The Little Black Book

Are you in my little black book yet?

  1. 2008-10-29 20:13:26

    The Little Black Book (tm) Defined

    For those of you who don't know, the Little Black Book™ is my personal record of play at tournaments. It is literally a small black book with a pen (picture forthcoming) that I started using when I played in tournaments above my bankroll to keep me in check. I quickly realized it was a great tool to not only understand how I played, but keep track of the other talent (or lack thereof) at the table. All fun jokes aside, its track record is not perfect, but some of the ideas it gave me are certainly insightful.

    For example, everyone who's read any poker books knows that paying attention is a key element, even when you are not in a hand. But let's face it, for me it can get very boring...not anymore with the little black book. I can remain focused studying my previous notes about the players involved in the hand and guess their hands, bets, Hollywood moves, etc. If there is a showdown, I get to measure my results with the actual outcome and improve the notes. By the time I am involved for big bucks, I hopefully have a better sense on what's going on.

    That's only half of it though. This is really about individual play analysis too: what did I call down Mark 'The Rock' with and why? When I am choosing to over bet the pot and against whom? Am I really playing looser than Jason (as if!)? What will be my starting hand range for this session? Did I develop a betting pattern that was obvious even to the fly on the wall? All these and more are things that I track and then check against previous performance. Not surprisingly, some lessons started to emerge.

    I am going to spend a few posts describing several of my "Black Book Rules" regarding what I write down and when and then a few more posts with my personal lessons. I am very interested in feedback to improve the system, so let me know what you think (even if you think is total bu#l$#@t) either here or next time I see ya. And yes, I probably won't be able to help myself and spill the beans on some of my notes on you :P

    Posted by Guarantee at 2008-10-29 20:13:26

Comments on “The Little Black Book (tm) Defined”

    • avatar for FREMONTkyle
    • wait curious minds want to know all about this ive never seen you with a black book. what notes do you have on me. i need more details

    • avatar for Ethan
    • Sounds good. Once you have it figured out, you should write a book on the black book!

    • avatar for Jason M
    • nice :) i thought you just drew pictures of donkeys and naked girls in that book.

    • avatar for Teresa
    • do you have notes on me? tell telllll