Note Taking In Tournament Poker

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One of the most beneficial ways to evaluate opponents, track valuable hand histories, and record a player's general knowledge of tournament poker is through keeping detailed and organized notes.  This article will provide tournament players with an easy to use, but very advantageous note taking system that will highlight the most important statistics, how to effectively use outside sources, and other notable ideas.

Color Coding

Color coding players may seem a bit simplistic, however, it creates the foundation of an organized system that will allow easy exploitation of your opponents.  Most online websites now have a minimum of ten or fifteen different color options when creating notes on players making it simple to divide individuals by their general style of play.  Here is a suggestion of how to color code by knowledge, results, and frequency of play with an explanation of each:

Red: Top Player

Players ranked in the red category would be those individuals that are consistently the most profitable and most knowledgeable tournament players in the world.  In addition, also included in this category would be those individuals who display the highest levels of game theory and strategies even though they are not regular tournament players.

Pink: Solid Regular

Individuals ranked in the pink category would be those players who are high rated winning players that regularly frequent the notable online tournaments.  These players are often times very difficult to exploit and are always improving and changing their game.

Purple: Profitable Player

 Players that qualify under the purple category are those individuals who have a decent concept of poker strategies and show a consistent winning history.  Often times these players will be "grinders" who don't necessarily play in the biggest tournaments, but will play a large amount of tournaments overall.  These players will often be members of training websites that will allow them to be up on all of the new strategic concepts.

Orange: Break-Even / Losing Player

Members that fall into the orange grouping are part of the largest category which includes players that lack tournament poker profit and often times are more recreational or hobby players rather than professionals.  These players may have some general knowledge, but don't understand many tournament poker strategies.  In addition, players that fall into this category don't frequent training websites or study their game.

Green: Lacking All Poker Related Intellect

The final category of players are those who lack any real conception of poker knowledge.  These players have no real theory behind their plays and therefore are often very unpredictable.  If they have any history of play they will most likely have minimal cashes.

Statistics

After the groundwork of note taking is accomplished through color coding opponents, the next thing to add to the tournament player notes is their statistics.  In addition to using a poker tracking software with a HUD, there are a few more statistics that will help understand the range of knowledge of an individual.  Many of these can be found by searching through different databases (http://www.officialpokerrankings.com/, http://www.sharkscope.com/).  Three statistics that can allow for a quick understanding of the players history are; total number of tournaments played, average buy-in, return on investment; abbreviated TTP, ABI, and ROI respectfully.  These notes will also help in determining if a player is recreational hobbyist or a regular professional.  It should be noted that the three statistics (TTP, ABI, ROI) should be used all together to form a general idea of how good a player is.  Because of the high variance within tournament poker often times not taking all three statistics into consideration together can cause skewed findings.  These databases will have a list of the players total cashes as well as their highest winning tournament results.  This can also be helpful in determining a player's ability as well.

Additional Notes

The last few important details to add to individual's notes include; their style of play, important hand histories, training site affiliation, and updating notes.  Style is easliy broken down into a few different segments; TAG (tight aggressive), LAG (loose aggressive), TP (tight passive), and LP (loose passive).  Also included in this should be CS (calling stations).  All of these notes, although simple, can help optimize play against specific opponents.  Important or unusual hand histories should also be included in the notes of players that frequent similar games.  For example, if an individual is someone you are involved in several tournaments with on a weekly basis it would be helpful to include specific notes.  These may include, but are not limited to; the ability to three barrel bluff, likes to three bet from the blinds or the button, will check raise bluff the river, willingness to call down weakly against certain opponents, lack of understanding a particular concept, and unique hand ranges from specific positions. 

Often times it can be beneficial to note players that you recognize from training websites or other poker communities as well.   Make note of hand histories players post on forums and what type of questions they are asking.  These notes can give a huge advantage to players who gain information about a player without them knowing.  The last thing to consider about note taking on tournament players is to make sure to update your notes often as players are always changing and simple changes to their game can cause outdated notes to lead to unprofitable plays.  Adding dates to all of the notes recorded can help eliminate this.