Why you're reviewing the wrong hand histories

Do you know the hand histories I get sent the most? The 0 EV river bluff catching decisions for stacks.

There's a massive emotional cost to these hands. You lose a big pot because you made a river call with a bluff catcher and you're searching for comfort that the decision you made was the right one. So you tag these hands for review, you look them up in the solver, you send them to your study group and your coach and you try to get feedback.

It isn't that reviewing these hands is a mistake to make. It's that prioritising these hands for review causes you to ignore the ones that matter more to your win-rate.

The aggregation of marginal gains

There's a famous British cycling coach called Dave Brailsford. He's renowned as being the guy that propelled British cycling from years of mediocrity to being a powerhouse nation across the sport. And his philosophy revolved around "the aggregation of marginal gains". And I think this applies to poker.

This is the idea that by searching for small improvements in everything that you do that when it all comes together you will see a significant increase in performance. For Brailsford and team GB, this looked like redesigning bike seats and altering the tyres. For you as poker players, this looks like focussing on the spots that no one pays attention to.

How to review poker hands: the ones you should be tagging

You play a SB v BB SRP that checks down to the river? Get that hand tagged for review. You open 88 from EP and get called by the BB, the flop comes AJ4tt, you check back and then fold to a turn overbet probe. Get that hand tagged for review.

These are the hands that happen often and matter more than you think because you're leaking small amounts of EV every time you play these seemingly inconsequential spots. And these spots happen over and over again in your sessions. Far more than your emotional, 0EV bluff catch call for stacks.

I think there's a lot of beauty in these small pots. It's a test of your concentration and your ability to find aggression when no one else does. When we analyse data in poker, people have become very adept at finding aggression in common lines. You look at triple barrel statistics in 3B pots and people are very close to the equilibrium. But you look at river betting frequency in a BTN v BB SRP that's checked through to the river? People are a million miles away.

And a lot of this is because people aren't in the solver looking at these spots. They aren't focussed on what their delay cbet range construction looks like with their value. They aren't looking to see what hands become bluffs in these lines. They're just not looking because the spots mean nothing to them emotionally. And this is where you can build an edge.

Try this for a month

So next time you tag some hand histories to review, I'd encourage you to do the opposite of what you normally would. Review every hand you play where the pot is less than 15bbs when all is said and done. And don't touch the solver with any pot that goes above that threshold. Do that for a month and then see how your understanding of these spots and the game improves as a whole. I promise that you won't be disappointed.