Here's a primer, taken from 2+2: (
link)
Session Reviews: A Primer
Abstract
This post is intended to provide some basic suggestions on improving one’s game by doing session reviews with other players. Content includes the rationale for doing session reviews and the benefits to be gained, rebuttals to common objections for not doing session reviews, the mechanics for doing a session review and ways to make session reviews more effective.
Why do session reviews?
If you’re trying to become a better player then playing poker and reading books only gets you so far. That’s not to dismiss the value of getting in
hands at the table and reading the excellent books that are out there because those are critical steps in the process of becoming a better player. However, at some point you need to be doing some more intensive studying and that involves hand analysis.
One way of learning through hand analysis is to post and discuss hands on the 2+2 strategy forums. This is a great method of learning because interesting hands can be discussed from many viewpoints, including those of many knowledgeable players who take the time to post and respond in these threads. It also allows for quick corrections of “stinkin’ thinkin’” which may not always be fun for the person being educated but is for their own good.
Session reviews allow the addition of a key dimension, that of continuity. Individual hand posts are just that, individual, and are not being analyzed within the context of the session. Looking at an entire session allows the reviewer to become familiar with the player’s style, to get a feel for the table texture, to get a read on opponents and to become immersed in the flow of the game just as the original player did. Poker is a contextual, situational game and the reviewer becomes better able to assess the decisions of the player.
When hands are being reviewed in the context of a session tendencies and leaks become easier to identify. Tendencies in blind stealing and defense, continuation betting, aggressiveness, positional awareness and other factors can be assessed. The reviewer can see how the player deals with different styles of opponents and make suggestions.
“Yeah, but…”
Hopefully the previous paragraphs were enough to convince the reader that there is significant value in session reviews. Perhaps not. Certainly there are some common objections and concerns:
“It’s not fair for a better player to be stuck doing a session with me. I can’t help them.”
and the flip side:
”Why should I take all this time to do a session review for a worse player who won’t be able to help me with my game?”
Both are rubbish and here’s why: the benefit to be derived from session reviews is not so much from being reviewed as it is from doing the reviewing. Of course there will be times that a reviewer provides input that will significantly help the game of the person being reviewed. Perhaps some leaks will be found and plugged or a newer player will learn some good lessons in how to analyze and think about hands or how to react to opponents and game situations. If so, fantastic! That’s certainly a hoped-for outcome of session reviews. The flow of advice may not always be one-sided, either. A less advanced player may be doing a great service by reminding a more advanced player of fundamentals when they are getting a little too fancy, or by picking up on tendencies to tilt.
That being said it is in doing the reviewing where the real value is gained. By taking the time to sit down and really look hard at a session the reviewer is forced to think more carefully about what is going on. The reviewer could of course do a self-review in this manner but a) a tendency to justify one’s own actions will cause some “blindness” to mistakes and b) the obligation to meet a commitment and not do a disservice to the review partner will spur on greater efforts to do a good review. By thinking hard and being forced to communicate thoughts and conclusions in a clear and coherent manner the reviewer will learn more about how to play the game. More advanced players can also use the reviews as opportunities to think more deeply about particular aspects of play that came up in the session.
Here’s another good one:
”Why should I take the time to make my opponents better?”
Granted, a high stakes player may find it wise to be circumspect about helping other high level players but at the micro and small stakes levels there are so many fish that it’s far more important to become a shark than it is to worry about helping to create another shark in the process. There’s plenty of money to be made by all the good players.
One last objection:
”It takes too long and I’d rather be playing hands.
Certainly it’s important to get in hands. But if that’s all a player is doing then the learning curve is going to be super long. Learning how to win is a conscious choice and it requires study.
The mechanics of doing session reviews
Exchanging hand records
Once a session review partner has been identified and contact information has been exchanged the first step is to create hand records. These instructions assume that the review partners have PokerTracker (PT) software.
