Game Review: How to approach this??

[fletchdad]

I mentioned last year that this year I would be venturing off into new territory. After lots of reading, videos, speaking with a coach (only once so far, and this will be discussed with him as well) and so on, I am now starting to increase my volume. I will be playing around 15-20 SnGs a day (I am approximating, as I only just started last weekend, may be more soon when I get more familiar with multi tabling, and when I get my 28" BIG ASS MONITOR that I ordered:santaclau - I know Christmas is over but this is my present to myself !!!).

At the moment I am playing low buy in SnG STT, 5$+, but not more than 10. I do the odd MTT as well, sometimes MTT sngs and some regular tourneys. I stick to one format at a time, and will continue to experiment for a month or 2, until I see where I need to be staying. The majority ATM is STT.

My start has been more than rocky, but its no big deal as we are talking <100 games so far. I am also starting to play more tables and it is new to me, so I need to get used to that as well. On a side note, I guess that beginning serious play is not results oriented anyway, and since I am probably leaking in way I cant dream of, I need to know how to spot them, so I just dont just play lots of losing volume, but make it lots of LEARNING volume.

I believe I am playing OK, and I am seeing some leaks when doing mental review after games, and making notes of these. But how do I efficiently review my games (how do you all do it)? I have popopop re-player, and I have HEM (dont know how to really use it well yet). I watch games in the re-player, but if I do a session with 15 games, I cant then just replay then all (or I guess I could, but that would take way more time than I believe is meant when someone say "review your games" and there is no guarantee that I spot all leaks anyway, what was wrong at the time may still look right in replay to me).

Is there a function in HEM that I need to know about as far as reviewing complete games goes? I know there are videos on the website, and I need to watch them, but to guide me in the right direction, does anyone know which video addresses this? I am probably putting the cart before the horse here, as I have only acquainted myself with single hand review (just learned how to mark hands in a game today) and basic stats, and I will be getting more familiar with it as I go, but you all may have some instant tips that will help me jump start in the right vein.

Basically, how do you all approach efficient game review in MTT and STT?

BTW, I play on multiple sites, for or against this? Or does that matter?

 

[TheKAAHK]

For me, review starts with filtering the different game types I have played recently, then categorizing them into type/buy-in/time of day.

I have noticed that I have better results during different times of the day for example.

MTT:

I then break it down firther. I usually start with a losing/mincash game and go hand by hand from the last hand to the first. While doing this, I first ignore my hand itself, and try to look at the situation from the outside. I take notes (either physically if it's a big thing, but mostly mentally) on the situation and how stack sizes and player types factor in. I then add my own hand into the situation. This helps me see if playing that hand in that situation was warranted or not. If i deem it was, I move to the next hand, if not then I go throuh street by street, making notes on possible lines I could have taken.

I don't do this for every hand, as that would just take forever. I look for hands where I won/lost either very large pots, hands where I had good holdings but only won a small pot, or hands where I had marginal or bad holdings but won a large pot. In each of these hands I make notes on what happened, why I think it happened and against what type of player. And so forth.

STT:

STT review is less involving and more formulaic for me. I break it down into 4 key areas.

1) Early play/identifying opponents:
I have been starting to take alot more notes on my opponents lately, so I first review these notes and then skim through each of their actions to see if my notes match up to what actually happened.
I also review the hands I have played, or feel I should have played after the fact. I try to see what effect on the overall gameflow that my actions or inactions may have had.

2) Midgame (7-5players): Since this is the time in the game where I start to make my initial gains, I review key hands where I did make those gains, and look closer even at hands where I incurred losses. I try to not only see it from my side, but I try to get an idea of how my opponents are percieving me at this point.

3)Bubble (5 left): Though the bubble in FTP's SNG is @ 3 players, I look at the bubble as 5 players. At this time I hopefully had a healthy stack, but if not, I review hands where I either chipped up, or where I spewed chips nedlessly.
Alot of players focus on losing hands, and while I do review these to look for mistakes I might have made, I also look at winning hands as well in order to see why they went right and make notes on them to keep that winning feeling in mind for later.
Overall at this stage I am looking for spots to chip up I might have missed. I use pokerstove and sometimes SnGWiz to fine tune ranges and spots I feel I might have done differently, in order to see what, if any lines I could have taken that I never thought of at the time.

4) ITM: At this point (if I make it to this point) I am reviewing this section in conjunction with Pokerstove. I take individual hands and run scenarios to see where I could have done better. I use the played board and my own hand, but I tweak my opponent's range slightly (as in I ignore the outcome for now) to see if what I was doing was correct against what I feel was my opponents perceived range. Doing so has helped me adjust my opening ranges on the fly in the future and have better understanding of how they correlate to certain board textures.
I again review my player notes and see if they match up with what has actually happened. I'm amazed how many times players do not change their gameplan at all, and never change gears through the bubble or when ITM. I make firther notes on these players so I can adjust to them if I ever run accross them again.

Overall, I feel I have a very long and painstaking review process. I tried to explain it the best I can, but it may be a bit confusing to some. All in all it takes me roughly half an hour to review a SNG, and over an hour to review each MTT thoroughly (give or take). Though long and sometimes painful, I feel this process has made me better overall, and helped me be less results oriented. If I review a session and feel I played it well yet still finished bad, that is OK with me. If I played like crap yet still cashed, I will look closer at the session and see if I can learn anything from it, yet not let it go to my head and make me lazy.

As far as playing multiple sites, I really have no arguement for or against. I guess it all comes down to making the proper adjustments between structures while playing two different sites at once.

Hope this helps. And if you need clarification on anything, feel free to ask.

 

[fletchdad]

Very detailed answer on your view about reviewing games and hands, helpful and thoughtful! Thanks for taking the time to do this. Some good points, and I will be "learning by doing" as I stumble along this new path I am on.

 

[TheKAAHK]

Glad I can help!

 

[WiZZiM]

This is the bible of SNG review.


http://www.sickread.com/blog/article/how-to-learn-good-them-sngs/

If i can't post this link, then just head to Sickread.com and peruse the articles he has on there.

If you want to ask specifics, just PM me and i'll try to get back to you. I also have a few nifty review tools that i am able to share with you.


Setting up some sort of review time will help also, when i was first learning SNGs i was doing a 1:1 ratio of playing to reivewing. (for one hour of play i would review games for one hour) Now i just do a 2:1 playing to reviewing ratio. But review is probably the most important thing about SNGs. Basically, if you don't review, you will never get good as you don't go over the ranges enough to get them ingrained into you're head.

 

[brackdog]

For me, review starts with filtering the different game types I have played recently, then categorizing them into type/buy-in/time of day.

I have noticed that I have better results during different times of the day for example.

Do you have any ideas about why you see this temporal blip? Do you think it has something to do with how you're playing, or is it related somehow to demographics?

Might be hard to break that down, but clearly the later in the day you play, the more "west-shifted" the opponent pool is.

beedee