When playing poker online it is important to gain as much of an advantage over your opponents as possible. Due to the nature of online poker you obviously can’t rely on a physical tell such as a twitch or a rub of the face. However, due to the privacy of playing online you can take notes on your opposition – not something that would go down well in a bricks and mortar casino!

Taking notes by hand is fine, but all poker sites now have a feature whereby you can take notes on particular players of your choosing and the record will be stored for you. Whenever that player pops up on a table you will be able to review all your prior notes. It is clear that taking notes can be an extremely useful mechanism for attempting to gain an advantage over your fellow players, but you must plan how you record your notes otherwise they will be all but useful.

First of all you need to ensure that you date any entry you make. Over time it is highly possible that a player’s style may change or they might improve dramatically so it is important that you have a chronological record. When you take notes, try to do it objectively. To write down that pokerboy4433 is a “lucky little sh*t” won’t be of much use to you in the future. However, to write that pokerboy4433 “Frequently goes for gutshots. Seems to lack patience.” is something that can be a valuable piece of information that can be utilised in the future.

The more entries that you make for a given player, the more detailed a picture you will start to get about his general Texas Hold ’em style. Of course if a player attempts to hide his identity by regularly changing his screen identity (which is no bad idea), your notes will become useless. But typically players will either use the same poker moniker at all the poker rooms they frequent or they will just stick to their favourite online poker site. If your player notes help you to bag a monster pot or two you will soon start to see that the massive benefits of taking detailed notes will outweigh the minor inconvenience.