Continued from Part I…

Sometimes one of the easiest ways to self reflect is to focus on a few key hands from your tournaments. Luckily enough they are likely easy to remember. As we stated you want to look at the hands that set-up or influenced your knock-out hands and to track the specifics of those knock out hands because you can glean a lot from just a little information tracked over time. Just put a notepad next to your computer the next time you decided to play Texas Hold’em poker online or throw one into your pocket when you head into the casino and track a few important details.

It’s so little, it won’t even feel like work, and we know poker players hate to work. If only homework in high-school was tracking three or four pieces of information–everybody would have gotten straight As. So don’t be shy we aren’t sending you to bwin poker school yet.

You want to determine if your playing strategy is correct by comparing a wide range of knockout hands and the hands that set up those knock-out hands. Are you playing too loose, too tight, too passive, or too aggressive? You’d be surprised that just by tracking one or two hands from a tournament but from every tournament you play how much you can learn.

Mapping out you hands let your chip stack be your guide. How many big blinds did you have in it? If you are in the critical zone less than 10 big blinds (meaning can your stack can buy less than 10 big blinds)ask how did you get there? Did you suffer a brutal beat a few hands before? Did you blind down to 10 big blinds just waiting for a big hand that never came?

If you have a history of getting into big pots with a big stack and then getting it in when you are short, that’s entirely different than just waiting for hands. The first could be a sign of playing too loose the second means you are too tight. You need to also track at what stage of the tournament you are busting out. If it keeps happening early you are definitely playing too loose. If you are mixing it up in the middle to late stages of the tournament than perhaps you are just taking your licks. Somebody has to win the tournament and unfortunately that means everybody else has to get clobbered some way or another.

Next, you want to take into account the hand strengths of all the hands you hit busto with. There are a lot of players who think they play better than all their opponents simply because they always get it in with the best hand. And while, it’s good to know when you are ahead it’s also bad to only take risks and bet when you are sure you are best. Of course, the best hand doesn’t always win, and even if you are holding it you better be prepared to absorb some blows. If you haven’t accumulated enough chips to do so, shame on you.

The converse is also true and a learning opportunity if you notice a consistent pattern of getting sent to the rail with the second best hand, you are playing too loose. You want to be aggressive and win hands when you don’t have the goods, but don’t think you have to win every hand. Bluffs and bold plays are part of poker but not the only part of poker. Sure poker is often times about courage and bravery but never forget sometimes the better part of valour is discretion.

Anyway, that’s a quick and easy guide to track your success or lack of it in tournament poker. How many chips did you have right before you had none, how did you get to that size stack, and what’s the quality of your bust-out hands (and/or hands that contributed to your bust out hands).

Good luck on the felt.