From the very moment that poker database software was released to the public, the wheels were set in motion for the attempt to 'solve' poker. For more than one hundred years, poker players had nothing other than the final results of their sessions to go on. Sure, they could work on parts of their game outside of actually playing, but there was an incredible amount of guess work involved as to how successful any changes in strategy might have been.

As we moved further into the new millennium, and the likes of Pokertracker and Holdem Manager became ever more mainstream, the global level of experience rapidly increased, with players sharing information learned from their own hand history. Tips and tricks on how to analyse your own hands appeared all over the internet, and playing with a database became an essential for playing Holdem or Pot Limit Omaha.

So how can casual players start to learn from their own hand history? The secret to your success or failure is hidden in there somewhere, that is for sure. Some secrets are hidden deeper than others, but rest assured, if you know where to look, you can fix ANY technical problems with your game.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

I'm absolutely certain that many of you only bought a database package so you could use an HUD. The good news is that you have at least made a start with getting used to using statistics. Now it's time to go deeper down the rabbit-hole and understand what they all mean.

It's one thing to use a HUD to work out player types during your sessions, but quite another to know what your stats should be for optimal play and how to adjust your play to make corrections.

As the sheer amount of available analysis is enormous, there really is no other option other than to communicate with other players in order to learn from and to share your findings. Skype groups and internet forums such as the one over at PokerVIP are the best places to start. Here you will learn which are the most important stats to examine first. Concepts such as variance and sample size will become clear as you discover that what you thought was true about your play turned out later to be totally false.

One Step at a Time

If you are taking your very first steps at working to improve your poker game, then session reviews are your first port of call. This comes well before in depth stat analysis. You should start with your biggest pots. Losing pots AND winning pots.

Throwing away your entire chip stack in a moment of madness is obviously something which we have all done at some point in the past, but often we don't realise how it happened until our session review. When we have time to think clearly later on, i t becomes much easier to reassess the thought process used in play and work out how we might improve on our final decision.

Notice that I wrote winning pots as well as losing pots. If you get all the chips in the middle by making a big mistake, you might get lucky and assume the hand was played well. Checking through all your big pots will help you find your 'leaks' faster than just looking at the losers.

Looking Deeper and Deeper

The most important thing that we are ever going to look at is our win rate. Not only can we see how much we win per hand (big blinds/100), but there is also a luck adjusted stat (EV bb/100), which takes into account how lucky you have been when you were all in ( or your opponent was) with community cards still to come.

Once we know how often we are winning we can make a more informed decision about moving up in stakes. If we see a negative win rate which looks too bad, we can drop down in stakes. Of course, all of this is taken into account in conjunction with proper bankroll management.

Now It Starts Gets Difficult

Imagine that you carry out your session review and feel everything looks okay. You check your win rate and it's not bad, but doesn't seem to be improving. How can we keep making improvements?

Database software packages are capable of showing you a massive number of different statistics, some being a lot more 'user friendly' than others. Here we need to start with the simplest, and it's time to do some study away from actually playing poker.

Think to yourself, even as a casual player who knows a little about how to play poker, what is it that separates you from somebody who only knows the rules?

Everybody starts by learning which hands to play, and in which positions. So your first point of call is the VPIP (Voluntarily Puts $ Into the Pot) and PFR (Pre Flop Raise). Do your own research as to what range these stats should fall into and review your own pre flop strategy. At first you may be surprised to find that you are not playing how you intend to, possibly through playing too many tables at one time and not being able to think fast enough.

Cold call % is another closely related stat. A skilled player understands how important initiative is in a pre flop situation. As a casual player you might not appreciate this fully and be playing in too many pots by just calling another player's open raise. Analyse each position and see how often you are cold calling. Are you are losing money because of it?

This is just the tip of the iceberg. But it's where you should be starting from. Not only can you check individual statistics, but you can run complex 'filters' to examine specific situations which you feel you don't fully understand yet.

For example, one of my most recent analysis sessions examined how often I was firing a turn continuation bet, out of position, in a 3 bet pot. I had spent some time looking through the maths of the situation, and discovered to my surprise how rarely the villain needed to fold if I had reasonable equity, such as a flush draw or straight draw.

When I looked through my hand history I was able to confirm that I was playing too passively and checking instead of semi-bluffing. Finding this less than optimal play in my usual game enabled me to make a solid improvement.

This is exactly how the best online players are able to stay ahead of the curve They are constantly refining their strategies and making improvements from the simplest to the most mind boggling spots you can think of. You really would be amazed at the level of detail these guys will go down to.

The poker world is your oyster once you become skilled at database analysis. You will be able to tear through your hand history finding out where you leak profit. Your progress up the stakes ladder will be a lot smoother.

Be under no illusions, it's far from easy or straight forward. For the average player, there's a lifetime of work in there. But if you love poker and have the motivation to become a serious player, take your first steps by learning