A situation with note taking ...

Date: Fri, Jan 25, 2008 Professional Internet

I was doing a video review for one of my students playing 3-tables of 100NL when the following hand came up:

There is a raise from MP to $4.50, CO thinks for a while and 3-bets to $10.00 and we have 55 in the BB. Easy fold for us. MP (who is currently playing 13/10) makes it $36 straight and the CO thinks, thinks, thinks, and finally calls.

The flop comes 63Q with two hearts and MP shoves. CO snap calls with AhAc and MP shows 8h8d.

Now, my student makes the following note:

“Called 3-bet with 88 and shoved Qxx flop.”

This isn’t quite accurate as the MP player actually 4-bet pre-flop and then had less than a PSB left and shoved with only one overcard. But … there was one crucial piece of info my student missed which I feel made a huge difference. He didn’t pick up on it because he had things going on at the other tables.

The CO posted out of position when he sat down. Usually, the players that sit down and post out of position are ready to gamble and get in the action. They will often defend that money they’ve posted right off the bat by calling the raise or 3-betting. Against this type of player, 4-betting a mid pocket pair is perfectly reasonable.

Personally, I would probably play for stacks with TT and AQ there vs. a random player that sat down and posted out of position. I think 88 is very marginal but I don’t mind the line the MP raiser took. He might have had a note on the player which made his decision even more correct. He simply got unlucky that the CO got dealt a premium hand right off the bat.

That said, I didn’t come away with the same analysis of the situation as my student did given that one crucial piece of information.

Fast forward a couple of orbits and my student opens AJo on the button. The 13/10 guy who got stacked with 88 now 3-bets us to $14 and my student notes that “given that he’s called down with 8’s, I could well be ahead of … I don’t see what he’s doing this with. Given his tendencies of 4-betting, I am often going to be ahead here.” He does the correct thing by folding though.

So … what’s the point of these two hands? It’s really important to make detailed notes about what you see. If you don’t, your notes could actually be harmful to you in the long run as they will give you an inaccurate perception of your opposition and you will play incorrectly against them.

Very few beginners take notes. Marginal winners make marginal notes. Very good players take and make very specific and relevant notes. Let’s examine three different notes we could have take on that specific play:

“Aggro donk”

“Plays for stacks with 88 pre-flop”

“4-bets 88 pre-flop and shoves Q high flop”

“100NL: 4-bets 88 BIG from MP to CO OOP poster’s min 3-bet, shoves Q63 hh board.”

The first two of these notes can do you more harm that good. The last note is the most specific and will give you the most insight into this player. It also states the limit at which you saw the play. Some players will play at 50NL much different than at 400NL. Be sure to note where you saw this tendency (this is something I’ve picked up from Dice14).

In today’s games, which are getting tougher and tougher, you need more of an edge in order go be a winner. Making good, detailed notes might be one of those edges that separate you from your opponent. Using Tommy Angelo’s vocab, this will cause theoretical money to start flowing from your opponents to you. Anytime this happens, you win.

A new blog!

Also my good buddy bertkc finally got a blog (do a member search to find it). He crushes some of the games when he plays but he sometimes is prone to tilting. Knowing him, I laughed pretty hard when I read it the first two entries.

Bert is one of the people in the new 50NL video we're going to put out. When on his A-game, he's not fun at all to play against. He puts a lot of pressure on you, reads hands very well, and plays with a lot of imagination.

We were reviewing one of the hands where bert opens the button with A4o and princess donk 3-bets A5 from the SB. Bert calls and the flop comes TJ9r. The flop goes check/check. The turn is an 8, PD checks, bert bets and takes it down. I asked him what his reasoning for calling pre-flop was and he replied "I hate folding".