So to the art of notetaking. What do you take notes on? And how do you structure and use your notes? Want some input of what more to look for.

I take notes of bet when checked to tendencies, weird 3-bets preflop, freecards, how much people peel flop, turns, how much people raise turns with draws and made hands and so on.

CC K7o and call down on 7A483 board. Random stuff like that. I also take notes of what people "donk bet" with, and if they semi-bluff raise on the turn etc. What they barrell with.

I play on pokerstars, so I'm able to just click the "note" button.

You have a good idea of what you need to be taking notes on..just keep doing what you're doing.

On top of notes like the ones above, I also use labels after I gather enough info to make a quickly usable generalization like "Tough TAG", "LAGFish", "LAPFish" etc.

Often I will note when I get caught doing something unconventional or spewy that my opponent likely noted about me. For example "saw me 3-bet the turn with strong draw in a blind vs blind situation" or "saw me raise fold river flush draw completed".

"bad"
"worst ever"
"bad tag"
"good tag" *

I sometimes play alot of tables so I like to have a short handed form of note talking that really helps with writing quickly.

When in doubt of what to write I start with either OP or IP which means Out of position or In Position.

Then i have NA or AG which means not pf agressor or pf agressor.

for example if someone barrels ace high in position as pf agr i would write


IP AG 3fre Ahgh on KQxxx

3fre = 3 fires, which means fires 3 streets. I have 2fre for fires 2 streets etc. (Ahgh = ace high).

I also have a very special note "VALUE CITEH" which is for utter donkeys i always want to play against. I also have "spaz" which means not to fold bottom pair when i get raised.

I try to take notes with an eye towards things that would be profitable later on. So i take a note on things I know how to exploit. Eg. If someone folds to my turn bet/3bet i make a note- and now i know to bet/3bet big draws or something similar.

bb defense for example.
"bb vs steal, plays fit or fold on flop"
"bb vs steal, always c/r low flops."

-limper
-coldcalling machine
-never bluff!!! value bet to death!!!
-Ahi or Khi or Qhi-calldownstation
-capable of fsdr
-bad handreader
-3! this or that
-didn't semibluff with draw in some spot -> unbalanced
-takes or not wa/wb line versus 3! or 4! range or with Ax against pfraiser
-multitabling machine
-barrels Ahi

finally my favourites: spewy, ******, spewtard

Donk ranges. If they bluff-raise a river. If they play FDs a certain way consistently.

Things like:
- c/r paired flops hu with any 2
- overagg with draws mway
- donks air hu
- overplays btm2 on 4-straight board
- overplays rivered TP 4way
- doesn't understand position
- slowplays 2P+ till river

I hope for all of your sake that you someday understand why notetaking is a destructive habit.

someone call the mods mike L has stolen boc4life's account and decided to make ambiguous posts to imply we're stupid without actually saying why!

Enlighten us?

Most of my notes have to do with weird lines. If I see a tag bluffraise a river I make a note, because it gives me an idea that he's capable of taking creative lines. Also if I see them turn A high into a bluff etc...

Also I take lots of notes on fish, mainly to get an idea of what their random donks tend to mean. After I have like 7-8 notes on a player I usually don't ever take anymore. I also don't reference them all that often tbh, but they help me pay attention to what's going on in the game instead of just autopiloting.

I have tons of hands with lots of TAGs where I have no notes... usually means they're just playing pretty ABC.

I try to take good notes, but am often crippled by too many tables. Some typical notes I take:

"maniac!"
"capping every street w/ air maniac"
"nutjob"
"weak value bettor" (I abbreviate wvb)
"aggro value raiser"
"loves to wait til turn"
"doesn't cap hu oop"
"3bets hu out of BB"
"opened 93o utg"
"huge spaz bvb"
"loves to bluff cap hu w/ position" (meaning he caps a lot of suited stuff and small pairs)
"massive overplays tp/tk and overpairs"
"aggro prot raiser then cks riv"
"chronic slowplayer"

or in OP's case

"3bets me 90% of the time and then refuses to fold any piece" hehehehe

There are so many problems with extensive and detailed notes.

First off, they're unreliable. If you've seen a guy donk the flop twice with sets, seeing him donk the flop a 3rd time may cause you to fold a hand you'd otherwise peel 100%, but there's certainly no assurance he's got a set again.
Second point is similar to the first. Notes can cause you to drastically change your style of play, which can lead to you making drastic errors. We should always be assigning ranges to opponents and acting based on those ranges rather than trying to guess their specific hand.
Third, when you take some note that looks like this: "C/R KK2w/FD oop vs PFR in 4way pot. C/C flush turn donk board pair river he has K6" Good luck seeing another situation like that vs that particular villain ever again in your life. And again, villain may make that play with something completely different the next time that situation arises, which makes it even dumber to note.
Fourth, if you're playing a lot of tables, you waste time both taking notes and re-reading notes. The time you spend taking these unreliable notes that can lead you towards the wrong play anyway could have been better spent paying attention to your other tables and assigning villains more accurate ranges.

Good notes to take are stuff like "Capable of bluffraising rivers on scare cards" or "Frequently waits for turn to c/r with big hands". Concise and to the point, relating to a semi-common spot, can help you win or save multiple BBs in one clip (By picking off bluffraises in the first example, and by valuechecking turns more often in spots like paired boards where you'd have otherwise b/ced down drawing dead)

I'm constantly amazed at the depth of the notes I see many small-stakes players taking. It's not something I see a lot of higher-stakes players doing. And for me, it was when I started focusing on improving my own game instead of taking notes on what people are c/ring on AK7 rainbow flops when I started seeing real success.

I think taking notes is mandatory, but agree w/ boc completely on how to take proper notes. If you can't make sense of it within a second in the future (you know the drill... clock winding down and desperately searching for a clue), then it's prolly a bad note.

I think a lot of people's note-taking is a tilty thing, sort of like posting bad beats in the LC/NC thread.

Sort of like "OMG WHAT A DONK LOOK WHAT HE PLAYED THIS WAY. I'd better note this for next time"

If that IS why you're taking notes, it'd behoove you to look deeper into your own poker psyche. That will win you a whole lot more BBs than knowing JoeDonk42 led with a rivered flush.

Before stars implemented color system i use to just take notes on fish and their tendencies . I also take notes on regs or tagfish that have tilt problems , or can bluff-raise 4card flush or str8 boards , and weak value betting too.

Taking notes on action when your not in the hand is HUGE TOO!! The biggest reason i take notes on players is because if i don't take the note i don't stay as sharp with the action and game flow. Oh and i take notes while 4-5 tabling and i don't care if i use all of my time clock either , that's why they give it to you.

just came to say that boc4lifes post is pretty good.

BOC is right, and I get made fun of for my notes, this is what I do:

color code
yellow: superfish
fish: orange
red: semifish
purple: tagfish
blue: avoid (tag, lagtag)
green: nit (steal blinds)

other than that, i like to note donking tendencies, but don't put too much stock in that. Serial air donkers though, need to be identified. (BOC owns this thread though)

This is better with more relevant information we have.

175503 owns a special color to himself, never saw someone who steals 90% on the button (and still breaks even)

i crush 3/6

i just hope our system will never mix up in a weird way - this will make me play bad tables...

also how the h#ll did u find out who is 175503

ok a hint? what is your note about me?