Have you ever wished you could go back in time and give advice to your younger self? Sadly, time doesn’t work that way – but you can help your future self by looking at the past. Professional athletes across all sports are always “studying the tape” to see what just happened, so they can adjust and hopefully take advantage when play resumes.
Professional poker players are no exception. This mind sport is a game of skill, and the top pros can often be found reviewing their Texas Hold’em hand histories when they’re not at the tables.
This is where we separate the pros from the Joes. Whether you’re a beginner, an intermediate player or on the cusp of poker greatness, if you care about improving your poker results, hand histories are a must. That’s why we’ve included a special feature here at Bodog Poker that allows you to download and view your previous hands. You’ll even be able to see what hole cards your opponents had.
Why Analyzing Hand Histories Is Crucial for Texas Hold’em
It’s difficult to overstate just how valuable this information is. To ensure everyone’s safety, you have to wait 24 hours before you can access the hand history for the game you’re playing; that way, you don’t have to worry about anyone seeing your hole cards while the hand is in progress, or using that information against you while the game is still running.
Let’s take a closer look at the advantages you gain from studying your hand histories at Bodog:
Learning From Your Mistakes
This is easily the most important thing for your poker development. You can pick up on a lot of things at the tables if you pay attention – even our anonymous Texas Hold’em poker tables here at Bodog – but unless you’re a savant, you’re not going to remember everything that happened. There’s just too much going on during a hand, especially if you’re multi-tabling and/or playing Zone Poker, our fast-fold game.
Your hand history will keep all that pertinent information stored away for you to access when you’re ready. Then you’ll be able to see where you messed up; maybe you didn’t recognize that your opponent was short-stacked, or that you lost the hand because you got “counterfeited” on the turn. You can even use this information to discover more general mistakes that you’re making, like over-valuing marginal hands or mis-reading your opponents.
Spotting Patterns in Your Play
The key to identifying those common mistakes is to look at your Texas Hold’em hands in bulk. Some errors are easy to spot; others are more subtle, only revealing themselves after hundreds, thousands or even millions of hands. You can use database programs like PokerTracker 4 to compile and analyze your Bodog hand histories – although you won’t be able to track hands or run the HUD (Heads-Up Display) in real-time while you’re playing at the anonymous tables.
As a general rule, the bigger the mistake you’re making, the fewer hands you’ll need to identify that pattern. Something as simple as opening too often can become obvious after 100 hands, which should only take you a bit over an hour of play if you’re at a single six-max cash table. Finding these patterns and correcting them early will save you from making more expensive mistakes down the road.
Understanding Opponent Behaviour
While you’re weeding out the mistakes in your own poker strategy, you can also use your hand histories to identify your opponents’ behaviour patterns. Are they too tight or too loose? You’ll only be able to glean so much information from our anonymous tables. This isn’t like the old days when you could track a specific username over thousands of hands and uncover specific weaknesses in their game. But you can still learn something about the larger player pool and their tendencies, and you can use this information to exploit your future opponents at Bodog Poker.
How to Analyze Texas Hold’em Hand Histories
All this talk about databases and hand analysis might seem a bit mundane, but if you love the game of poker, you’ll probably enjoy the work you put in away from the tables. Having the right tools for the job is the first step. Then you need to use them correctly, so you don’t misinterpret the data and compound the mistakes you’re making.
Using Online Poker Tools and Software
If you’ve been playing poker for a while, there’s a good chance you already use PokerTracker 4 or Hold’em Manager 3 – or maybe an open-source option like fpdb. These poker programs used to be everywhere, giving pros and would-be pros a major advantage over recreational players, at least until Bodog made the switch to anonymous tables in 2011.
You can still use those tracking programs to analyze your hands. We have our own Hand History Viewer that you can use here at Bodog Poker; this is fantastic for looking at individual hands, but if you want to reveal those behaviour patterns that only show up over time, download your Bodog hand history, import that file into one of these trackers by following their given instructions, and see what numbers come up.
Key Metrics to Focus On
Following what we said earlier about the biggest mistakes being the easiest to spot, the first number you’re looking for with your hand analysis is VPIP: Voluntarily Put In Pot. This stat records every time your opponent willingly put in chips pre-flop, so blinds don’t count. If you play 100 hands of poker at a six-max table and enter the pot 50 times or more, you’re probably too loose; 10 or fewer, and you’re probably too tight.
Once upon a time, pro players focussed on the Big Three stats: VPIP, PFR (Pre-Flop Raise), and AF (Aggression Factor). That last number, which divides the number of bets and raises you make by the number of calls, has fallen out of favour in recent years, but an AF of 3 is considered average for six-max tables and can be a useful quick-and-dirty metric for gauging how aggressive or passive you are.
