reads n notes

i think this is one of the biggest parts of my game that needs extra help right now.

i am taking notes almost naturally now on anything i play online, however i dont think i'm quite writing down the really good stuff, and then making good use of that information.

often my notes will look like this:

LOOSE

3.5x pfr AQo (pfr = preflop raise)
3.5x pfr KK, checks rag flop, bets pot turn
tries to slow play flopped two pair
checks on turn w/ flush (Q) [ie Q high]

--
this might be for a half decent player, if i see a chase i'll put a note in saying that..
--

but the big part really is what can i do with this information, i have notes on players but i can't really seem to do anything useful with it all.

if i have someone down as being 'loose' i'll have seen them [10 player] limp with K7o, Ax unsuited etc, but how does this really help me then, if i'm HU with them I basically have no idea what or if they hit something.

---

basically what i'm after is to get some advice of the MOST important things to write down and how to use it to your advantage especially HU

one huge issue is there's almost no consistency of players at the 10c/25c ring games or $5 sng's, they're some very decent and some very bad players there, but you can never seem to rely on standard plays - ie someone raising with a great hand when you have a strong hand, or complete bluffs, it's crazy how often i see people trying to slow play flopped two pair, or even top pair, people limping with monsters..

*NEED HELP* [oh and i'm definitely not ready to move to higher stakes yet, i've tried!]

careful with notes, dont forget multiple people may use the account, and their play is likely to vary, especially if theyre studying the game. Also try and note them as realisticly and honest as poss, its all too easy to criticise...

I spotted a player i know from my uni on my Bros account. My bro had noted him as a really bad player, which is funny cos he is infact very skilled and talented.

it may be worth just noting what seems to be their main style (weather you use Phills rating technieques of animals or standard Loose/Tight, Passive/Aggressive ratings.

There is a fair bit you can do with adjusting your style to play against their certain style.... The Psychology of Poker by Alan N. Schoonmaker deals with this in great detail: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cus...nDate&n=283155

agree, most of my notes are useless half typed garbage similar to yours - tracking pfrs and post flop play, but as said above the sample isn't very scientific and sometimes I wonder if it's a bad idea. On UB now they have little dots you can put on people, I've assigned meanings to them - tight, agg, bad, could not read.

the main reason I'm asking this is because it's what I think to be the biggest thing costing me money right now, and I want it to change! I'm playing because I want to make money, not for fun or anything else. I try to play tight/aggressive but at least half the time when I'm not sure about a situation it's because I do not have a read, or I simply have no clue what to do with the information I have. It get's frustrating obviously, making the odd call or re-re-raise and getting smoked, or possibly folding the best hand but never knowing if I actually did.

My big fear is that I will continue playing a lot of poker but just not really getting anywhere. I have the desire to get better and I try to learn by playing, talking to others, reading forums, asking questions.

I look through almost all hand histories that had a showdown to see what people had, but I just can't seem to make any use of all the information and when i get HU I just don't know what to think of opp's play!

I don't think information needs to be too specific with regard to a players style because, of course, they can make minor adjustments either consciously or not at any point (they aren't, however, likely to make drastic ones). It is probably enough to have an approximate idea of what they call with, what they raise with, how they play different hands, whether or not they bluff with any frequency, in addition to any other patterns you notice.

i'm not exactly getting the advice i was hoping for here, maybe i'll give it some more time. i'm not saying that one should largely depend on notes taken on a player, but most of the time when I post a controversial hand I get asked what's the read, and I basically never know! It's not that I have no information, it's generally that I have no clue what to do with, which is why I'd like to take *better, more useful notes* and want some advice on that.

What exactly SHOULD i know about a player that will help me make the right call/raise/fold in a specific situation.

From my recent experience, the more aggressive i try to play the more i get screwed, and since I almost never play with the same people again (sng's for instance) I only have a very limited time I play with people, say a hundred hands tops.

i would like to seee some ideas on the subject to. about all i really do is take general notes on percived skill level. then when i search for a room to play in i check out the players. and if theres a couple in there i noted as being poor players i take a seat at that table. generaly i used 1 or 2 word descriptions such as call station river rat super tight super loose
and of course my favorite wow what a moron!

