When you are playing poker in a casino it is not completely possible to be anonymous. However, when you play at a poker website, anonymity is one of the selling points of the online game. All we see online are little icons representing the online players ¬– many with similar sounding or extremely non-descript names. When you are a regular online player racking up many hours on your favourite poker website, you end up playing against thousands of players from literally all over the world, playing at all hours of the day and night, and all at the same time. This is when making player notes offers an ideal way to keep track of all your online opponents.
For most people, the players worth noting are those who are the best players or the slight wacky, and therefore, memorable ones. There is really no need to make player notes about online opponents that leave no lasting impression or who you may never play against again. But strong online players and the ones from the other side of the spectrum come in much smaller numbers. Start a two-part section of player notes, divided between the strong opponents and the memorable ones, and then divide them again with reference to the poker website that they play on.
Depending on the game you play, you might also want to keep track of other player categories, such as habitual bluffers for instance. Most poker websites keep this kind of player tracking easy by including a “notes” feature where you can click on an opponent’s icon and immediately make notes about that player that will be permanently stored on your computer.
Any words that help you remember the player are acceptable, but here is a standard list of words that should be used in any successful player notes: tricky, good, ok, poor, tight/semi, tight/loose, maniac, solid, caller and passive. In terms of keeping track of the way they bet, words such as draw, top pair, weak kicker, mid pair, low pair and trips are usually helpful.
There is really no right or wrong way to keep track of the poker players that you meet in an online game. Develop your own way of taking player notes and you can’t go wrong.