1) Open up the PT database that contains the session(s) with hands to be sent for review.
2) Open up the Ring Game Player Statistics Window (the poker chip button to the left of the trophy in the tool bar).
3) Click on the Session Notes tab in the Ring Game Player Statistics Window.
4) In the Session Details part of the Session Notes tab double-click on the session you wish to have reviewed.
5) Now click on the Game Notes tab.
6) In the Game Notes tab click on the Export button. A dialog box will pop up.
7) In the Export Hand Histories To File dialog box:
a. Use the Browse button to set the location of the folder the hand records will be written to.
b. Set the Hands Per File value to the desired value (200 or 300 is fine).
c. Click the Start Export button.
8) Repeat steps 4 through 7 for any other sessions to be reviewed.
After the hand history text files have been created they can be attached to an email and sent to the review partner. NOTE: Just send the text files, there is no need to combine them into an archive, whether it be a zip file or some other more obscure format.
Bringing up the hands for review
Once a email has been received containing the hand history files it’s time to load them into PokerTracker. It is a good idea to load all session review hands into a separate database so they don’t get mixed up with one’s own hand records. To create a session review database perform the following steps:
1) In the PT File menu click on Maintain Database Names…
2) In the Maintain Poker Tracker Database Names dialog click on the Add button.
3) Type in “Session Review” for the name of the new database.
4) Click the OK button.
Once the database has been created or if a session review database already exists the hand records can be imported into the database. First, the Session Review database needs to be opened up:
1) In the PT File menu click on Open A Database…
2) In the Open A Database dialog click the checkbox for the Session Review database.
3) In the Open A Database dialog click the OK button.
4) (optional) To close other open databases and simplify matters:
a. In the PT File menu click on Close A Database…
b. In the Close A Database dialog click the checkbox for a non-Session Review database.
c. In the Close A Database dialog click the OK button.
d. Repeat until the Session Review database is the only open one.
Then the hands can be imported:
1) In the PT File menu click on Import Hand Histories/Tournament Summaries
2) (optional) If more than one database is open the Session Review database will need to be selected:
a. In the Select A Database To Use For This Window dialog use the checkbox to select the Session Review database.
b. In the Select A Database To Use For This Window dialog click on the OK button.
3) In the Import Hand/Histories/Tournament Summaries dialog click on the Select File(s) to Import… button.
4) Use the Select File(s) To Import browser dialog to navigate to the folder where the hand history files are stored.
5) While still in the Select File(s) To Import browser hold down the CTRL key and select the hand history files that are to be imported for review. The file name section show now display a list of files to be imported.
6) Close the file browser by clicking the OK button.
7) Click the OK button on the status dialog that pops up.
PokerTracker will import the files and provide a status dialog indicating how many hands were imported and whether the import was successful or not. Next there are a couple of administrative items to ensure that the hands can be reviewed easily.
1) Open up the Ring Game Player Statistics Window (the poker chip button to the left of the trophy in the tool bar).
2) (optional) If more than one database is open the Session Review database will need to be selected:
a. In the Select A Database To Use For This Window dialog use the checkbox to select the Session Review database.
b. In the Select A Database To Use For This Window dialog click on the OK button.
3) Click on the Preferences tab in the Ring Game Player Statistics Window.
4) In the Game Levels section click the game levels of the hands that are to be reviewed. It may be necessary to open up the hand history files in a text editor to find out the game levels.
5) In the When This Window First Opens section go to the “Automatically display my stats, my player id is” control and select the name of the player to be reviewed. Again, it may be necessary to open up the hand history files in a text editor to get this information. This step is important to the replay and review process for making sure the replay window hides and exposes player hands properly.
Reviewing hands
Once the hand history import and database setup is done it’s time to start reviewing hands. The replayer window can be brought up by performing the following steps:
1) In the Ring Game Player Statistics Window click on the Session Notes tab.
2) In the Session Detail section of the Session Notes tab click on the table session to be reviewed. In general it is best to work bottom up in chronological order.
