PokerWorks

I read somewhere once that poker is a game of decisions. The better players make the correct decisions and take advantage of the poorer decisions made by their opponents. Most players can tell you with unerring accuracy the hands they've lost huge pots on. The question that begs to be asked, however, is did this player learn anything from the hand? Did they analyze why they lost the hand? What they could have done better? What they did right? How they would play it if they had the opportunity again?

The reason players like Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey are good at what they do is because they study their bad play. When a situation comes up again, similar to one in which they erred on in the past, they will know how to approach it because they "learn from their mistakes."

So how do you go about learning from your mistakes? One of the things you can do is to keep a mistake log, a record of all the mistakes made in a poker game. We're not talking about recording every little mistake; no poker player has that kind of time. It's the big mistakes... the ones that hurt... that we need to learn from.

The method you can use to record them can vary, as long as the information you annotate is going to be helpful to you. There are multiple ways to keep this data, you can use a 3x5 index card, a spread sheet, or just keep a notebook. Here are the things you should ideally be recording:

Hand Action and Outcome
Your observations on the players involved in the hand
What you did right
What you did wrong
How you would play the hand if given the opportunity to replay it.

So an example of a recorded mistake would be:

Had 9,400 in chips, blinds at 200/400 with a 25 ante. Table is ten handed. 45 players left out of 64 in multi-table NLHE tournament. Pays 10. UTG player raised the minimum (to 800). All fold to me in the cutoff and I call with J-J from the cutoff. The SB and BB both call. The flop comes 8-8-5 rainbow. Both blinds check. The UTG player bets 400 into a 3450 pot. I raise 1200 to 1600. The SB folds. The BB flat calls. The UTG player folds. The turn is a 2. No flush possible. The BB checks. I check. The river is a 10. The BB bets pot, which is 7050. I have 7000 in chips. I call. BB had Q-8o and eliminates me.

Observation of opponent: Had little knowledge of this opponents’ tendencies/playing style as it was only his third hand at the table (he had filled an empty seat).

What I did right: Raised the initial raiser on the flop when he made a weak bet into a large pot. Checked the turn after the BB flat-called my flop raise.

What I did wrong: Did not re-raise the UTG raiser pre-flop, if I had done so I might have removed the blinds from the equation and won the hand outright. Failed to go with my read that the BB had an 8 after check calling my flop bet.

How I would play this hand if given the opportunity to do so again:
Raise to 2400 pre-flop. Fold to all-in on river.

After recording this information, put it with the rest of your "mistakes." Once a month, sit down and go through all of your mistakes. Look for mistakes you are repeating and try and figure out why it is that you are doing so. By constantly refreshing your memory on your mistakes, you will find yourself much better prepared to handle a similar situation if it ever comes up in a game. Forcing yourself to think about these hands will eventually have you making more correct decisions than your opponents, and that's how you become a winning player.