1:49am: A lot has been made about the effectiveness of notes, particularly as relates to heads up sit n gos and heads up cash games. People try everything to stay on top of their game: color codes, numerical rating systems, and even listing specific hands played by said opponent. Some people swear by it as the only effective way of getting a read on someone, while others dismiss it, saying that whatever notes you’ve taken on someone is over a probably over a small sample size, and therefore cannot possibly be meaningful — because in reality, your notes are only as good as your perception, and your perception is only as good as your logic. So that begs the question: if your logic is faulty does that render your notes totally worthless?

To that I say no because there’s a method to everyone’s madness. You will often find the most intelligent people are also the most disorganized, as they feel more at home when things are messy than when things are orderly. Same thing with poker notes: although they may be inaccurate, sloppy, or just totally incorrect it still helps both the logical and illogical player feel more at home when making their decisions.

So I suppose you’re wondering if I take notes. The answer to that question is yes, although I don’t use PokerStars built in note taking system when doing so. I record 75% of the matches I play on video, and then file the video away tagged with a corresponding text file that contains anything notable about the player. This gives me more room to write what I need and the ability to review the video while the match is waiting to start (by the way, you could probably cook a steak while you wait for a match to start on PokerStars). Unfortunately, I sacrifice accuracy for speed, as it takes me a little bit longer to look up a players notes on my computer than it does by just right clicking their name, and sometimes I don’t have time to do it when I’m playing two games at a time. For the rare times that I’m playing one at a time however, it works pretty well I must say. If you record your matches, I recommend including in the title of each video the opponents name, playing style, total record vs. opponent, and result of the particular match. If you have more than one video against the person, don’t review the notes from the ones where you won. Review the notes from the ones you lost.

So while I’m sure that most of you don’t take notes due to the amount of effort involved in it, let me suggest that you start. Attention to details will get you far in life — not just with poker, but with everything. It starts here, it starts with poker, and it starts today. So get started!