Eagle Eyes :Hole Cards Confessions Study Group

(This thread is for “Eagle Eyes” and covers pages 47-59)

We are excited to kick off the Cards Chat study group of “Hole Card Confessions” by Drag the Bar instructor Owen Gaines. Each week we will be covering two sections of the book and Owen will be joining us in the threads to answer questions.

I will be posting brief summaries of the material to be discussed in the OP of each thread. I will not be regurgitating the whole book so people don't have to read it. I will not be quoting long sections of copyrighted material. The goal is to give each thread a starting point; not to reproduce the book for free for anyone who finds the thread.

If you haven't already gotten your copy of “Hole Card Confessions” you can purchase it at Owen's site. http://qtippoker.com/

This thread is for “Eagle Eyes” and covers pages 47-59. The material covered includes:

1. Specific Notes
2. DST (Doesn't Seem To)

I'd like to hear what others do for notes.

For me personally I find note taking difficult when I'm playing my normal number of tables (these days it's 9) so what I try to do is set aside at least 1 night a week where I play no more than 4 tables with the goal of just taking notes. I try to change tables at least once so I can get some fresh blood in the mix each week. Not perfect but it adds up over time.

WVHillbilly said:

I'd like to hear what others do for notes.

For me personally I find note taking difficult when I'm playing my normal number of tables (these days it's 9) so what I try to do is set aside at least 1 night a week where I play no more than 4 tables with the goal of just taking notes. I try to change tables at least once so I can get some fresh blood in the mix each week. Not perfect but it adds up over time.

Click to expand...

Nice, i just try to make notes on players opening bets , sounds dumb but like to know how much there stand opening raise is in diff pos ..Also on Merge i use the chips to mark them, i use green chip for Fish ,Red chip for Nits and yellow chips for others.

Im in the same boat WV, i dont understand how people can play 12 or more tables at anything other than robot mode, i mean of course i could probably play 12 and do fine against fish, but i would be playing my cards a lot more than i would like too.

Lately i've been playing 6 mostly, sometimes 8 or 10 if tables are super fishy, but a lot of the time also, just 4 really good tables which i get lots more notes from.

DST is a note i use a lot and i like the idea of that.

dstvblor, another good one which helps us really shape our opponents range on the river, so many regs and nits are useless at value betting the river i have found. Actually any river bets or checks we see on the river are valuable i find.

Each time i get 3bet from the blinds by a reg i make a note "3bet my btn in blinds x1" or something etc, just so i can adjust a bit faster to people exploiting my wide opens.

Other general stuff like donked Jxx x1, ch/r flop c-bet on low ds flop x1, just with the same idea as the btn vs blinds example.

Pretty much just what i see people showing down with is all i make notes on.

I remember you said you used to once a week play a session with the most reg filled tables WV, do you still do this and do you find it helps?

Id like to know what valuable notes others have too..

acky100 said:

Im in the same boat WV, i dont understand how people can play 12 or more tables at anything other than robot mode, i mean of course i could probably play 12 and do fine against fish, but i would be playing my cards a lot more than i would like too.

Lately i've been playing 6 mostly, sometimes 8 or 10 if tables are super fishy, but a lot of the time also, just 4 really good tables which i get lots more notes from.

DST is a note i use a lot and i like the idea of that.

dstvblor, another good one which helps us really shape our opponents range on the river, so many regs and nits are useless at value betting the river i have found. Actually any river bets or checks we see on the river are valuable i find.

Each time i get 3bet from the blinds by a reg i make a note "3bet my btn in blinds x1" or something etc, just so i can adjust a bit faster to people exploiting my wide opens.

Other general stuff like donked Jxx x1, ch/r flop c-bet on low ds flop x1, just with the same idea as the btn vs blinds example.

Pretty much just what i see people showing down with is all i make notes on.

I remember you said you used to once a week play a session with the most reg filled tables WV, do you still do this and do you find it helps?

Id like to know what valuable notes others have too..

Click to expand...

I used to do that on FTP but the pool is so small on Merge that almost every table is full of regs. In a sample of about 20K hands at 10nl I have over 5K hands on some regs.

acky100 said:

Im in the same boat WV, i dont understand how people can play 12 or more tables at anything other than robot mode, i mean of course i could probably play 12 and do fine against fish, but i would be playing my cards a lot more than i would like too.

Click to expand...

I think most of this is really just practice away from the table. I have an article in my latest book, Poker Perspectives, that talks about this topic using chess players as an analogy. The more you get used to breaking down different situations, they quicker you'll be able to recognize them at the table and act appropriately.

The notes things is a little different. I do take notes while 18 tabling; however, it's a bit of a pain at Merge. I used to take notes while 32 tabling before black friday. The Stars and FTP software made note-taking much easier than Merge. However, I still get it done there. I think in HCC I mention sharpening your typing skills helps as well.