a K or Q is going to win the hand. Also some of the time Villain is going to either give a free turn card or again lay a good price to draw to the river. So I'm going to conclude that the only bad play here would be to fold.

As played...
Hero does something he never does... Checks dark.

Turn Ad (Yeah I couldn't hand pick a better card if V is on AJ) V bets $100 Hero ships V calls.

Before you tell me how good I run, I promptly 3! gii with AA vs KK preflop and lost $400.

Having a guy to our direct left to us who wants to be in pots with us and outplay us sucks super bad, no? Heck, we can't even iso a limper or two (and with him calling first in will likely make a lotta multiway pots, with him in the best seat). Easy seat change, imo.

With this dynamic, I'm not even sure if I'm pumped about preflop. Obviously this is a typical raise the majority of the time, but with this guy getting in the pot with us, maybe not? We're going to be high and dry on a lotta flops OOP to a guy who can't wait to steal a pot from us; then what?

I'd probably bet a little less on the flop too make calling a raise easier.

I woulda shoved over the minraise. There's already $100+ in the pot and only about $200 back. Getting him to fold A high / Jx / pair / etc. is a huge coup, otherwise we typically have good equity (we are a fave against Jx). We're just going to get in tricky spots OOP on the turn most times where he might even steal the pot with a worse hand. I'd call if we were a lot deeper, but this pot is worth winning now and putting him to the tough decision.

It really depends on what you think your FE is on the flop and how badly you think he's playing back at you. I dunno, maybe I've misread the history, but isn't this guy FOS here a lot and just trying to outplay you out of a pot? We have one of the few hands we can actually continue with, let's take advantage of that. I think we're way underestimating our FE in this spot, but maybe I'm misreading the dynamic between you two.

Gdidn'tlookatthemathcuzI'mlazyandIsuckatmathG

Is the database app something you would be willing to share? Seems pretty efficient for collecting data in this way. Looking forward to seeing what leaks you find as you go through this process. You will definitely be a better player for it.


As for the hand, I think you have some totally unrealistic assumptions that are really messing up the calculations. I don't think you can ever assume that villain is going to ship turn. You're looking at about a 1.5 PSB. That is something I rarely see in reality. Also, a K or Q will win you the hand a ton of the time (more than you seem to be thinking.) Imo, this tilts us way towards a call assuming little to no FE on flop.

Really, the only reason we should ever be semi-bluffing a draw is if we expect to have FE. Otherwise there is absolutely no point. We would just be putting in more money while behind. Calling allows gives us implied odds at the very least. At best, it allows us to potentially see free or cheap cards, allows us to fold on really bad cards (think board pairing when villain has a lot of sets in his range), and allows us to bluff in some spots.

I definitely considered a seat change but I dunno... every once in a while this happens to me where a relative bad player or at least a guy who's playing bad cuz he's steamed gets a little hot under the collar and want's to win his money back from where he lost it. I had beat this guy in a couple sizeable pots then he walked for a while came back and seat changed to my left.

I had some very good reasons for wanting to stay put. Not the least of which was to my direct right. He was (in his words) playing tight today. By "playing tight" he apparently means Flat call $20 in first relative position, then after a 3! to 100 and a cold call tank for over a minute then show his hand to me... T5 both clubs... then muck in disgust. This is the guy who KKK'ed my AA shortly after this.

But back to the guys who want to play pots with us and seat change to our left. I agree we need to tighten up and if this guy had stuck around to make life difficult I would have opted for a seat change eventually. But also with this dynamic these guys will definitely cold call more than they should since they haz position now. In this hand I suspect he had AJ but he's calling much wider. And Hes going to catch something and over play it fairly often because he's "pressing" with me. SO I don't mind tightening up a bit to keep my range solid and see what happens for a little while.

Incidentally since starting this challenge I began scoring my seat selection among other things. I gave myself a 4 out of 5 for seat selection in this particular session.

This is the dynamic though that leads me to believe Fold Equity is virtually nil on this flop following his min raise.

Yeah for sure we will be high and dry some times no doubt. But I don't think he wanted to steal as much as just make some sort of hand. And IME when someone wants to "make a hand" real bad... they eventually make a real bad hand. I just made that up BTW... sort of has a ring to it.

