How to Analyse Your Own Poker Hands After a Session: A Review Structure and Tools (2026)

Post-session hand review is where most win-rate gains actually come from. The goal is not to rewatch a “cool hand”, but to turn raw hand histories into specific, repeatable fixes: better preflop choices, cleaner range construction, fewer sizing leaks, and fewer emotional decisions. Below is a practical structure you can follow after any session to make your analysis consistent and useful in 2026.

1) Build a repeatable review pipeline (so you do not drift)

Start with a simple routine you can repeat after every session: export hands → tag hands while playing (or immediately after) → filter by the most valuable spots → review in two passes (fast triage, then deep work). This matters because a huge database is worthless if your review is random and mood-driven.

Pass one is triage. Go through marked hands and assign each one a category: “clear mistake”, “close spot”, “unfamiliar spot”, “tilt/discipline”, or “cooler”. Coolers are not study material unless you suspect a strategic mistake on earlier streets (for example, a river cooler caused by a questionable turn call).

Pass two is deep work. Pick hands that are both frequent and costly. Your bankroll is shaped by common situations: blind vs blind, single-raised pots in position, defending vs c-bets, turn probes, and river bluff-catching thresholds. Prioritise frequency first, then EV impact.

Tagging and filtering: what to capture while the hand is still “fresh”

Tag hands using a consistent label set. Keep it short and repeatable: “PF”, “Flop”, “Turn”, “River”, “ICM”, “Tilt”. The tag is not the analysis; it is a bookmark that saves time later when you review a session.

When you tag, note the decision you were uncertain about, not the outcome. Write: “Turn: unsure between 60% bet and check” or “River: unsure if call vs overbet”. Outcome-based notes (“lost big pot”) create bias and lead you to over-study pain instead of real leaks.

Build a small set of saved filters that match your actual games. Examples: “3-bet pot as aggressor”, “defended big blind vs c-bet”, “single-raised pot OOP”, “river faced bet after missed draw”, “squeeze pots”, “4-bet pots”. Reviewing the same filters weekly gives you trend data instead of one-off opinions.

2) Do the technical analysis: ranges first, then EV, then exploit notes

A strong hand review starts with ranges, not with lines. Before judging your action, write down what both players can realistically have at each street. Use your own preflop charts or your database tendencies as the base, then remove hands that stop making sense as actions unfold.

Next, test whether your sizing and line match your range story. Many leaks are not “wrong hand choice” but “wrong sizing for your range”. Common examples are using small continuation bets on boards where your range lacks nut advantage, or overbetting turns when you arrive with too many medium-strength hands.

Only after the range work should you bring in solver outputs or training tools. Solvers are excellent for learning thresholds and patterns, but they are not a judge in real games. If your pool is far from balanced, the best play can be exploitative. The key is to record the reason for deviation in a clear sentence.

Tool stack for 2026: trackers, equity tools, solvers, and trainers

For database work, a tracker is the backbone. Use it for importing hands, marking hands, session review, and leak discovery through stats and positional breakdowns. Your goal is to connect a number to a decision: “high turn c-bet, low river barrel” is not just a stat, it often signals a missing plan.

For fast equity and range sanity checks, keep a lightweight equity tool available. You do not need a full solver tree to confirm that a turn call is bad when you lack outs and have poor implied odds. These checks also train your ability to estimate equities before you calculate them.

For solver-level work, separate “spot checking” from “building a library”. Spot checking is quick: compare your line to a baseline and write the reason for any deviation. A library is slower but powerful: solve representative boards and extract rules about sizing, barreling, and bluff-to-value ratios. The aim is to learn principles, not to copy mixed frequencies blindly.

3) Turn analysis into action: leak log, rules, and measurable goals

If your review does not change what you do in the next session, it is entertainment, not improvement. Every analysed hand should produce at least one output: a corrected range, a corrected sizing rule, a new exploit note for a specific opponent type, or a discipline rule that prevents a repeat mistake.

Create a simple leak log with three columns: “spot”, “mistake”, “fix”. Example: Spot: “BB defend vs BTN c-bet on low paired boards”. Mistake: “folding too much vs small bets”. Fix: “add calls with backdoors; raise some A-high backdoors occasionally”. This format is short enough to maintain and specific enough to apply.

Set weekly goals that are measurable. Not “play better rivers”, but “review 30 river decisions where I faced a bet after calling turn” or “analyse 15 common flop textures and write one sizing rule per texture”. Measurable goals keep you honest when variance is noisy.

Checklists that prevent bias (and keep you improving when you run bad)

Use a short checklist for every “close spot” hand: (1) What are the ranges? (2) What is the most likely pool deviation? (3) Which hands benefit from betting vs checking? (4) What is my bluff plan across turn and river? (5) What is my bluff-catch threshold if facing a big bet? Writing these answers forces clarity and exposes hand-reading gaps.

Add a mental-game checkpoint that is factual, not emotional: “Was I tired?”, “Did I speed up decisions after a loss?”, “Did I change my opening sizes without a plan?”. Tracking this for a month often reveals patterns: certain session lengths, table types, or times of day correlate with your worst decisions.

Finally, keep your notes usable at the table. Notes should describe tendencies and triggers: “Overfolds to turn barrel when draws miss”, “Check-raises flop too wide on wet boards”, “Bets river small with thin value”. Avoid long stories. A short note that changes a decision is worth more than a paragraph you never re-read.