Session Review Checklist?

[ThelVlaster]

I tried to use a forum search for a checklist on what to look for when reviewing a fresh session, but the teams 'Session' and 'Review' are quite common.

Are there any things you are looking for when you are trying to review your play?

I'm going to try to review my play after every few sessions. Right now this is what I do.

-Standard VP$IP/PFR/AF
-Position stats (hopefully higher VP$IP on button and progressively lower)
-Hand Histories of the biggest winning hand, and biggest losing hand
-Hand Histories of any hands I made a note of during play

[dev]

-Standard VP$IP/PFR/AF
-Position stats (hopefully higher VP$IP on button and progressively lower)

Keep in mind these aren't as telling over a single session. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from these stats after <1000 hands, even then it's a little spotty.

-Hand Histories of the biggest winning hand, and biggest losing hand
-Hand Histories of any hands I made a note of during play

I filter all of my hands for the session and look at every single hand that I played in over a certain rake. I use $.50 at 25nl, but you'll have to adjust this to whatever limit you play.

Also, I keep textpad or notepad and a HH window open so I can quickly grab pots that I played funny or just hands I want to look at or post. I have a dozen files labeled things like "drawing OOP" or "Pushing on shortstacks on flop" that I sort my saved HHs into so I can post groups of similar hands for review (3-5 hands is the sweet spot).

As an aside: I remember cash players here used to trade session histories with each other every once in a while. I thought that's what this thread would be about. Anyone up for it?

GL, and I'm interested in seeing what other people do to review.

[Pasta]

When I do a review, I go through every hand where I won or lost more than 2bb and categorize it in Excel, along with the amount of money I won or lost. If there was an all-in in the hand, I pokerstove the hand at the time the money went in and list the EV of the hand instead of the actual money won or lost. Once I'm done, I make a pivot table to show the total amount of money won or lost on each type of play.

I am usually a bit suprised by the results. I just finished a review this morning, and had the impression that my cbets were really hurting me because I remembered getting raised off several hands. When I finished, I found out that my cbets were highly profitable despite that. However, my donk bets in unraised pots, though small and unmemorable, were a consistent leak. My 2-barrels in unraised pots were big winners though. So I think I need to donk a lot less but follow through more when I do. My floats OOP were another leak (okay there was only one, but I probably would have forgotten about it if I had not done the session review).

My categories are:
cbets, cbet raises, cbet c/r's, turn cbets, 2-barrels, river bluffs, donk bets, turn donk bets, float checkdown, float turn bet, float turn raise, float OOP, 3-bets (w/o AA or KK), KK vs. AA, semi-bluff flop, semi-bluff turn, and calling on a draw. For the last 4, I convert the $ won/lost to the +/- EV based on the opponents hand when the money went in (if I didn't see a showdown I stove the estimated range).

I hope to add turn c/r and 3-barrels to my list, but I am having trouble finding even rare occasions for these.

[ThelVlaster]

Thanks for the input, you two. It seems like you guys go through a lot more hands than I thought.

The excel spreadsheet is really interesting and its the first I heard of it. Can you explain a little more of the detail into how it works and what it shows?

I've been wondering if my cbets were profitable too, and was looking into a few ways to find out how often I do it, how profitable it is, and how often the opponents need to be folding for me to cbet.

[Pasta]

Here are the results from my review today:

bet type Sum of net win/loss Count of net win/loss2
2-barrel unraised 23.28 3
3-bet -17.25 4
3-bet cbet 14.33 2
AK called 3-bet -7 1
anti-cbet 30.43 4
calldown unraised 9.04 1
cbet 86.81 16
cbet (button) -1.82 3
cbet c/r -6 1
cbet raise 93.37 6
cbet unraised 5.33 3
donk bet -7.52 4
donk bet unraised -8.25 11
float 12.43 2
float oop -11.5 1
float turn bet 21.83 1
KK vs. AA -61.252025 2
range merge 20 1
river bluff -10 1
semi-bluff flop -18 1
set vs. straight -56 1
turn cbet 17.58 2
turn cbet (button) -5 1
turn donk bet 8.96 4
Grand Total 133.797975 76


I generally do not include draws because I am only interested in hands that can improve my play. As long as my calls were +EV w/ conservative implied odds I ignore them. And I exclude all obvious plays where I made it to the river with the best hand, because again I am only interested in hands where I can improve my play.

I like this approach because it forces you to go through every street on every hand and classify what you were doing/trying to accomplish. For me, I concluded that I was picking good spots for cbets and cbet raises, but I really needed to rethink my plays with marginal holdings oop (donk bets, donk bets unraised, and floats OOP). I have also recently tried to widen my 3-bet range to include the best hands that I would normally fold, and so far in this small sample it is not working out for me.

[ThelVlaster]

Sorry it took me so long to respond. I really think the excel spreadsheet is interesting and I am thinking of using it too. I am not quite sure what some of your categories are referring to, I was hoping you could define what hands to put in these categories:
1.)Cbet vs.
cbet (button)
cbet unraised
cbet c/r
cbet raise
I like the extra detail, but why do you need to distinguish the button as different category. Also what is a cbet unraised?

2.) KK vs. AA
set vs. straight
What are you trying to see here? How often you can get away from a good hand or how often you are getting coolered?

3.) range merge
Don't know what this means