One of the oldest sayings in the book is that some people never learn from their mistakes. And this saying certainly applies to poker since most of the losing players are classic examples of people who never learn from their mistakes. In fact, the majority of losing players are the same people who won’t even go back to review their previous poker sessions which means they’re doomed to repeat their mistakes.
But you can easily overcome this problem by using your previous playing sessions to improve your overall play. Of course you will actually have to pay attention during most, or all, of your playing sessions in order to accomplish this feat. So this means you should be observing opponents during your sessions as well as reviewing your own play frequently too.
Today’s online game makes this easier to do since there is software available that will track playing sessions and allow one to review everything later on. Of course not everybody likes to use this software though, and it is of little use during live sessions. So regardless of whether you use software or not, you should be looking for certain things during your play.
For example, you need to really pay attention to situations that arise in games such as your opponents’ bluffs, tells, pre-flop betting patterns, skill levels, tight or aggressive play, etc. Once you start mixing in observations of other players in with your playing session reviews then you can really start to become a better poker player.
The key is to start with your own play first and use that as a starting point to begin fixing everything else. When your own play is rock solid then you can really get a better feel for how everyone else at the table plays.
