Please make a post to any of the following four topics.
(2nd post ITT is a collection of some good threads on note taking for limit & no limit holdem)
Personally I'd be especially interested in your PLO-specific considerations about notes and any topic 3 type posts.


1) Your general thoughts on notes
(e.g. note taking is for pussys or when I started intensive note taking I realized how many reads I "lost", even by just playing six tables...)

2) Your system
- abbreviations, general approach (I mostly take notes for River actions because ...),...

3) Hand history style
a) post a hand history
b) all notes you made/would make due to the HH
c) explain your notes

4) Comment on any of 1-3 from so else


I found a lot of threads like the ones from the following post, but I didn't find any discussion like point 3. When analyzing a hand we often ask for reads - think of point 3 as a discussion on how to get reads in the first place.

Some older threads about note taking

07/17/2009 - RoSeeker
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...2&postcount=22
post above is from this thread:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...l-info-529591/

02-16-2009 Heads Up Note Taking 101 - PayPerChase
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/58...-101-a-414731/

04/10/2007 Taking Notes & Making Reads Part 2 - FreakDaddy
http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...ue#Post9893576

04/06/2007 Taking Notes & Making Reads Part 1 - FreakDaddy
http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...ue#Post9870049

12/15/06 Note Taking Digest - Bilgefisher
http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...gonew=1#UNREAD

Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

UTG: $11.00
MP: $5.55
CO: $38.70
BTN: $16.45
SB: $13.95
Hero (BB): $10.00

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is BB with A 4 Q 5
1 fold, MP calls $0.10, CO calls $0.10, BTN calls $0.10, 1 fold, Hero checks

Flop: ($0.45) A 8 T (4 players)
Hero checks, MP checks, CO checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($0.45) K (4 players)
Hero checks, MP checks, CO checks, BTN checks

River: ($0.45) 5 (4 players)
Hero checks, MP checks, CO checks, BTN checks

Final Pot: $0.45
MP mucks 7 8 7 7
CO mucks Q 3 5 Q
BTN shows 9 3 5 A (two pair, Aces and Fives)
Hero shows A 4 Q 5 (two pair, Aces and Fives)
Hero wins $0.25
BTN wins $0.20
(Rake: $-0.00)

-> 1 note for MP:
* bad-loose OL 7778ss

I just sat down and had 0 hands on him, so I make a note to "add info" to the soon to be high VPIP and if he leaves after one hand and rejoins later or the next day I have already useful info while stats for 3-7 hand-sample-size aren't telling anything yet. (That actually happened)

OL 7778ss = open-limps (first to limp) 7778ss
bad-loose = I expect his preflop looseness to be combined with bad postflop play, because of the atrocious starting hand. This hand has so little going for it, you can pretty much only overplay it postflop.

do you think the following would be better?
* OL 7778ss -> probably overvalues hands postflop as well?

(should be shorter somehow)
The "?" in my notes means I should check the part before the question mark.


Thoughts, comments?

I never could take meaningful notes on hands and don't think they count for much but I try to pick up on types of players and add these along with color codes every now and then if I'm not being lazy
some of them u can add a -T or -W to if he's doing this with a tight part of his range or a wide part of his range
tried adding some of these this month and trying to come up with more

B/FR - (a turn bet/folder) makes you peel legitimately
C/FR - (a turn check/folder) lets you rep lots of stuff and allows for more bluffing opportunities
C/RSR - bets and tries to c/r next street, balances with draws. (take more freebies)
CBMUCH - cbets too much, possibly holdem player... raise or float lighter
PEELS peels really light, requires 2 or 3 barrels sometimes
3BOMBS capable of 3 barreling w/air
BLOCKER will makes plays on scary boards because he has pair blockers for str8s or nut flush cards
GAY/R gay raises or min raises for info and doesn't balance it, likely folds to a shove as well
NUTTY - always has it, kind of nitty don't give action
WTURN - likes to wait for the turn with most of his made holdings up to 2nd set
IN2BLF - will turn a hand with showdown value into bluff
O/VAL - will also turn hands into bluffs but unknowingly, also stacks off light with fairly deep stacks
U/VAL - passive and needs to adapt to shorthanded play, the kind of people that checks back two pairs IP, you wonder what they need to take a stab at a flop
DONKLE - leads into PFR with a wide variety of holdings, raise or float lighter
DONKNIT - leads because he has the nuts
OOPS the frustrated I know I've been outdrawn but there's hardly 1PSB left on river and I don't want to check shover (I do this every now and then )
BTN3Bhe's not even sure why he's 3betting, he's got the BTN though
POTPOT the monkey that must bet full pot on all occasions lest he show any weakness
CSNAP the only reason he's checking river is to snap u off since u likely don't have much
VBTHIN will try to get that last bit of value if checked to, C/R river
STEAM appears to go off when outdrawn
AABRK will go multiple streets trying to crack those "Aces" of yours
NEFD any flush draw is good for him to call a couple streets
PRDRAW draws on paired boards for the draw value
PRPLAYS likes making plays and floats on paired boards
3BETBD plays poorly in 3bet pots
3BETGD plays well in 3bet pots
1TABLE plays 1 table, generally seem to be the worst players for some reason
2MTABLE plays too many tables but in a fit or fold manner or nitty way

