Session Reviews: How Do You Do It?

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vwls

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Basically, how do you conduct your session reviews, how do you decide which hands you want to focus on, and how in-depth is your study of any particular hand? Any general advice or insights on session reviews would also be appreciated.

More specifically, I am beginning to undertake some serious session reviews. What I have decided is that I won't play another session until I am done reviewing all of the hands from a previous session. I am putting so much emphasis on reviewing my sessions, because I have found that--even though I play with the same players every day--there are only a handful of them whose "game" I know well enough to effectively strategize against. There are many other players that I have a couple of notes on, but I find that I have lost touch with what I was trying to convey in my notes. This is because the notes are out of context, and I was writing them on the fly. I have also found that HUD stats don't solve everything, for me. I likely am not completely adept at interpreting the stats, but I also think that reviewing my sessions more in-depth would help with that. I have thousands of hands on some players, yet I am still unable to decipher anything meaningful from my notes or stats on them.

With that decided, I was wondering exactly how in-depth other players get when doing their own session reviews. There is a particular Twitch streamer that I enjoy, and I am in the process of re-watching one of his reviews. During this review, he skipped over most of the hands that he pre-flop-folded, and he focused on hands that he felt he could have opened/played and hands that he did play but felt that he could improve on. On the other hand, I have heard this player state that one of the keys to playing poker well is to pay attention to the action when one is not involved in the hand. I'm going to leave this paragraph here, since I already typed it, and since someone may still have thoughts on this idea. I just realized that this streamer plays on Bovada, so there may not be the emphasis on specific players within a session review.

My concluding question is how do you decide which hands you want to focus on during a session review? I am personally trying to squeeze out every nugget of truth from every hand short of when the big blind gets a walk. Am I being too OCD?

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Ben Byrne

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I have too many obvious leaks in my game to need any specific hand analysis! Usually I know my mistake straight away (why do I still make them!?!?)
 
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JPainTrainSicko

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While I know it is possible to document nearly every hand you play and hands of interest that you fold I personally focus on key hands. Andrew Brokos and Nate Mavis from the thinking poker podcast have a few books between the two of them were they analyze every hand they played in various years of the wsop main event. They document the stacks, positions, blinds, important info such as past history and reads on players, bets and cards for each street. From there they and friends break down the hand and give input on optimal play.

You could look into their books and see how they do it and template that. The books themselves are also great to understand sound strategy and hand reading. I'd strongly suggest those books, the podcast and their website thinkingpoker.net.

As for me, on breaks I have a note book I will not down key hands on that I want to review. Or I will take a moment in game to write key points and info. From there I will talk with friends and more recently post here to get feedback.

Good luck and enjoy the life long learning this game can be
 
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vwls

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Thank you for your thoughts. Those books look very interesting, and the first one is only $2.99, so I will definitely be looking into that. When you say "on breaks", do you mean live or online? Do you not take notes during play, as well?

I recently went from playing DON SNGs, exclusively, to playing mostly cash, which is why I think that I need to review my sessions more in-depth. I can review an entire DON, immediately after its conclusion, but cash sessions include so many more hands. Just yesterday, I played a DON for the first time in a week, and reviewing those hands kind of opened my eyes as to how I could better review my cash sessions. I don't need to heavily analyze every time a player simply folds to a C-Bet, but it helps to make a quick note, then see if a pattern emerges.

Again, thanks for the book suggestion. It has been difficult for me to find content that focuses on analysis of large hand samples, though I also just found a Twitch streamer whose stream is largely hand review coaching sessions. The journey continues.
 
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JPainTrainSicko

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That is for breaks both live and online. Sometimes in game also, either in a note book or more discreetly on my phone if its a live game.
 
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vwls

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Right on.

I also just extended my HM trial, which has given me an opportunity to look at the App with a keener eye. I'm actually able to look at all of the hands that I have on any specific player, which should help me immensely in my particular endeavor. Now, I don't need to be so OCD about every hand during a general overview, because I can make a quick note and more easily shift to looking at a specific opponent. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but that's the best that I can explain it, right now.
 
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