How to Review a Poker Hand, Even When You Won

This page gives you a worksheet you can copy or print, then fills it in twice: once for a correct call that lost, and once for a loose chase that won. The second one matters more. Nobody reviews the pots they drag, and that's where the expensive habits hide.

One question: "Did I make a reasonable decision with the information available, or did I simply like the result?" That line comes from our page on practicing against computers vs humans, and it's the whole method in one sentence.

Judging by results is called results oriented thinking, and it's the most common way a poker review goes wrong. The cards after your decision are random. Your decision isn't. So a review freezes the hand at the moment you acted, lists what you knew, prices your options, and only then looks at how it turned out.

Nine rows plus a game-specific row 2b, one decision per sheet. Copy the table into a note or print it, and fill it in from the top so the verdict comes last.

Row 2b is the only row that changes by game. For stud games, exposed cards change your outs and your opponent's, so list every one you saw. In 2-7 Triple Draw, how many cards each player drew is the main information you have. In the split games, write your high and your low on separate lines so you don't count a hand twice.

Row 4 counts cost in bets rather than chips. In fixed-limit games every decision costs one small or one big bet, and a call on the turn usually commits you to a river bet too. Writing "1 big bet now, probably 2" is more honest than "20 chips".

Fill rows 1 to 6 before you look at row 7. If you already know what the opponent held, write rows 1 to 6 as if you didn't, then check yourself for hindsight when you reach row 8.

The hand: 10/20 Limit Hold'em, 6-max, blinds 5 and 10. The hero is in the big blind with the ace and six of spades.

A♠ 6♠

Preflop, the player under the gun raises to 20, the next two fold, the button calls, the small blind calls, and the hero calls. Four players, pot 80.

Flop

K♠ 9♠ 3♦

The small blind checks, the hero checks, UTG bets 10, the button calls, the small blind folds. The pot is 100 and it costs 10 to call, 10 to 1. The hero has the nut flush draw: nine spades left among 47 unseen cards, about 4.2 to 1 against on the next card. The hero calls. Pot 110.

Turn

K♠ 9♠ 3♦ 8♣

The hero checks. UTG bets 20, the button folds. Pot 130, 20 to call. This is the decision we'll review.

River

K♠ 9♠ 3♦ 8♣ Q♦

The hero called the turn, missed, and checked. UTG checked behind and showed a pair of tens.

10♦ 10♣

UTG wins 150 with tens. The hero loses 50 in the hand with ace high.

The filled-in worksheet

Notice what row 7 did and didn't do. It added information (three extra outs), but the verdict in row 8 was already settled by rows 4 and 5. A loss on a 6.5 to 1 price against 4.1 to 1 odds is a loss you should want to keep taking.

The hand: 10/20 Razz, six players, ante 1, bring-in 3. The hero starts with a strong three cards.

6♥ 2♠ 4♦

The other door cards are the K♦, J♣, 9♠, Q♥, and the villain's 3♣. The K♦, the highest door card, brings it in for 3. The J♣ folds. The hero completes to 10. The 9♠ folds. The villain raises to 20 showing the three of clubs. The Q♥ and the K♦ fold, and the hero calls. Pot 49.

Folded door cards

K♦ J♣ 9♠ Q♥

Fourth street: the hero catches the 4♥ and pairs. The villain catches the 7♦. The villain's 7-3 is the lower board, so he acts first and bets 10. The hero calls with 6-4-2 and a pair. Pot 69.

Fifth street: the hero catches the T♠. The villain catches the 8♣.

Hero on fifth street

6♥ 2♠ 4♦ 4♥ 10♠

Villain's board on fifth street

3♣ 7♦ 8♣

The villain bets 20 into 69. Pot 89, 20 to call. This is the decision we'll review. The hero calls. Pot 109.

Sixth street: the hero catches the A♦, the villain catches the J♥. The villain still shows the lower board, bets 20, and the hero, now holding a four-card 6-4-2-A, calls. Pot 149.

Seventh street: the hero catches the 5♣ face down for 6-5-4-2-A. The villain catches the K♣, bets 20, the hero raises to 40, the villain calls. Pot 229.

Hero at showdown

6♥ 2♠ 4♦ 4♥ 10♠ A♦ 5♣

Villain at showdown

A♠ 5♥ 3♣ 7♦ 8♣ J♥ K♣

The hero's 6-5-4-2-A beats the villain's 8-7-5-3-A and wins 229. Now the review.

The filled-in worksheet

Why the win doesn't make it right

Replay fifth street a hundred times. About 15 of those times the hero catches two good cards; some of those still lose to the villain's own improvement. The other 85 times the hero either folds sixth street or pays 20 more to miss again. The pot paid 4.45 to 1 on a shot that was worse than 5.8 to 1. That's a losing call on average, and the 229 chips are one sample from the lucky 15.

The review also separates streets. Once the hero had a four-card 6-4-2-A on sixth, 13 of 38 unseen cards made an eight or better, 1.9 to 1 against with the pot offering 6.45 to 1. The sixth-street call was right. Fifth street was the leak, and it's the one the hero would never have examined after winning the pot.

Four habits turn a review into a story about the result.

Hindsight. Once you've seen the villain's T-T or A-5, it's hard to remember you didn't know it. Fill rows 1 to 6 before row 7, and if you can't, ask yourself what the opponent's range looked like before the showdown, not after.

Only reviewing losses. Losses feel like mistakes and wins feel like skill. Half of that is wrong. The Razz hand above is the kind nobody reviews, and it's the kind that costs the most over a year.

Reviewing too many hands. Twenty shallow reviews teach less than two careful ones. Pick a couple per session and fill in every row.

Judging by one sample. One hand, won or lost, says almost nothing about a decision. The verdict comes from the price and the odds, which you can calculate, not from the outcome, which you can only observe.

Pick two or three per session from these groups, and make sure at least one is a hand you won.

• Big pots. Any pot that was capped on a street, or where you put in more than four big bets.
• Close decisions. Any spot where you paused, or where the price was within a bet of the odds.
• Hands where you felt unsure, including the ones that turned out fine. Unsure is the signal; the result is noise.
• Hands in the game you know least. In a rotation, that's usually the one you're relieved to see end.

Rotations give you an extra reason to write things down. In the app, a HORSE, TORSE or THORSE rotation switches game every 6 hands, so the hand you want to review is often from a game that's already gone. Note the game in row 1 while it's fresh.

Mix Poker has graded reviews of your matches. The worksheet works alongside them or on its own: use it for the one or two decisions you want to think through by hand, in any game, at any stakes, against anyone.

Every opponent in the app is a computer opponent, which makes it a good place to practice reviewing. You can play the same type of spot many times, and nothing is lost but practice chips. The seven-day practice plan gives you a schedule to attach the review step to, and how to train with Mixed Poker Coaching covers the rest of the routine.