Track your results. Some on-line sites will keep stats for you.
Of course our league standings help you to track how you finish in any particular game and how well you are playing over time.
To help improve your game it is also useful to have more personal & detailed information.
I’ve seen some players use quite sophisticated tracking sheets to record memorable hands, detailing the play, their thought processes, and the result. If it’s your nature to be very detail oriented this may work for you. If not, just use a small notebook with a couple of points jotted down. The trick is to do this straight away after finishing a playing session.
Most poker players will leave with 2 or 3 very memorable moments from the game. They love to tell the story to anyone who will listen after ward. It has made a big impression on them. Often this is a story of how their opponent drew out on them. Came from behind against very big odds and won the pot.
Deeper thought & analysis can often (not always!) reveal a mis-step on the part of the player who lost the pot. Make it a habit to consider whether you could have – or better yet, should have – played the hand differently. And then pull out a little notebook and jot down your thoughts about it. This stuff is gold. But you will likely forget about it by the time you get home. If you take a minute to jot down your thoughts I guarantee you will enjoy and benefit from reading it later.
And you will very likely start to see patterns. You are likely repeating the same flaws in your game over and over. This might jump right out at you from your little notebook. If you flop top pair but opponents keep sucking out on you by the River, maybe you will see you are betting too small, & allowing them to get there.
Or if you can’t ever seem to get paid off big time when holding the Nuts, maybe you will notice that you never check raise.
You will learn the lesson again one way or another. It might cost you a pile of chips at the table. A better way to remember the lesson is to read it in your own hand writing!
Here’s To A Life Of Fun & Games,
