Pokertracker and squinting at the truth (long)

[Nick M]

It's nearly impossible for me to remember everything when I play online. In live play it's a lot easier because I can look at someone's face, and that face reminds me of the hand or hands I've seen him play. Each person looks unique in live play. But online it doesn't seem that way. I feel like I'm not playing people with faces or personalities. It's very tough for me to see someone's screen name and have it trigger something inside my head. So I, like many I feel, have tried to compensate for this by playing when situations are less complicated, for instance Preflop. I think I play MY cards so much more in online SNGs, than in any form of poker I play live. And because of this my view of player’s skills, tendencies, and absolute donkiness, is skewed. This has never been more apparent then when I bought Pokertracker and loaded my last 500 27turbos into it. I'm not usually a numbers guy. In fact I only do my numbers at the end of the month. I find it keeps me more focused on goals, and less on short term results. I know I'm a winner, but the exact dollar amount I try and keep from myself, until it actually matters.

I can think of 10 great players that I've played with a lot in the past month or so. I recently moved them to the avoid list. Meaning if the tables are filling up quick and I see one of these guys, I'll just skip that one and wait for the next. Well anyway after I got Pokertracker loaded up with my HHs and summaries and the numbers matched perfectly with my excel sheets, I started to check out some of the features. I figured out that I could look at each person's stats, the hands they played, and where and what spots they played them in. This might not be new to others but for me it is. I'm soooo not a numbers guy. I like to play, and try and make it seem less like work as much as possible. I mean this is why I started playing seriously, so I didn't have to crunch numbers all day. That's slowly changing as I look for extra EV in spots I've avoided for so long. So as I was saying, I was looking at people's stats. I thought I’d check out some of the players I try and stay away from. I thought I could pick up some information that could help my game a little. Open my eyes to something that could get me that precious EV I'm searching for. Well I found something alright. I looked at a player I thought was good, we'll call him CHIP. I played 10 games with him over a 500 span. He was in the negative, but that wasn't interesting. He obviously can't be judged by that. So I thought I'd look at the hands he's been playing. I saw him playing K10 UTG for a raise, full table level 2. I saw him bluffing every street on hands and pissing away chips. I saw him actually play 610s in middle position for a raise OOP on level 3!!! My eyes squinted as I looked at this. Is this the guy I thought was so good???? It can't be.

See like I said, I play MY cards, MY situations, and MY position, so much in online SNGs. I also 8 table. I also think a lot of us are on Auto Pilot a lot of the time. This isn't a good combination for noticing patterns, tendencies and personalities. The guy I thought was on the avoid list is a freaking FISH!!! And the program I just shook my head at for the past year, had it all there in black and white. We judge people by what we see, and I now realize I don't see much. So I may be playing all the time with people that I should be avoiding, and obviously visa versa.

From now on, I’m going to try and dedicate 1 full day a week to note taking on players entire hand history, not just the hands that I see and remember. I actually feel that doing this will make me 30% of the money I would have made, had I played cards instead. I will become better at playing the person with accurate notes. And hopefully I'll find some of that illusive extra EV before long.