Taking Notes | Poker Strategy

Poker is a game of imperfect information. The player, who manages to gather the most information on his opponents and knows how to use this information, will be a winning player in the long run. The problem is that, unless we get some help of 'user 363', we will never play a perfect game. But seeing as we play better with every piece of information we gather, this is what you should be striving to do, even if you know you will never play a perfect game. Now the big question is: how do we do this? In this article I will share my methods of collecting information with you and then specifically talk about note-taking.

Notes are short and helpful pieces of information that you can, or maybe even must

make to remember a certain players' characteristics. Every time this player sits down at your table, you will then be able to view these notes and use them to determine your playing style against this player. Now it is obviously important to make good and useful notes. For this there are a couple of guidelines.

Be as clear as possible
Keep them as short as possible
Keep adjusting your notes.

This all sounds very logical, but I think that quite a few players are having trouble with this. The first point I would like to discuss in this matter has to do with board texture. There is a big difference between a player calling an all-in with (K-Diamonds)

on a board of (8-Clubs)

and on a board of (2-Diamonds)

. So if you make a note on this player saying "calls KK as overpair allin on the flop", this is a bit of a waste in my eyes, as you could make the note a lot more specific. Just by adding the word "drawy" or "dry" in the note, you already have a lot more useful information. As said before: perfection is impossible but striving to be perfect is necessary. Therefore, you should always make optimal use of the information you receive.

The second point I would like to discuss is about players that have trouble with abbreviations. The note I made above is already not that good because there is a lot more information that needs to be included, but also the way of writing it down leaves room for improvements. The same information can also be written down as follows: "C AI w/OP KK dry F". Some of you might say they don't like this kind of note-taking, but it is somewhat necessary to keep your notes short and to the point. Otherwise you might find yourself scrolling through the notes of a player you see at your table more often. This is precious time that could be spent observing the player and making new notes.

Now to my last point; keep adjusting your notes. Even if you know a player better than anyone else, you should always try to get that little bit of extra information out of him. Here the aspect of striving to perfection comes into play again. Your opponents are going to improve their game as well; keep this in mind and keep checking and improving your notes. Without adjusting your notes they could end up being more of a disadvantage for you in the long run.

Now that we have the basics covered, we can start talking about the making of notes itself. What kind of information are we looking for?

Although we are striving to perfect our game, noting down every hand that gets played is not very handy. We especially want notes on the oddities of a player. Here is a good example of a situation where we have to make a note if we see this for the first time with a player, because we will be able to use this information in the future.

Seat 1: Browns991 ($8.45 in chips)
Seat 2: bakkerflush ($9.35 in chips)
Seat 3: badge4au ($3.85 in chips)
Seat 4: JdK87 ($18.65 in chips)
Seat 5: Jodelhein ($2.80 in chips)
Seat 6: pokerfun4321 ($32.90 in chips)
JdK87: posts small blind $0.05
Jodelhein: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to JdK87 (6-Spades)

pokerfun4321: folds
Browns991: folds
bakkerflush: raises $0.30 to $0.40
badge4au: calls $0.40
JdK87: calls $0.35
Jodelhein: folds
*** FLOP *** (9-Clubs)

JdK87: checks
bakkerflush: bets $0.80
badge4au: folds
JdK87: calls $0.80
*** TURN *** (9-Clubs)

JdK87: checks
bakkerflush: bets $1.50
JdK87: calls $1.50
*** RIVER *** (9-Clubs)

JdK87: checks
bakkerflush: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
JdK87: shows (6-Spades)

(two pair, Nines and Sixes)
bakkerflush: mucks hand
JdK87 collected $5.65 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $5.90 | Rake $0.25
Board (9-Clubs)

Seat 2: bakkerflush mucked (A-Clubs)

Seat 4: JdK87 (small blind) showed (6-Spades)

and won ($5.65) with two pair, Nines and Sixes

What we see here is that this player will fire a so called "second barrel" on the turn. I've played with bakkerflush a couple of times before and new that he did this. How did I know this? I'm sure you can guess; I made a note on this player and saw it when he sat down at my table again. Without this information I would be forced to fold against this turnbet against most other players, as players on these limits don't often use these types of bets as a bluff. But this time I managed to pick up a nice pot, and only because of the words "scBr dry", which I just read when I took my seat at the table.

Here is a second example:

Seat 1: 3PointlLady ($13.85 in chips)
Seat 2: overthinker ($3.80 in chips)
Seat 3: Lan2307 ($9.95 in chips)
Seat 4: Peter Silie ($8.75 in chips)
Seat 5: mommamills ($3 in chips)
Seat 6: JdK87 ($11 in chips)
Lan2307: posts small blind $0.05
Peter Silie: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to JdK87 (7-Clubs)

mommamills: raises $0.10 to $0.20
JdK87: raises $0.60 to $0.80
3PointlLady: folds
overthinker: folds
Lan2307: folds
Peter Silie: folds
mommamills: calls $0.60
*** FLOP *** (J-Spades)

mommamills: bets $0.20
JdK87: calls $0.20
*** TURN *** (J-Spades)

mommamills: bets $0.50
JdK87: calls $0.50
*** RIVER *** (J-Spades)

mommamills: bets $1.50 and is all-in
JdK87: calls $1.50
*** SHOW DOWN ***
mommamills: shows (A-Clubs)

(high card Ace)
JdK87: shows (7-Clubs)

(a flush, King high)
JdK87 collected $5.85 from pot

One of my notes on this player was "small dB = weak (nodraw)". Usually I would raise this donkbet on the flop instantly, as there are so many draws on the board, but because of my note I knew that this might not be the right thing to do. The river bet was a tricky one, but due to the odds I was getting here there was no way I could lay down the hand. As you can see after the showdown, a bet on the flop would not have made any sense here. This is purely the result of me having notes on this player, which in this case made me win an extra 20BB.

Concluding we can say that making notes on your opponents is essential for a player who wants to maximize his profits. Making notes while playing can be very helpful as you can read over them later during the session. If it is not possible for you to make notes while playing, maybe because you're playing too many tables at the same time, you can always check out the hand history later and add the notes then.

I could give you a list of abbreviations that you could use, but I think its better that you figure out for yourself what the best way of noting things down is for you. I have quite a good system going on for myself, but it is probably better for everyone to come up with their own system that they feel most comfortable with.

The most essential things you should include in notes are how your opponents play their draws, monsters and weak hands. If you have this information, preferably in combination with how he plays them in position, out of position and in multi-way pots, then you've already come a long way to play profitable poker against this player.

Last but not least I would like to address a point that many players see as a reason not to make notes on other players: "The network I play on is so large that the chance of playing against the same player twice is minimal". Although this sounds like a legitimate reason, I have two counter-arguments for that. First of all, you have a search option with which you can look for players you already have information on. If you have notes on a couple of donks, search for these players and see if they're sitting at a table at the moment. Second of all, there are certain similarities between players of the same limits. For example, on $25 NL tables on PokerStars there is currently a trend of players floating. This has been going on for a couple of months. Just a normal continuation bet is no longer profitable at these tables and you will need to find a new way of beating the floaters. These kinds of trends can easily be recognized if you make notes. If you find yourself writing "shoves OESD on flop" for 70% of your opponents, it's easy to see that shoving draws on the flop is "hot" at the moment. So even when playing against unknown players you can keep this in mind.

I hope I got you to understand how important it is to make notes on your opponents and what the best way is to do this. Success taking notes!