memorization in poker

so i was reading stu unger's wikipedia today, because i am fascinated by the great man ( i think most poker players are) and it got me thinking......

he had something called eidetic memory...... Those with eidetic memory can recall a vast number of sounds and images with great accuracy.....

was this the reason why he was so great at poker?....did he memorise all the important hands he played against people over a long period of time and use the information to destroy his opponents....or was he just the first LAG in a nit game back in the day.........

so my question is this.........do you need to have a good memory (not necessarily eidetic memory) but photographic memory to get to the next level of being a great poker player?

how do you guys remember hands from sessions ago, days ago or weeks/months/years ago?.....do you have a system or tricks to memorize hands or is it just something you are born with


also if anyone has any good tips on how to improve your memory specific to poker or can recommend any books/websites etc, post away ....thanks

I can't see all of the pro's e.g. Phil ivey/tom dwan/negreanu all having photographic memory... if any, it's pretty rare to have. I guess if you did have it it would help immensely as you could track reads constantly based on past hands. I would put moving up to being a proffessional poker player is really just hard work and being very very clever. The more hours you put in per day the better you will be in the end.

I only remember past hands when I am playing a certain villain that I have history with, e.g. I remember against one villain he flat called my 3 bet twice OOP with aces and slow played them to the river. I think I remember that piece of information about him because I remember taking notes when I saw it. However most information I don't remember . That's why I do take notes on villains. I have just done a session of poker for 2 hours now and can only vaguely remember a couple of significant hands where all the chips went in the middle :s.

Yoshimiii said:

I can't see all of the pro's e.g. Phil ivey/tom dwan/negreanu all having photographic memory... if any, it's pretty rare to have. I guess if you did have it it would help immensely as you could track reads constantly based on past hands. I would put moving up to being a proffessional poker player is really just hard work and being very very clever. The more hours you put in per day the better you will be in the end.

I only remember past hands when I am playing a certain villain that I have history with, e.g. I remember against one villain he flat called my 3 bet twice OOP with aces and slow played them to the river. I think I remember that piece of information about him because I remember taking notes when I saw it. However most information I don't remember . That's why I do take notes on villains. I have just done a session of poker for 2 hours now and can only vaguely remember a couple of significant hands where all the chips went in the middle :s.

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yeah true, it would be hard to think that all the top pros or even just your average pro would have photographic memories, but im thinking that they must do something to improve their memories....i find it all quite interesting because if we could learn how to improve our way of thinking and remembering past hands and actions then it would give us a serious edge, particuarly in live games, but maybe also online at the higher stakes....

there's a technique called 'peg words' which helps you remember numbers through words...there are a few pages (clickable on the page) http://www.thememorypage.net/peg-words-introduction/

i think it would be worth learning something like this because we are not always gonna remember that we got bluffed on the river with 10 high lol, so we can do this technique and remember it for next time we are in a hand/similar situation next time.....i suppose online you could write the hand down and the betting lines....but playing live, this could make the difference....

i dont know ive just started reading it and i dont know if its applicable to poker but it might be.....this is the same technique they use for remembering a deck of cards top to bottom.... which is here http://www.thememorypage.net/how-to-count-cards/

as with you yosh, i can only remember significant hands lol, just wanted to know if thats normal or if guys like yourself have special powers

has anybody read the book Unleash Your Hidden Poker Memory
Bennett Onika.....any good, worthwhile buying?

If you want a real memory challenge, work on instantly forgetting any hand you hold, pre-flop, and never go "damn, I folder that 62os and the flop was 662!". You can watch in live games all the people kicking themselves for what they folded. Forget that, and spend more time remembering what other people do in a given situation. You only have so much memory to work with!

I understand what is the function of that kind of inborn gift.
really envy "kid" ungar.

cos with this kind of memory, it looks like you bring a HUD and database with you in live. Since in live tourney, no one really carries a HUD or statistics software,so... ungar must have huge huge edge against most of the pros.

for improve memory, I think it is inborn, so not anyway to be like that in ungar's level.

Pretty sure Stu's success was because he was an uber aggressive player during a gentleman poker period.

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Particularly useful in stud and razz to know what cards have been shown. Used to have software for that but probably banned now.

stu was way ahead of the curve when he played, ill find a current day analysis of his play and how good it was compared to normal at the time.

Quick humerous, personal story about memorizing/counting cards:
* Planned a Carnival cruise about 6 years ago.
* Thought I'd clean up at the BJ table by practicing card counting at home.
* Bought 4 fresh new decks and proceeded to drive my entire family crazy by practicng almost every night with them at the kitchen table for 2 straight weeks prior. I really nailed this card counting thing!
* Boarded the ship, went straight to the BJ table, implemented what I had practiced for 2 weeks.
* After only 2 days I had lost most of my starting bankroll.
* I licked my wounds, switched to roulette, and had a ball for the remainder of the cruise! (There were no Holdem tables on this ship)
Moral of the story for me: "Card counting/memorizing at BJ is much harder than you think, and I would have to assume it is equally as diffiult in Holdem"