Do you review after every session?

akaRobbo

akaRobbo

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I feel I need to do more reviewing of my game, how often do you review? And how do you gauge if you had a good session or not? Some sessions I come away from feeling frustrated and a bit annoyed because it was a losing session (my BR ended lower than it was before the session), but when I look back I didn't seem to make stupid mistakes. I guess im still money/ results orientated, which is probably bad?

Should I also review my big pot wins, or just the ones I lost? I also keep checking my BR all the time whilst playing, I can't help it! Is this a bad thing to do aswell? How do you go about reviewing a session?
 
Creepy Jackalope

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I'm gonna address the checking your bankroll question first.

Personally, I think you should work real hard to not do this. But it's bigger than just "not checking while you're playing". I believe you should stop looking at it as money altogether, at least in the day to day playing poker sense.

I think most of us benefit by concentrating on making good decisions.. not focusing on winning or losing pots/money. You simply can't judge a hand, or even a session by the money. The money alone tells you almost nothing, and getting distracted by the money never helps.

To that end, try to play stakes where you are appropriately bankrolled, and some swings either way don't have to concern you.

As for reviewing hands.. if you have Pokertracker/HEM.. mark any hands as you play them if ANY of the following are true.

1)At some point in the hand, you were unsure what to do

2)The results of the hand was unexpected

3)You lost "because the other guy played badly"

4) You folded/lost in a fairly large pot

5) You had a premium'ish hand (TT+AJ+) pre-flop, yet lost the hand at the river.

That should give you a good starting point for hands to review.

The real trick about reviewing hands is to get the opinion of others. This is where posting hands to forums can be helpful.. but reviewing with a friend/mentor can be even better if that's an option.

Listen to the opinions of others, and consider the logic. You don't have to end up agreeing every time.. but try to understand their reasoning before agreeing or disagreeing with it.

Often you still aren't clear after reviewing hands with others or reading the forum post responses.. but in time you will become a better player for forcing yourself to think about the hand and consider the advice of others.
 
Mr Sandbag

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How often do you review? How do you go about reviewing a session?

After every session, though the extent of my review varies. Most of the time it's just a mental review on the drive home and all the way up until my next session. I think about some of the more questionable hands and how I could have improved. If I would like input on certain spots from other players, I'll post a hand history in my cash thread on here.

How do you gauge if you had a good session or not?

Usually by the number of mistakes I made and the strength of my focus throughout a session. It's difficult to play absolutely perfect poker over any given period of time, so if I only made a few minor mistakes I still might consider it a good session. If the mistakes were more blatant or more frequent, I may not be too proud of the session.

Frustration after losing sessions

Yeah, it sounds like you are a bit too results-oriented. If you want to be successful at poker and want to come away from most sessions feeling mentally and emotionally stable, you need to come to terms with the fact that it is impossible to win every session. In fact, you can expect to lose in 30-45% of your sessions even if you are a winning player.

Should I also review my big pot wins or just the ones I lost?

You have to be honest with yourself. What separates the winning players from the losing players is the ability to recognize mistakes in hands won and quality play in hands lost. Most people will consider it a job well done as long as the pot is shipped in their direction, but that approach offers zero upside. If you are unsure about any action at all during a big hand (won or lost), review it and/or post it.

I also keep checking my BR all the time whilst playing, I can't help it! Is this a bad thing to do aswell?

It is a bad thing. I'm a live player, so it is easier for me to ignore the bankroll numbers during a session. Online, it's a bit more difficult. But you should be focusing on decision making rather than the status of your bankroll. If you are using proper bankroll management, it shouldn't matter much anyway.

To take it a step further, you should try to look at your stats on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis only. There is no benefit to staring at your win rate or a session graph. After every session, just log the important info and close the software, spreadsheet, or whatever you may be using to track your progress. Your stats really don't matter at this point in your poker life. You'll be a different player after 100 more hours at the table, and after another 100 hours you'll be changed again. Your win rate will reflect every mistake you've ever made but fails to account for the mistakes that you no longer make. So why look at it?


