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Professional Hand Evaluation in 4 Easy Steps

Ask experienced players about your hand

One of the best ways of improving your play is to ask experienced players on their thoughts about your played hands. PokerStrategy.com makes this easy: our pros are happy to evaluate your hands in the Sample Hands forum.

Our professional staff at PokerStrategy.com is made up of experienced professional players who have proven that they understand the game. They want to help up-and-coming players like you to improve your game.

They will help you spot common mistakes and help you plug your leaks. You will see different ways you could have played a hand and can learn to incorporate these different lines into your game. Last but not least: this service is free to all members of PokerStrategy.com.
This guide will show you how it all works:

Where you can find your played poker hands.
How to convert your hand history to a readable format.
How find the right pro to evaluate your hand.
How to submit your hand to the forum.

Let a pro analyze your hands

What do other professional players have to say about the Sample Hand forum?

Kobeyard – Fixed Limit Expert and Coach at PokerStrategy.com

The Sample Hands forums helped me see the bigger picture and get out of the old mind-set about the right way to play a hand. I would recommend all active members to start participating in the Sample Hands forums.

Sleyde – No Limit Expert and Professional Hand Evaluator at PokerStrategy.com

I think the main advantage the Sample Hand forums have is the fact that you can select a single hand to discuss, and that there's no limit to the depth of the analysis. I've taken part in such discussions ever since I started playing and always find something to take with me. You never stop learning.

Unam – SNG Expert, Coach and Video Producer at PokerStrategy.com

I think the Sample Hand forums are an effective tool that most members understimate. They are a great way for members to improve their game and I think everyone should take advantage of these discussions and the information experienced players share.

This educational video shows you how to use our hand evaluation forums. Through visual and audio explanations, you'll learn how to post your hands in the hand evaluation forums. You'll also be advised on how to get the most out of the hand analyses, once they're provided by our professional hand evaluators.

» Watch the video now

Content

Ask experienced players questions about a hand

Step 1: Copying a hand

Your poker hands (including everything that happened from the blinds being posted to the showdown) are saved as text documents. You can usually find your saved hand history in the "Hand History" file in your poker software's directory.

With Partypoker, for example, your hand history is saved under:

C:/Programs/PartyGaming/PartyPoker/Handhistory/Username/Tablexxx.txt

Open the file with a text editing program and copy your hand history.

Step 2: Convert the hand

Your hand history is usually saved in a text format that is difficult to decipher. You need to convert it to a user-friendly format before you can submit it in the Sample Hands forum. But don't sweat, there are programs and websites available to help you do this very easily.

One easy method is simply using PokerStrategy.com's Poker Hand Converter. There's no need to download or install it and you can save all your hands in an online database and convert them to text, video or HTML format for later use.

Step 3: Find the right Sample Hand forum

PokerStrategy.com offers Sample Hand forum areas for each poker format, which are divided into sub-forms for the different limits.

Find the one that is right for you:

Step 4: Submit your hand in the forum

Once you're in the right forum, click on "New Thread" to submit your hand. Think of an interesting title and copy your saved hand history into the box for text. Then click "Post New Thread" to finish up.

A pro will analyse and evaluate your hand as soon as he sees your post.

Tip: Supply as much information about the hand as possible!

Aside from having an interesting title to your post, you should include any additional information you have on the hand, such as notes you may have made on opponents. Let the pro know if you were facing a known or unknown opponent.

Also be sure not to include the showdown results, so your opponents hole cards. This can have a negative impact on the analysis and lead to result oriented thinking, something which is important to avoid in poker.

For those who play higher limits:

Include as much information on the other players in the hand to help our pros give a more in-depth analysis of the hand:

How aggressive is your opponent? Is he tight/loose, aggressive/passive?
History (previous hands with this opponent)
Information on your opponent's lines
Does he bluff?
...

Where to find your hand evaluation.
Our pro will respond as soon as he sees your post. Your hand will be given a check mark in the left hand column, and be marked as "evaluated by..." as soon as the hand has been evaluated.

How to copy a hand from PokerStrategy.com Elephant

PokerStrategy's Elephant is a program that blends in stats on your opponents at the table. These stats give you very valuable information on opponent's playing habits and help you exploit their leaks.

Find the hand

You can find your saved hands in the menu under "Hands." Your hands are displayed on the left (you can order them according to the price of the BB, profit, starting hand etc...). Click on a hand to see the entire hand history on the right hand side of the window.

Export the hand

Click on "Display and Export options" to toggle between opponent's statistics, money at the table, and hand results.

Leave "Stats" and "Stacks" on, but leave the results out.

A message will appear telling you you can now paste the hand in the forum once you click "PS."

Download PokerStrategy.com's Elephant (free)

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