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More to Like About the Previous Hand Feature

by Matt Lessinger

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Last month I talked about the "previous hand" feature (PHF) that most poker sites provide. It allows you to see the action that took place in any prior hand. Specifically, I discussed how it tells you all of the called hands at showdown, regardless of whether they were actually shown. I think that is clearly the best part of the PHF, but it definitely has some other great benefits as well. Let's take a look at some of them.

1. You can see the hand in its entirety.

Sure, we learn a lot about an opponent from seeing what hands he is taking to showdown, but it's just as important to see his actions leading up to showdown. We can use the PHF not only to see what his hand was, but also to try to reconstruct his thinking throughout the hand. It gives us insight into his betting and calling patterns, his degrees of looseness and aggressiveness, and from there it doesn't take long to construct a very lucid profile of our opponent. Once we do that, we should have a much greater idea of what action to take if we find ourselves against him.

For example, if the PHF reveals that a player bet and raised all the way with bottom pair against multiple opponents, we'll know that he is extremely loose-aggressive. As a result, we'll need to call him down much more often than the average player. On the other hand, if the PHF shows that a player checked and called the whole way in a heads-up pot and then revealed pocket aces, we can assume he is extremely tight-passive. Therefore we'll be more inclined to take free cards when he allows them, rather than to seek value bets.

2. You can easily examine your own play.

Sometimes I'll lose a hand and then wonder if I should have done something differently. The PHF allows me to review my actions, and the actions of my opponents, to decide whether I misplayed the hand.

Of course, this analysis doesn't have to be limited to hands that I lose. I've won many hands in which I may have made a playing error, and I certainly review plenty of those too.

3. You can have others examine your play.

While personally reviewing your hands is critical, I think it's even more important to have unbiased eyes examining your play. Most sites allow you to print out or email a particular hand from the PHF, which means others can easily critique you.

When giving lessons, I encourage students to bring me printouts of numerous hands about which they have questions. It makes it easier to absorb the hand in its entirety in less than a minute, and then we can go step by step through the hand and discuss it. As a poker teacher, I find it one of my greatest conveniences.

4. You don't have to worry about remembering something incorrectly.

Since the hand history is computerized, and therefore always 100 percent correct, it means I don't have to worry about any errors in my students' memory. This is not the case when someone tells me the action that took place in a hand from a brick-and-mortar cardroom. They want my opinion on whether or not they made the right play, but I have to trust their accuracy in retelling the story. All they have to do is remember one thing wrong - the size of a bet, their position relative to an opponent, the action on the flop - and the hand can take on a whole new perspective.

Online, when they print out a previous hand and show it to me, I know that the site is accurately retelling the hand. I know the exact position of the player in question, the exact actions that took place throughout the hand, plus I have the added bonus of knowing what each player had who reached showdown. I can then have more confidence in the advice that I am giving related to that hand, because I have confidence in the accuracy of the actions within that hand.

Of course, most of you do not take formal poker lessons, but you should still discuss hands with your poker-playing friends. And it becomes much easier if you have printed out a hand history, rather than trying to retell the hand from memory and possibly remember something wrong.

Friends sometimes send me hand histories. (They know to do it only occasionally, otherwise they might drive me crazy.) Sometimes they are saying, "I played this hand well, didn't I?" Other times they want to know if they might have screwed up. Still other times, they just want to bemoan a bad beat. Whatever the case, all I have to do is read the hand history, and it typically tells me much more than they could have told me from memory.

It's Truly a Fabulous Tool.

I started my online poker career before the PHF was created, but now it is hard to remember a time that it did not exist. I could not imagine playing online, or giving poker lessons to online players, without the wealth of information it provides.

Whether you play 5¢-10¢, $50-$100, or anywhere in between, I would assume you want to improve your game and your results. Using the PHF to learn more about yourself and your opponents is one of the easiest and most effective ways to do it.

Matt Lessinger's Book of Bluffs is now available everywhere. You can purchase it at www.cardplayer.com by clicking "shop online." You can also find other articles of Matt's in his "Bet With Less" column in Card Player magazine. Please visit his website, www.mattlessinger.com, to learn more about him.

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