I hope this was helpful!
 
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Ronoh

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I never do any type of self review
 
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WiZZiM

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not a cash player, but i always reviewed before a session. got my mind working before i loaded any games.
 
sam1chips

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To take it a step further, you should try to look at your stats on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis only

I am a supporter of this all the way.

I keep track of my stats on a weekly basis (manually), and then combine my weekly stats to see my monthly stats. It is so much easier after a losing session or two to see that you are still + in the week (or month)
 
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jancika77

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Not every every session and not every hand. But I review most of the hands in which I lost in tourney or big pots in cash games, and try to make notes and correct mistakes in the future.
 
tina_tina

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Avoiding analyzing after the session for me is impossible too, but u're righ: being money and resuls orieneted is not good in poker, better pay more attention to your skills approving or just learning. the one should be oriented on long distance improving not how much he erned today.
gl
 
IPlay

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Some good replies ITT, thanks Jackalope and Sandbag :D
 
akaRobbo

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Wow thanks for taking some time to reply guys, especially the first two. All very helpful!
 
Arjonius

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I'll just expand on what was said about checking your BR. This is a no-win habit. Stop asap. Assuming you play within your BR, what can you possibly gain or what negative can you possibly avoid by checking it?

Assuming decent BRM, the only times you need to know your BR are when you're close to moving up or dropping down. And even then, in mid-session shouldn't be necessary.
 
John A

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Review and replay after every single session. Look at all of your biggest winning and losing pots. This is super critical to do for so many reasons. Most of all it allows you to recognize patterns, player types, and think away from the heat of battle about a situation.
 
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SwiftHax

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I can't say I'm not results orientated, bu if I go down I most likely made some costly mistakes during the session and if I go up I played the hands well and had good cards against bad players in big pots. I always review my sessions and I have one of the members here who helps me out a ton with the game and gives feedback for my plays.
 
shanest

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This is something I feel I don't do enough. That was a good list Jackalope I'm certainly going to use that going forward
 
akaRobbo

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Arjonius I'm about 8 BI from moving up so thats probably playing on my mind. But yeah it's a bad habit I definitely need to stop! I played a short session today where I was coolered QQ over my JJ and lost my stack. But with ignoring my BR probably helped me to keep focused and not to tilt at all. I think being money/ results orientated was affecting me more than I thought, and definitely caused me to tilt more, especially being close to moving up.
 
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Logan2

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Baby steps.

Start with a goal to not see cashier/results for a day, then another, then until a week.
Its hard at the start but with time get more easy and when you notice it helps to your mind will want to continue.

On the review part is the same, start reviewing 3 hands every other day, or one day a week, then two days a week and so on until review every day all big losing and winnings pots, any hand are unsure just post it.
 
Arjonius

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Arjonius I'm about 8 BI from moving up so thats probably playing on my mind. But yeah it's a bad habit I definitely need to stop! I played a short session today where I was coolered QQ over my JJ and lost my stack. But with ignoring my BR probably helped me to keep focused and not to tilt at all. I think being money/ results orientated was affecting me more than I thought, and definitely caused me to tilt more, especially being close to moving up.
Don't sweat the small stuff, especially when it doesn't make a meaningful difference anyway. You know when you sit down that your BR is getting close to moving up. Fine. But is it really meaningful to move up the second your BR is enough? Even if you play a few more sessions at your current level because you didn't realize you could move up, does that actually matter?

Fwiw, I used to check my BR faaaaar more often than necessary, so it's not like I have no idea where you're coming from.
 
hashtag

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It is very important yes. In fact it something I enjoy doing and can spend over an hour analysing 5-6 hands and thinking about them on and off during the day when bored.

Just a note on what Arjonius said, I remember years ago before I was playing .25/.50 and had a BR management plan. I was literally $5 away from my move up threshold. Lost a pot. Kept playing that night to meet that money target and have never been back to that level since. Had I not been focused on the move up threshold (and my BR at the time) I would not have started the run of tilt that evenutally led me to take a break from the game. Don't let this happen to you.
 
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