Analyzing Poker Hands

Most of us would like to improve our poker skills, since more skills typically translates into more money. But how can we do this? In general, players looking to improve need to analyze their hands and see where they may be going wrong.  In live poker this can be difficult to do, as you must rely purely on your memory and lots of hands may pass before you have time to sit down and analyze them. Online, however, you have the luxury of software programs that can track all your hands for you, without failure and while providing comprehensive statistics about them.

What are poker statistics?

Poker statistics are simply a way of tracking your poker hands and “measure” how you tend to behave at the poker table. Poker tracking software tools are useful for saving and compiling this information about your opponents, as it can give you information that you can use against them. But it is also helpful for compiling information about yourself.
The more you know about your tendencies in your game play, the easier it is for you to identify tendencies that could be hurting you rather than helping you. It’s about aligning your actual game to you intended poker strategy.

Example of poker statistics helping you

You may find that you are a loser over your last ten sessions and don’t understand why. You may think “I’m a tight-aggressive player, I should be winning consistently.

However when you look at your statistics over those sessions you may discover that your VP$IP percentage (voluntarily puts money in pot) is 65 percent, while your pre and post flop aggression numbers (ratio of raises-opens to calls) are below 1%. While in the game it may feel like you are folding everything and that you attack opponents frequently, but looking at the hands you’ve played in the cold light of analysis, you may discover that just the opposite was true.

Why you need to analyze your poker hands

Unfortunately, people are rarely completely honest about themselves, even to themselves. Human tendency is to attribute good things to one’s own skill and bad things to random misfortune. This reality can be death at the poker table and is the main reason why skilled poker players are able to consistently find amateurs to take money from.  This tendency can skew your impression of your style of play as well, which is where statistical analysis can help. By looking at hands that you’ve played, you’ll learn things about yourself and your game. This is where your voyage begins.