Player Notes

Great poker players can size up their opponents and quickly deduce what kind of player they are; excellent poker players take notes after they”ve figured out what kind of player their opponent is so that they know immediately what kind of player they are the next time they”re seated at the same table. Some players bring notepads with them to live games to jot down notes about their adversaries, but these players aren”t too common. It”s done much easier online than in live play as most online poker sites have the ability to quickly and effortlessly take player notes right from the poker table

When you jot down a note about a player online, their username is flagged, so to speak, so that the next time you”re both at the same table, you”ll be able to readily see that you”ve taken a note about that player. Sites like PokerStars.com are so popular that you might think you”ll never play the same person twice. While this is mostly true for low-stakes, free-money tables, if you”re playing in high-stakes, real-money tables, even at a site as big and popular as PokerStars.com, you might indeed encounter the same player twice, so it”s a good idea to make a quick note about their playing style (especially when a lot of money is at stake!).

Poker is a game of deceit and trying to figure out the missing information (your opponents” hole cards, for example), so any added information you can use is to your benefit – including notes you make about other players. You can observe a table you”re interested in joining and make notes prior to taking a seat so you know how to best play your competition.

What should you be looking for and what kind of notes should you take? Pay attention to their playing style; what kind of good or bad decisions they make; timing tells (how long it takes to respond when it”s their turn); behavioural patterns; betting habits; how often they call and how strong a hand they”ll play; and whether or not they have the discipline to fold when necessary, to name a few things to look out for. Another is to keep your eyes open for (and take note of) check-raisers (if you”re playing in a Limit game, this is especially important to know so that you don”t get caught putting more chips into the pot when the check-raiser initially checked as you”d have folded if they had raised to begin with); players who bluff a lot; really tight players; and players who are multi-tablers (they play more than one game at a time).

Multi-tablers are too busy playing multiple games that their poker strategy is rather straightforward and not too sophisticated - they need to make quick, basic decisions when the action comes to them and aren”t likely to call a strong raise (even if it appears the raiser is bluffing, which the multi-tabler probably won”t recognize). You can do a player search and the results will let you know how many games that person is currently playing. Knowing that these players have created a situation where they can”t play as effectively allows you to exploit that weakness: trapping or bluffing those people is a lot easier than it is with people only playing one game, and by taking player notes, you”ll know right away (and can double-check by doing the previously mentioned player search) that you”re playing against a multi-tabler.

Start taking notes as soon as you begin playing poker online so that the information you enter is available to you later when you encounter those players again. Each site is different in how they allow to you take notes, but they”re usually set up so that all you have to do is right-click on the player and an option comes up to take notes, or there might be a dedicated tab on the chat box (or elsewhere on the poker table interface) that you click that brings up every player at the table with the option to leave a note by their name.

If being the best player you can possibly be is important to you, taking player notes is imperative to making this happen, so make sure to play at a site with player notes functionality, such as PokerStars.com, UltimateBet.com and AbsolutePoker.com.

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