-what kind of starting cards are they playing?
-do they slowplay at all?
-how often do they attempt to bluff?
-total maniac, or "calculated" maniac?
-how often do they raise preflop?
-do they make continuation bets?
-how many hands are they involved in?
-do they ever call someone else's AI bet? With what cards?
-do they switch gears?
-how often do they call, how big of bets do they call, and when do they let go of their draws?
-do they ever get tricky with their bets?
-do they ever check-raise?
-do they chase, how big of a bet does it take to end their chase?
-do they minraise?
-do they overbet the pot when they made a hand or try to bluff?
-do they ever try to steal blinds or an unraised pot?
-do they ever come over the top of your continuation bets?
-do they fold easily to a reraise?

There just so much, and you're only gonna get answers to maybe a few of these, maybe more depending on how long you're sitting there. Basically you are just trying to recognize patters, with whatever cards they show down. I don't think writing down one specific hand really helps much, cause almost any player will switch up the they play depending on the situation. Some players are completely random, and there won't be any way to get a read on them. The most obvious thing is how many pots they are involved in, and what kind of starting cards they are playing, and their slow-playing tendencies. Also, a couple words about their tendencies suit me fine, like "Consistent chaser", "tricky", "calling station", or "rock". I tried taking notes at one time, but it seems like when your in the heat of battle it takes too long to go back over your notes. I just try to keep as much info in my head as possible, but I only play 6 max so this is much easier. I find my most profitable sessions are the ones where I sit down without any distractions, and really study my opponents for a few orbits before getting into any battles myself. (Treating it kinda like the begginings of a SnG) Wouldn't it be nice if we could all collaborate on a huge database with the player names and their percieved skill level? But then again, perception is all relative. Hell, poker is all relative.

Well to be honest I tend not to really 'know things' about players i'm playing just from memory, so i'd really like to have half decent notes on them, most of the time all I remember is if someone's aggressive or not. It seems most of the time people play loose or at least looser than me, but knowing that somehow doesn't really seem to help me because I have no clue what they could have once in a hand because it's extremely hard to put a loose player on a particular hand.

One major issue of course is that you're unlikely to run into the exact or almost exact situation twice in one game, where you could use a specific note to play the opp HU, so perhaps its the general sense of a player that I'm missing out on as I only have a few instances where I wrote something down and nothing with frequency and consistency.

Maybe the best solution might be if I post a couple of, say, sng's [as at least the whole session is with the same players] on here and the experienced playres can give me their feedback on both MY play as well as what reads they would gather from how the opponents played and how I can use that to my advantage, noting specific instances where I could/should have played differently based on what read they had from opp's earlier play? I know this is time involved but I would absolutely appreciate that kind of feedback.

Also, if anybody reads this and plays sng's or ring at UB maybe send me a private note and we could play together and share common reads or how we interpret plays from the same game, that would help too. Add me to your UB Buddy: spahncorp is the alias.

The only other UB player i know from here, who's on MY list is Kiriath.

some notes that might be useful:

1)folds to pressure - this is helpful if you see the player fold frequently to
1/2 pot bets on the flop. It tells you to be aggressive with the player to steal some pots and also tells you to get out of the way if he re-raises you, he's got something. "Passive" also works, but "folds to pressure" (FTP) tells me specifically what my stance should be on the flop as the player would be unlikely to call unless he has me beaten.

2)I think your PFR notes are also helpful, 3.5xBB with that player means premium cards, limps mean worse than that and crap a lot of the time. You have to watch carefully for that PFR'ed hand of his that shows down, though, to make sure he's consistent and doesn't do it with 7 2o on occasion. Even more useful is identifying a player who limps with AA, KK, etc. with multiple limpers, I tend to be more careful with this player if he shows aggression post-flop unless I have better than TPTK. This player is not necessarily good, just tricky.

Notes are more useful, imho, with passive/rocky players with regards to exactly how to play situations. With Loose Aggressive players, much less
predictability exists and notes are less useful although if I am looking at a
table with a lot of notes saying "LAG" on players, I pass unless I feel like playing tight that session.