“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past”
This is a quote from Baruch Spinoza, a 17th Century Dutch philosopher, and whilst I’m pretty sure he wasn’t considering poker when he wrote this, it’s a relevant statement to consider when it comes to spending time analysing your game away from the table.
Study fills many of us with dread. It reminds us of missed deadlines at school, exams and work, and certainly doesn’t spell fun. With that said, in poker, the time spent away from the tables thinking about your game, will ultimately improve your overall poker skill and probably your bottom line. Looking at hands you’ve played, both those that were good and bad, considering different lines and ways to exploit your opponents, and plugging leaks in your own game are all vital ingredients in developing as a player. Whilst this might still be study, it’s a lot more enjoyable than revising for an exam.
There are many different approaches and things you can consider when spending time working on your game. Discussing hands with people whose game you respect is a great tool, as is posting hands on the Black Belt Poker board to get feedback on different approaches you could take in a hand. However, in this article, I will cover three basic study areas you can work at on your own.
Firstly, looking at how balanced, or imbalanced, your pre-flop hand range is from each position at the table. Have a copy of a hand chart like the one below, either printed or most usefully on Excel, and consider what action you’d take if the action was folded to you, or if you were facing a limp, a bet, or a raise.
Hand Chart:
The easiest way to start this process is by considering how you’d handle each of the starting hands when under the gun. From first position you’re able to immediately discount many holdings from being suitable to open with, with the exception of heads-up or very short-handed games where you would be opening with a wider range of hands. When considering if a hand is worth opening with also determine what you would do if, after opening with the hand, you were faced with a raise. By doing this you should eventually have four types of hands: hands you would fold; hands you would open with, but would discard if you faced a raise; hands you would open with and would call a raise with; hands you would open with and would plan on reraising with.
Here’s an example Under the Gun range for a six-max cash game:
Over time you can consider different table positions and how you would play certain hands, or react to having that hand and facing a bet from someone on your right. As you think about your hand ranges from more premium positions, such as the cut-off and button, you can also factor in hands that you would be willing to bet or raise with as a bluff. You cannot simply take aggressive actions with only your premium holdings as your play will be far too simplistic and predictable.
To balance this, and ensure you are more likely to get action when you do have premium holdings, you need to have hands within your range that keep your opponents guessing. Some advice I’d recommend when looking at hands within your range for bluffing is that given by Grindcore, an instructor at DeucesCracked. He advocates considering what you believe to be the strongest hand you would fold with if someone raised. For instance in a six-handed cash game, if you were on the button and would call a bet from the cut-off with QTs but would fold Q9s, then that is a perfect hand to bluff with. You take your strongest weak hand and turn it into a bluff. This kind of thinking about different hands, and how you could play them from each position, is a useful tool to come back to time and time again when studying your game. As you gain more experience, you will be constantly adding and removing certain hands from your range for each position.
The second study area I’d like to cover is Hand Replayer tools. These can be found within Hold’em Manager and PokerTracker, and there are several free ones available on the web. When playing a session of poker, write down any hands where you weren’t sure what you should do, where a situation occurred that was unusual or difficult, or where you thought you took a really good line. At the end of your current session or before the start of your next session, take some time to go over these hands in a replayer, or by reading through the hand histories if you prefer. I find if I’m on a bit of a bad run, going over hands is a really good way to try and get myself back in the groove. Really thinking carefully over tricky spots sharpens your game and gets you thinking about the game at a level far closer to your ‘A’ game.
When trying to get yourself out of a bad run do remember to replay both hands that you have won and those that you have lost. Don’t simply watch replays of hands you lost to convince yourself you’re running bad, or playing bad. Constantly watching bad moments in your poker career only reinforces a negative mindset. Do you really think many boxers watch videos of themselves getting knocked out, moments before they leave the dressing room to get in the ring? You are preparing yourself to get back into the arena, make it a motivating not debilitating experience.
Ultimately, when reviewing hands, you need to be able to look objectively at hands that you have won and sometimes see that you played the hand incorrectly, regardless of the result. Similarly, you should be able to look at a losing hand and accept that your bluff/call/shove/etc. was fine, and that you just ran into someone at the top of their range. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be reviewing our play to identify obvious leaks, that goes without saying, but as a study process it should be a fulfilling experience rather than one you have to watch with gritted teeth.
The last study area I’d like to briefly discuss in this article is using our opponents to improve our game. Instead of always looking for flaws or areas to exploit our opponents, identify some of the people you’ve played against who have certain skills you’d like to emulate. If someone you play against is very good at bet-sizing or always seems to check-raise on scary boards, and this is an area you’re looking to improve, then spend time looking at their hands and statistics within Hold’em Manager or PokerTracker. These types of programs are vital for being able to analyse our play and our opponents, particularly if you play cash games. By using the wide range of statistics these applications offer, we can look at how our opponents play different hands from different seating positions on different boards.
I’d recommend spending time not just identifying the biggest fish in the games you play but also the most competent players. Compare their approach to the game to your own and if there are any glaring discrepancies consider why that might be. Whilst you don’t want to base your game entirely on anyone else’s, if you’ve been playing in games with better players at least take advantage of the information you can gain from how they approach the game. Everyone can spot the sucker at the table quickly enough, it’s those of us that spot the sharks and try to learn from them that will improve their game the quickest.
If you have any questions about this topic, then please feel free to leave any feedback in the comments box below.