Your points are good ones and an adjustment was definitely in order. Would have been interesting on the seat change thing if he's have stayed in the game.

Thanks.

Not sure if I posted the link previously but it's called List Master. I the iOS version but I see there is one for Andriod.

http://www.onlinelistmaster.com/index.html

I've just created a custom "list" which is essentially a database table. Playing around with it for an hour or so should get the average reasonably tech savy person to a point where they can make some pretty sophisticated "lists". I'm not sure if the custom lists can easily be shared. I'd be more than happy to do so.


Yes I opted for a very simplified analysis using somwhat extreme assumptions. After I did that analysis I qualified this by saying I used the extreme example of Villain shoving turn to just represent the scenario that we are shut out on the turn. A more realistic EV calc would probably assign some percentage of the time that villain lays us a drawing price of some sort.

Agreed.

A couple weeks ago some guy was yammering on about his strat at the table and was telling us about some spot where he had to shove his flush draw because he knew the opponent had him beat with a strong hand but wouldn't call off if the flush came in. ie... he had no fold equity and no implied odds which I think unless I'm missing something means he should have folded if he wasn't getting direct odds... I of course just nodded my head and said "yeah gotta go with that one".

AK double barrel or empty the clip?

So this is one I really wanted a do over on.

1/3 NL, Villain is drinking but not ridiculously drunk. Hes opening (no ****) about 75-90% and calling the rest. He's Yo-Yoed his stack between 200 and 1K several times. At the moment we both have about $650. I suspect Villain has a fold to 3bet frequency approaching zero%. This was later proven to be true but I only have one piece of hard evidence and a bunch of circumstantial evidence that points to this.

Earlier Villain showed up OTR with a rivered gutshot he called 1/2 pot bets on flop and turn with one overcard and a GGSD.

Prior hands with Villain:
Hand 1
I raise AdJc in late position over limpers. Button flats and V flats from the BB

Flop ($50) J83dd
V Donks $20 I raise to $60 BTN folds V calls.

Turn ($170) Qo V checks I bet $65 and he folds.


Hand 2
I post behind the button and check A4o Villain raises 15 folds to me I flat – heads up.

Flop ($35) AK7hhs

V leads $15 I this is a weak bet but my hand is meh. I'm likely ahead but raising even this tiny bet seems to risk folding a lot of his worse hands and he could have a weak but better A. So I call to see what he does on the turn before inflating the pot any.

Turn ($65) 4s

V leads $15 again I raise to $60 (I think he calls with a lot here simply because he has made two very weak looking bets and he knows they look weak All flush draws, and Kx). V calls.

River ($185) V leads for $60. Feels like a blocker bet but I Can't raise Top and Bottom pair here and expect even this guy to call with worse all that often. He does have flushes in his range (although I expect him to bomb those OTR mostly) so I just call. He shows KTo and MHIG.

OTTH

1/3 Eff Stacks $650

Villain opens from Early Position

Hero 3 Bets AsKs to $70

Villain Calls - Heads up

Flop ($140) 7c5d3s

Villain quickly checks.

Given this guys range, this flop could be a sticky one possibly. It's kind of in his wheel house a fair amount of the time. I really feel I have to be willing to double barrel here if I'm going to Cbet. I just don't expect him to fold very often with most of his range to a single flop bet.

When called I have two over cards, back door wheel and Flush draws so we certainly have equity to barrel. I've represented a big hand such that even this guy has to be thinking about QQ+.

I decide to bet $110 with the intention of following up most turns with another barrel. Villain calls rather quickly.

If he flopped Gin I think he at least considers whether to lead out and then after I bet whether to raise. His quick check and quick call lead me to put some draws and weak made hands in his range. 68s 67s, 78s 98s 88, 99 TT. Hands like this.

Turn ($360) Th

Villain checks, now here is where I felt I made a mistake. I bet $225.

My thinking was that whatever Villain had here except TT was weak. Most likely something like pair +GGSD. A hefty bet OTT ($225 is a bg bet in a live 1/3 game) should let Villain know that he's making a decision for his entire stack. I was fairly confident that this would get the job done and mostly felt if called I wasn't getting him off his hand and I could save a river bet.

Villain sort of tanks then calls.