any other ones??

Awesome! Looks really great, I think I will adapt my note-taking-style towards sth like that, or add player type notes to the top of my other notes.

Currently I have a lot of notes and they are helpful when for instance starting a session to review what kind of plays my "noted" opponents at the table make but in the heat of the moment my current style(unusual ways in which they played a hand) is hard to use.

What does the R at the end of B/FR C/FR and C/RSR stand for?

DNB

do not bluff this guy since he will never fold AAxx, call down with bottom 2 on a flush board and call down w/ 9 high flush on paired board.

just an "er" to suggest a pattern rather than well known acronyms b/f, c/r, c/f
they all kind of refer to their turn play when things start changing on board, it can also apply to river but not as well since it won't mean as much as what they do on turn since all they've done is bet once on the flop and the pot is much larger on river. They all assume you're peeling in position too
Bet/folder
check/folder
check/raiser
u can make em whatever just as long as u can distinguish them and remember what they mean

This thread goes into the subscribe pile for me. My notes always end up being ****ing essays.

i just tend to write down lines as most abbreviations can be pretty misleading sometimes....

if i have gathered enough info on a player ill just take some time off the table (_always_ make notes in ur holdem manager hud, never at the actual poker site, so u have them available in the hand replayer!) and sum them up

an example for my usual notes: 8c7c9dTsJh - c/r flop smallish, bets pot turn, c/c river w/ AcJcJT.

my standard notes are:

"dont trust me"
"overaggro"
"big cs/floater"
"raise **** pre"
and some special hand histories

what also helped me a lot is seperating the notes by headslines

so i have notes for preflop, postflop (w/ and w/o ini), 3bet pots and notes on history so i can just take a quick look at "post, w/o ini" if villain c/cs, c/rses the turn and dont get lost in every other note i have on him

Ditto on both. Now I feel the need to go make some notes.

Sounds very interesting I thought about separating by street, but so far haven't done anything like that at 6-max.

Could you just post one of your organized notes (without player name)?

And what does w/o ini mean? (especially ini)

Wow, gold post. I see so many of my leaks right there in black and white

ini is just short for initiative, so basicaly to seperate the lines villain takes as the PFA from the ones where hes not...

dont have a note at hand but it usually goes sth like this

PRE:
random notes on 3betting range, cold calling range oop and ip
POST
w/
interesting lines he takes, especially on bluffing and c/rsing frequencies. i generally write down lines like this: hand (AAs**s, AKJdTd, stack sizes (in bb): board and action in % of the pot (like ps, 3/4, 3/4 meaning villain fired 3 barrels, flop potsize, turn and river 3/4 pot) those lines can sometimes be summed up later if villain shows a general tendency
w/o
how light does he call down? donking range? capable of delaying c/rses?
3BET:
depending on how much history i have ill seperate again between w/ and w/o ini. again just note all basic stuff (how does he play medium strength hands w/ ini? any betsizing tells (some players have really bad bet sizing tells especially in rrpots). does he c/r draws as the PFA? etc etc
HISTORY:
stuff that i think he will take note of


also it cant be stressed enough on how holdem manager enhances the note taking ability.
1. marking hands at the table to take detailed notes afterwards... just open the last hand played, mark it, and click "show only marked hands" after the session. this is very usefull when multitabling and/or the software is always stealing the window focus, which makes note taking kind of tilting
2. use HEM filter: u face a regular who just owns u in 3bet pots or outplays u everytime u cold call oop? get a decent sample size and start filtering him. HEM allows u to basically filter every single scenario u want to know about
3. this is why its super important (imo) to write the notes in ur HEM hud, so u can edit them offline and draw more conclusions when reviewing a session

To anyone who is serious about taking better notes while playing, this is probably one of the more useful posts aimed directly at SSPLO. Good job guys im defintely bookmarking this once i get HEM.