Making Notes

A great advantage that on line poker rooms offers that you can not get or use at a live table is the NOTES feature. This is one of the must unused and misused features on line poker sites offer. When you sit at a table there are buttons on your screen that offer a variety of options.

I am certainly not saying that all options are good or that they are even used in the manner that they were intended but the notes feature is simple and easy to use yet for the most part ignored. What it does is allow you to make short notes on players so that you can refer to them later. Almost all sites have them for each player at the table and the notes are filed so that even if you don’t sit at the table with a player you made a note on for 6 months, the note would still be there.

The majority of the notes programs will place a small icon around the name of the player so that you can easily see that you have taken a note on them. It can be anything from an to a squiggly line. This is a great feature for you because it can help you remember a player’s style and tendencies along with any tells you think you have picked up on. It also, and this is important, reminds you of who the “mocking birds” are. The players that come in sit down and talk trash to through a game out of whack. It is best to not sit at a table with someone like this.

Consider the note feature to be a small personal note book that helps you remember things not just about the other players but the changes you need to make in your own style to effectively play against them. Information about the competition is very important in poker and the note feature gives you a big advantage if you use it correctly.

Do not be quick in making notes, just because a player bluffed once or twice doesn’t mean to note him as a bluffer. You must first study the players and the game being played at the table. After a while you will pick up on certain things that stay consistent and that are what you want to write down. You also want to make notes about players you prefer to play with. Like I said, it could be 6 months in the future and you can’t remember exactly who the other player is.

As important as it is to make notes about players and their style of play, it is at least equally important to erase notes that don’t seem to apply anymore. Perhaps you played 3 or 4 hours with someone and they where loose or only played when they had pockets. Yu made that note but in a few weeks you played them again and they where playing a bit more tight and not only with pockets but face cards. Make a new note. You don’t even have to erase the former note just yet but add to it so that you know the game they are playing is different than it was.

If you are giving a feature that can help you, take advantage of it. Learn how to use it, when to use it, and know why you are using it. Study the features of a site just like you are studying the game of poker it’s self. Poker is still growing faster than anyone can keep up with so take every legal advantage you can.