Buoyed by the recent upturn in cash game activity and commentary I decided to return to the poker tables and play some Texas Hold em poker. Most of my time is taken up writing about poker so it is important that I hit the tables for a session as often as possible to remain sharp and up to date with the current trends.

Recently I have started using Poker Tracker 3 to make hand analysis easier and have found it to be quite enjoyable! You are able to pat yourself on the back for good plays and groan in agony at the crazy call you made against a player you knew to be tight. This kind of review is essential and I was surprised at what I learnt from just twenty minutes of going through a five hundred hand session. Despite writing many articles about the benefits of such hand history review sessions believe me you have to do it to appreciate it.

What I noticed was that a mistake is fine but not when you should have known better. I believe I am a good player (as all poker players do from my research) and shoving QQ into AA as a fourth re-raise is asking for trouble. That hand is now deeply engrained in my mind after the hand review session and the next time I enter a raising war with Queens I will remember that and slow down, depending on the opponent and situation of course. If doing such reviews of your play causes one good decision it is worth it. Before that hand I had six good hands that had resulted in fifty big blinds profit for the session, all of which were completely wiped out by one silly error. Lesson learned multiplied by ten I assure you.

The tracking software of poker tracker can be set up to automatically import hands from your hand history file and it takes care of statistical things for you without any involvement. You just look over the numbers and hands. What I particularly like about it is you can view your overall stats, then dig deeper into session stats and then deeper still into single hands. Your reviewing of your poker game can be general and then detailed as you wish.

The process I use for a hand review session is firstly looking at the general stats of the session and look for any obvious anomalies. For example, around 18% is somewhere near the amount of hands general poker strategy recommends you play for a tight aggressive player. Should my stats indicate I played 22% I will go searching through my hands for obvious marginal hands that I played that could have been folded. According to the statistics I am struggling with playing AJ and AQ when faced with resistance post flop. I did not realise this. After the hand analysis I realised that when playing in middle position with these hands and facing action I need to be more prepared to fold.

I plan on multi-tabling the low limit cash games in February everyday to build up experience in the various spots I struggle with according to my statistics. Poker tracker allows you to filter your hands by specific hole cards so you can analyse your play of AA, KK or any hand you wish. AQ and AJ will be particularly scrutinised by me over the next month as I seek to plug that leak in my game. I am motivated by realising how much more solid a poker player I will become by identifying and addressing the problems in my game.

Do not avoid hand history reviews; it is a lot more enjoyable than you might think and it is the best way for quick improvement.

By Malcolm Clarke

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