Poker Hand Analysis -I

Experience is a great teacher, but it is not the only one. Most good poker players did not get that way simply by playing. Reading strategy books and articles, discussing play with others (preferably good players), and carefully analyzing hands you’ve played, are just a few of the ways to improve your poker game.

Analyzing Poker Hands

Analyzing a poker hand is not necessarily a simple task, but like everything else, it becomes easier with a little experience. On the basic level, if you have A K on a board of QQJJ10, you could say wow, a straight, and go crazy, but the simple truth is that on that board, a flush, a full house, quads, and even a royal flush are easy to make, and you are probably behind here.

Using Online Poker Hand Histories

Studying poker hands you have played is especially simple if you are playing online poker, since complete hand histories are available with a click or two. Some poker sites have “instant hand history” or “previous hand” access right on the table.

A good idea is to open that up right after an interesting or tricky hand happens, copy the text of the hand history, and paste it into a word processing program, even a simple one like Notepad. The hand histories will then be available for study later.

Note that you should do this even for hands you were not involved in, if there was a showdown so you can see how it was played out. Any big win, big loss, or tough decision qualifies for later study. As you advance your play and obtain a tracking software, you can find such hands with filters in the software away from the table.

10 Important steps for effective poker hand analysis:

1. Step one of a hand analysis is not found in the hand history. It is understanding the metagame. This means the current style and attitude of the table as a whole, and of each specific player. Have there been a lot of big pots lately? Is there lots of preflop raising?

Are there any players that are running hot (or running over the table)? Has one player been weak-tight and suddenly woke up betting and raising? If you believe it will be some time before you study that hand, make some quick notes in your word processor like “crazy table, villain was a rock.”

2. Note specific reads on any of the players who got involved in the hand. Were any of them regularly limping in? Did one of them seem very aggressive? What strength hands did they generally tend to show down? How often did each of them raise preflop? Do any of them regularly raise from late position when they are first in the pot?

3. Look at the stacks. If a small stack was involved, had they just lost a big pot and not reloaded yet, or did they seem oblivious and were gradually getting worn down by the table?

In a cash game, a player who doesn’t reload might be playing on a short bankroll. In a tournament, a short stack that feels desperate tends to push all in with relatively weak hands. If you folded a middle pair against that, you probably made a mistake.