It's a rainbow board, fairly dry given my range so there is I suppose the possibility he is slow playing a flopped monster but I haven't seen him slow play all night so I really think he's got something of middling strength. I've kind of conceded at this point that if he didn't fold the turn he's not folding the river for the remaining $245.

River ($810) 5h

Villain checks fairly quickly. At that moment I wished I had a little more behind. 5x was in his range but he doesn't check it here and I don't think most of his range could withstand a 2/3-3/4 PSB. Overpairs in my range now have made 2 pair so a shove is perfectly reasonable. But as I've left it if I ship for $225 I felt he was just sticky enough to call with whatever he got to the river with.

I check back and he says “one pair” I say “one pair is good" and he tables 97o.

Guy to my right who I'm a little friendly with says “man if you could have shoved he folds”. I'm not completely sure and later when I was leaving I talked a little with Villain. I asked if he would have called a shove he said “I dunno... I called 225 on the turn but I was really glad when you checked the river”. So who knows.

Analysis:

I don't want to be too results oriented but I think this was a spot to empty the clip and that I should have sized my bets on earlier streets to allow for a 3 barrel. The 3! is fine but if he never folds to the 3! we are just building a pot and setting up future barrels. Fold Equity isn't much of a consideration so it make's sense to make it a little smaller so that the Flop and turn bets can still be meaningful but leave room for a river shove that will command some Fold Equity.

I am thinking something like this would have been better:

3 bet to $55, Flop $75 into $110, Turn $175 into $260, River $345 into $610.

I did some combo work and EV calculations and I think the $175 turn bet into $260 folds about as much of villains range as $225 into $360 does and leaves a more substantial river barrel in the clip should we decide to go for it.

To be EV neutral the $175 bet into $260 needs to fold 26% where the line I took of $225 into $360 needs 24% Fold Equity to be EV neutral. There is really little difference. The only thing the bigger bet does is look bigger in absolute terms which isn't insignificant in live poker but is at the expense of diluting our 3rd barrel.

In game I didn't give a lot of thought to my 3 bet and its sizing preflop. It was like “I haz AK, I am way ahead of his range so make him put money in the pot”. Given his wide range and history of being sticky on flops and sometimes turns I think the optimal plan would have been to leave open the possibility of 3 barreling some rivers and sizing all prior streets accordingly.

That's a great example of not thinking through/during a hand.

Not nearly as good as the guy who shoved over an omc flop RAISE with bottom pair backdoor flush draw 4 way tho. When bottom pair got there (trips), so did omc (boat). Hilarity ensued.

/derail

Simplified assumptions are fine, just make sure you realize the impact of the simplifications when analyzing the results. When I look at that calc, I am thinking that a call is by far the better option due to the tons of ev not captured by the calc. I just wanted to emphasize how much wasn't captured.

People shove draws without FE all the time and it is a huge leak.

I think you really made the opposite mistake here. When you are dealing with a maniac like this, you don't want to try and out crazy him by bluffing a ton. Trying to get guys like this to fold a pair is a recipe for disaster. Think about it. You are talking about giving up preflop value to run a 3 barrel shove on a good flop for it and you're still not sure if he folds 2nd pair.

The flop cbet it fine because he probably has nothing and you are ahead of all draws. On the turn though, you really can't expect him to fold any pairs especially given the board texture. If he has a pair, he likely has a gutter to go with it.

I tend to 3 bet even bigger when I know he can't fold. It's too bad you got a bad flop/turn/river. I'd say it's a much bigger leak to set yourself up for 3 barrel bluffs then to set yourself up for 2/3 barrel value bets.

I received a few requests to go into detail about the app and customization I came up with for live hand history cataloging. The next few posts will detail what I have come up with. I’m not suggesting this is the best way possible and some aspects of this may not work for everyone. The cool think about the app I am using is that once you learn how to create customer databases or “lists” with it you will think of all kinds of uses for it.

So step 1 is to down load the List Master app on your phone. I use the iOS version. There is an android version. I’m assuming it works the same but I have no experience with it.

From the developer’s web site you can get to the appropriate app store:
http://www.onlinelistmaster.com/index.html

Understanding how List Master works conceptually and a few important features

In List Master you create “lists” which you can think of as a database table or a spreadsheet. Each list contains fields or “columns”. A list item is similar to a database record in a table or a row in a spreadsheet.

