I've kept notes on other players ever since I first started playing
online poker. Being new to the site and online poker in general, I was clicking all over, looking at the other players players profiles and stats. Then one player started in on a second player, calling him a donk and a luck box, and criticizing his play. The first player turned out to be a middle of the pack player according to the POY rankings. The second player was at the very top of the rankings and on his way to being POY for the third straight year. That caught my interest and caused me to go back and reexamine the hand in question. Of course I was a little distracted and missed another hand playing out that the first player ended up winning. I pulled up the history for that second hand as well. Then a couple hands later the first player was involved in a third hand. When I examined all three hands I noticed a pattern. So I tagged him and jotted down a few quick notes
After that I kind of went note happy for a while, tagging players and using what developed into a kind of shorthand for describing the action in a hand. I kind of got over it after a while because it was a small subscription site and I had gotten used to playing the same players every day. That is until my friend in California offered to let me play a tournament on her account that she wouldn't be able to play in, that I was ineligible to play in on my account because of the state that I lived in at the time. About halfway through that tournament, my friend texted me and asked for my password so that she could observe the action from my account as I played on hers. Within minutes she began IM-ing me, asking me what different abbreviations meant, cutting and pasting text from my notes to the messenger so that I could translate it for her. She was impressed, not only at the accuracy of the information I had on players that she was familiar with, but also with how much information I could squeeze into five or six lines. It was actually her being so impressed with my notes that led me to start keeping them with more diligence and taking the habit with me when I started expanding my play to
real money sites.
My notes basically consist of five or six lines of information. Of course, all my notes begin with a color. I start by tagging players with a color that I feel corresponds to their level of play. Then the first two or three lines consist of a words, phrases, or abbreviations that are descriptive of an individuals play, such as Agro, LAG, donk, or ATC. One word or phrase may not be enough to encapsulate a player, so I might use as many as three. And I have a lot to choose from. For instance I know the difference between a LAG, a DAG and a FAG. If I see CnR, which stands for constant and repeated (all-ins), then I know not to be surprised if they end up going all-in at some point in the hand. I might assign them a Degen Level from 1-10 or Balls (Rose Ballenger) if they open ship every hand. Finally I will usually include a couple of hands. For example:
These were my notes on a player I played with last week.
---
Agro Donk
LAGgy
Degen = 9
- Call any with any
> 3-bet to 5x, call 4-bet & 5-bet shove w/Q-8 off
---
I saw this player make several oversized raises and huge 3-bets, but only one went to showdown, which happened to be a 4-way pre-flop all-in pot where he was eliminated.
I was in a hand with this other player. I had raised with A-Q. He called out of position with Q-2. The flop came Q-9-9. He checked, then called my 2/3 pot bet. He shoved on the turn after a 2 fell. I was seriously considering a fold, because he could easily have a 9, given his wide range. I was just about to fold when I realized I had note on him. They read:
---
Constant and Repeated
Zoo Monkey
FOS
- gonna get em in
> call 3x pfr -check/call flop -check/call turn -shove river -gets fold
> call 3x pfr -call 1/2 flop -check turn -shoves river -gets fold
> call 4x pfr w/J-6 -bets flop -turn goes check, check -shoves river w/air -called by Q-Q
---
After a quick glance at those notes, I recalled this player very clearly. The FOS was of particular interest to me, as it stands for full of shit. I made the call. He turned over Q-2.
My actual notes contain blind amounts for all the bets and raises. However, I have to be able to find a player in a game in order to see my actual notes. These are just a couple that I had glanced at in the last couple of days in anticipation of replying to this thread. So there is actually a little more detail in my actual notes.