PFR is still a very important part of the Big Two for poker stats. So much of modern poker strategy is predicated on how often you should open-raise from each seat at the table with a certain bet size. Maybe you’re already aware you “should” open-raise something like 18% of hands at a six-max table; combine that with a 25% VPIP, and you get the magical 25/18 balanced player that other poker pros avoid tangling with.
Poker trackers also record VPIP and PFR by seat position, which again becomes very useful once you have about 100 hands to work with from each seat at the table. If you have a PFR of 10% from the cut-off, your opening range is roughly pocket Fives or higher, and Ace-Ten or higher. That’s way too tight if you’re trying to play optimally.
There are even more granular poker stats you can compile, like WTSD (Went To ShowDown percentage) and FCB (Flop Continuation Bet percentage), but since you’re playing anonymous poker at Bodog, you’ll only get enough of a sample size for these metrics to analyze your own play rather than your opponents at large.
Breaking Down Key Hands
Now that we’ve told you all about poker trackers, here’s a dirty secret: They’re like training wheels that you can cast off once you’ve got a good sense of what poker balance is all about. Many pro players were already abandoning their HUDs before the dawn of anonymous poker, choosing instead to analyze individual hands of note whenever something interesting happened.
This is easy enough to do. Say you were playing the Main Event at the Golden Spade Poker Open, and you were the short stack at the final table with 25 big blinds and Ace-King offsuit in early position. You opened 2bb, the button raised to 5bb, everyone else folded… and you gave it some serious thought before jamming. Was it the right play?
Using our Hand History Viewer can help you decide. You’ll see exactly how many chips each person had at the table, and what the payouts were for each finishing position as you move up the ladder. You can also review the hand from the beginning to catch any details you may have missed – like the big blind actually having a shorter stack than yours.
If you’re especially keen, you can even take all that information and plug it into a poker program like ICMIZER 3, which will then generate what it believes to be the optimal play. Perhaps it will tell you that Ace-King suited would have been okay to shove here, but not AKo. There’s always more to take into consideration than just the GTO (Game-Theory Optimal) play, but if you handle these programs with care, they’ll inform your play and help to improve your results.
Common Mistakes Players Discover when Analyzing Texas Hold’em Hands
Now that you know how to use the Hand History Viewer at Bodog Poker and how to analyze your hands to find betting patterns that stick out, here are the most common poker mistakes you should be looking for:
Playing Too Many Hands
This is by far the biggest mistake most beginners make. People just don’t like folding; it’s the most boring play in poker, but it’s often the right play. You’ll see it in their VPIP numbers after 100 hands, although you can start treating these opponents suspiciously after just 30 hands or so. If this is you, stick with stronger opening hands, especially if you’re first to act at a six-max or full ring table.
Mismanaging Pot Odds and Implied Odds
Whether a poker play is “correct” or not depends primarily on your chances of winning the pot, and how big the bets are. Tied in with our first big mistake, players often chase draws by calling despite not having the pot odds to make it profitable. Your hand history will provide all the numbers you need to make the right calculations.
Beginners also tend to ignore the “implied odds” aspect when making their calculations, overlooking the amount of money their opponents are likely to put in the pot on future streets should certain cards hit the board. If you don’t have something sneaky to work with like a double inside straight draw, your opponent might shy away from adding chips when they see too many connected cards out there. Always consider this while doing your reviews. It could make the difference between a smart play and a blunder.
Ignoring Position and Table Dynamics
What seems like a mistake in poker may actually be correct. That 50% guideline we gave earlier for identifying loose play? That’s roughly how often you should open-raise from the button in a typical six-max or full-ring cash game. Early or late position makes a big difference when it comes to VPIP and PFR. Then you have to adjust accordingly to those table dynamics once you’ve identified them. If your opponents are loose, tighten up in general, and vice versa.
Advanced Texas Hold’em Strategies for Analyzing Hand Histories
To get the most out of your hand history reviews, categorize them by situation. Look at bluffing scenarios, all-in shoves and calls, and key showdowns to see what behaviour patterns emerge. This will give you more specific information that you can use to your advantage when these same situations come up again.
You can even hire a poker coach or join an online community that will help you analyze your hands and point out anything you may have missed on your own. But whatever you do, try to make hand history review part of your regular poker routine – the more this becomes second nature, the happier you’ll be with your process.
Play Texas Hold’em Poker at Bodog
There’s always more to talk about when it comes to playing poker online, but for now, you’re up to speed on the Hand History feature here at Bodog Poker. You know how useful it can be to improve your game, even at the anonymous tables. The next step is to put in the volume, which you can do by playing at the Zone Poker tables.
While you’re taking advantage of our Hand History feature, don’t forget to visit our Promotions page to see all of the different bonus offers we have waiting for you – including our 100% Poker Welcome Bonus for up to $1,000 in free money. The more you play, the more you’ll earn, and the more you’ll learn on your road to poker greatness here at Bodog. Still feel like you could do with a helping hand? Our Texas Hold’em rules, strategies and tips blog will be your best friend.