There are numerous field types such as Number, Text, Memo, Photo, Voice Memo, Flag, Timestamp etc.

Text fields can be “look up” fields that you select from a list of choices rather than type the text. Lookup fields like this are fed from Sub lists. A sub list is just another list.

A special look up option “use self” allows you to use the existing data in a column instead of a separate sublist as the choices for the look up field. This type of lookup allows you to add choice that do not yet exist in that column.

Although not used in this example, numeric fields can also include calculations of other numeric fields.

Once your custom list has been configured you can add data to it. You can then create new lists using the original as a master template. New lists created this way are empty but retain all the settings and configuration of the original list. I suggest each session begin by copying the master list to a new list. This way you will end up with a data structure where you have multiple hand history lists (one for each session) within the list you will have multiple rows (or records) of data (one for each hand).

Setting up your custom list

Open the List Master App.

First we are going to create the sub lists we will need to use as lookup fields. I chose to have Hole Cards (rank) and Hole Card (Suits), Position, Preflop Action all be fields that are looked up from a list. Here are screen shots showing how to set up the Preflop Action list.

Create a new list:


Name the list “PFA”

Make sure the “Check Box” and “due date” switches are off.

A “Notes” column (field) is usually present as a default. Tap this to get to the column set up screen. Clear the Name of the field (Notes) and rename to Action. Tap on the field type “Note” and change to “Text”. Click Save.


So we have created an empty “PFA” list with one field or column called “Action”

Now we will populate the list with possible preflop actions. You can decide if you want to keep it simple (Fold, Call, Raise) or complicated (Fold, Call, Raise, 3bet, Raise/Fold, 3bet/fold etc.).

Open the PFA List.

Create a new item in the list for each Action you wish to have the choice of selecting.



Once you have created an entry for each of the preflop actions exit the PFA list.

Repeat this process creating a list Named “Position” adding an entry for SB, BB, UTG through BTN.


Additionally create a sublist for Hole Card Ranks with Entries AKQJT9…2.


Then Create a sublist for Hole Card Suits. I use Emojis for each of the suits just because I like to be able to see them in my lists.


You could just make the hole cards text fields rather than look ups. I like Look ups since they prevent typographical errors and ensure sorting and filtering in your spreadsheet will be consistent. I suggest keeping each hole card rank and suit in a distinct field though.

So once you have created these sublists you are ready to create the main hand history list which will be covered in the next post.

Creating the Main HH List

Once you have created the sublists in the previous post you are ready to create the main hand history list.

Using the steps above Create a new list called HH MSTR (for hand history master).

Create columns (fields) in this order:
Name: Type
Time: Timestamp
Posn: Text (pick list)
HC1r: Text (pick list)
HC2r: Text (pick list)
HC1s: Text (pick list)
HC2s: Text (pick list)
PFA: Text (pick list)
Eff Stack: Number
PF $vpip: Number
Villain: Text (self pick list)
Board: Text
Won/Lost: Number
Action Details: Note
Reads: Note
ISO play: Switch
Steal: Switch
V memo: Voice Memo

Once these columns have been created we will go back and change the settings of our fields that will be look up fields. In edit mode tap on the column name to access the column settings.



Here we set up the PFA column to look up from the PFA sublist we created earlier.

Tap on the PFA column name which will display the column settings.


Tap the “picklist” switch to activate it.

Set the picklist properties as shown here:


In the image the names are a little different but you should locate the column you created called Action in the PFA sublist and select it. This will tell List master to use that sublist anytime you need to make an entry in the PFA column for a hand.

Repeat this process for the Hole Cards Ranks and Suits columns (note: you can re-use the same list for Hole Card 1 and Hole Card 2).

Repeat this process for the Position column.

For the Villain column you do the same thing except make it a self pick list which is one of the options on the pick list settings screen. This will allow you to add villain names on the fly and pick from a list of villains already entered.

So now you should have complketed the following:
-Created a list named HH mstr
-Added all the columns listed above
-Changed the column types as listed above
-configured the fields listed above as pick lists to use the correct sublist.

If all this was done correctly your list is ready to use. You can open the list and enter a few test hands.