3) In the Games Played During Selected Session section of the Session Notes tab the default is that hands are listed in reverse order of play. Scroll to the bottom of the hand list and click on the bottom hand. That hand should be the first one played at the table.
4) To the left of the Games Played During Selected Session there are three buttons: “s”, “r” and “g”. Click on the “r” button to bring up the replayer window for the first hand.
The steps for using the hand replayer are as follows:
1) If the replayer window is not active then click on the banner of the window to activate it.
2) There should be a green table with the cards being shown face-up for the person being reviewed and face down for all the rest of the opponents.
3) The action moves forward step by step when the right arrow is pressed and backwards step by step when the left arrow is pressed. This allows the reviewer to move through the action in playalong style and to back things up when previous action needs to be reviewed.
4) Once review of the hand is complete the reviewer can move to the next hand using the left arrow of the control in the upper left hand corner of the window.
That should take care of the basic Poker Tracker mechanics to do hand review. There are of course many other capabilities for analysis that have not been described here and can be found in the documentation.
Doing the actual hand reviews
It’s best to keep things simple with regard to the review document. A simple text or Word format document works just fine and is easy to read. Don’t embed the review notes in hand records as it makes it difficult to pick out the comments. Likewise, not every hand requires a comment. If it’s standard there’s not much point in saying anything. Keep the review and discussion meaty. The following format for notes is one that seems to work well:
Table A
Hand 1 (Kd Tc) – Notes.
Hand 2 (4d 4s) – Notes.
Table B
Hand 18 (Th 9h) – Notes.
Hand reviews are best done as playalongs. The reviewer should be going through the hands step by step and experiencing the same decisions and sometimes even the same emotions as the player being reviewed. There are several good reasons for doing this. First, it goes a long way towards preventing results-oriented analysis. Second, it allows the reviewer to honestly communicate their own thought processes during the various stages of the hand. Not that it should happen too often but it’s okay for a reviewer to get through a hand, see the showdown and be very surprised by the results and have the review notes indicate that. Third, going through the exercise helps both the reviewer and the player in adapting their thought processes bet by bet, street by street. It’s not good enough to say “Bet flop. Bet turn. Check river.” How did the reviewer come to that conclusion? Being forced to elaborate on decisions ensures that the reviewer and player both have an opportunity to learn from the process, especially if the reviewer is an instinctive player who hasn’t really thought out the reasoning behind the suggested play.
Here is an example hand note to show the playalong review style in action:
Hand 123456789 (Kd Tc) – Given the loose limper (51% VPIP) and the poster who failed to raise (a raise that should be automatic with anything decent) you should seriously consider raising here to isolate – otherwise the blinds will both come along and you’re in a pot with a hand that doesn’t play all that well multi-way. Take advantage of your position. (sees flop) Action is obvious. (sees turn) Had one of the loose passives bet the turn you can probably fold safely. As it is I assume you’re running a bet-fold line here and that seems right.
Although the primary focus is on the player being reviewed it’s certainly also useful to comment on opponent plays and tendencies as well to help build hand and opponent reading skills.
The response phase
This is a critical but often neglected aspect of session reviews. It is important for the player to go through the comments and respond to the review. Many times the original player will be able to explain what was happening in a given situation or the reviewer will be able to answer the player’s questions about the thinking behind the hand notes. Sometimes there will be mutual agreement that a hand should be posted in the strategy forums. A posted hand does not have to be one where the reviewer and player disagree; it could just be an interesting hand or one that was particularly difficult and could use some additional discussion and input.
Some last comments
While the point of the review exercise is “tough love” don’t let the negativity get out of hand. There’s no need to mince words but criticize the play and not the player. Also, be sure to provide positive feedback along with the constructive criticism. The idea is to encourage and inspire, not cause depression.
Session reviews are a great way to study and improve, and also to build connections with fellow poker players.
