How to Review Hands: A Required Course from Novice to Expert

Why Reviewing Hands Is So Important

Many players play thousands of hands but fail to improve because they don't systematically review their hands. Reviewing helps you:

• Find leaks: Clearly see your mistakes in every hand.
• Reinforce correct thinking: Verify that your reasoning is sound and solidify good habits.
• Identify opponent patterns: By reviewing opponents' play, find exploitable weaknesses.
• Forget bad results: Focus on decision quality, not the outcome.

Basic Concepts

• Hand history: A complete record of every hand you played, including position, board, bet sizes, and opponent actions.
• Review tools: Recommended to use poker tracking software (e.g., Hold'em Manager, PokerTracker) or simple text records. Online platforms usually offer hand history downloads.
• Decision point: The moment you make a choice in each betting round (preflop, flop, turn, river).
• Expected value (EV): Whether your decision is profitable in the long run. The core of reviewing is to evaluate the EV of each decision.

Step-by-Step Process

Step 1: Select Hands to Review

Not every hand is worth deep analysis. Prioritize:

• Hands where you lost a large pot.
• Hands where you're unsure if you played correctly.
• Hands against regulars or high-level opponents.
• Hands where you feel you made a mistake.

Step 2: Reconstruct the Action

Recall or review the hand history from start to finish, recording:

• Your position, down cards, stack depth.
• Everyone's actions preflop, flop, turn, river (raise, call, fold, etc.).
• Pot size changes.

Step 3: Ask Yourself Three Questions

1. Why did I do this? (e.g., value bet, bluff, protection, information gathering)
2. Was my action reasonable? (Compare to optimal strategy, e.g., standard ranges, sizing)
3. What other options were there? (e.g., check, larger raise, call, etc.)

Step 4: Find the "Optimal Solution"

You don't necessarily have to use GTO, but consider:

• What is the standard play against an unknown opponent?
• If the opponent has specific tendencies, is your adjustment correct?

Step 5: Take Notes and Archive

Summarize the lesson into one sentence, write it in poker notes or a spreadsheet. Example: "With top pair medium kicker on the flop, when raised, you should often check-call instead of re-raising, unless opponent has a high fold rate."

Common Mistakes

• Only reviewing losing hands, not winning ones: Winning hands can also hide mistakes; the outcome just masks the issue.
• Attributing to luck: Blaming bad beats on "coolers" and skipping analysis will miss improvement opportunities.
• Over-incorporating results in review: Proper review should be based on information at the time of decision, not the final board.
• No action change: Not applying conclusions to actual play after review is wasted effort.

Advanced Tips

• Use range evaluation tools: Such as Flopzilla, PokerCruncher, to calculate your range advantage and opponent's range on specific boards.
• Study opponent hands: When opponent shows down, recall the whole hand and think about your range from their perspective.
• Group review: Discuss with friends of similar or higher skill level to find blind spots.
• Build decision trees: Analyze key decision points, imagine "if I had done A, what would happen", compare to actual outcome.

Conclusion

Reviewing hands is a shortcut to improving your poker level. Spend 15 minutes daily reviewing 1-2 key hands for three months, and your thinking framework and decision quality will make a leap. Remember: The purpose of review is not to regret the past, but to shape better future decisions.