Hi everyone,
I’m trying to find a system to help me memorize poker hands and ranges
I got a lot of these table to memorize,
Each one represent a different position on the table and different actions against different opponents .
Green means open and re-raise
Blue means open call
Red means open and bluff raise
Yellow means call
grey means fold
I need to remember these charts quickly at the table
Thank you very much
How many tables are there?
Could you explain how to use it with a sample hand? I’m not sure I understand what the table does.
Lots of questions here. First of all, I’m assuming this is for Texas Hold’em starting hands. Is this Limit or No-Limit? Is this for tournament play or cash games?
Secondly, do you mean to say there is a separate card like this for each position against different types of opponents (tight, loose, tight-aggressive, tight-passive, etc)? You could be looking at hundreds of cards. Then, are you to play according to the card REGARDLESS of what the players ahead of you played? If you’re in the fifth position, and you’ve already seen a raise and re-raise ahead of you, are you really going to call with a 72s? Where did you find this system?
Thanks for the quick answer
Let me start from the beginning the chart that I posted is used to tell me what hands to play.
I have 18 charts similar to this one at this moment to memorize .
This one is actually when I’m in the position big Blind and the position button raises
Green means that I should raise him and if he raises me I go all in
Blue, I should raise him and if he raises , I call
Red, I should raise him if he raises I should fold
Yellow means call
Grey means fold
So I’m in the big blind with 97 of club , the button raises, I raise him as well, if he raises , I fold and if he just call, I play the hand
Hi Tracym,
Thanks for the answer
Yes this is for Texas hold em No-limit, cash game
I have 18 charts like this
One for each position if no one raised before me and I have others if someone raised in front of me .
like this one.
If I’m the postition Button and the position Cut Off opens (5th postion)
Green = raise and go all in if CO raised
Pink means raise and call if he raises
Red= Raise and fold if he raises
Grey means fold
These charts are not based on the type of player. They are my basic strategy. From this basic strategy I will deviate will playing depending on my opponents. If they are tight, I may decide to play more or less hands depending on the situation but to be able to deviate from my basic strategy I need to be able to know what it is.
At this moment I use an excel document to look them up, but it’s time consuming while I’m playing .
Where I found this system. I’m a student of a group that is called BluffTheSpot. They are professional players coaching guys like me. We pay them with the profit we make at the poker tables, no profit we don’t pay them.
I don’t remember how to play poker well enough to completely understand, but there is a lot of repeating data there, so there should be a way to compress it.
I’m brainstorming out loud here:
If you make 234 locations (18 memory palaces with 13 locations each), then you might be able to compress the row data into short mnemonic stories.
You might want one mnemonic image to represent each color, for example:
Then you could use a number memorization system, like the Major System, to compress each row.
So the first row is:
2 squares of green
2 squares of blue
5 squares of yellow
1 square of green
3 squares of yellow
In my number system, those numbers are represented by these images:
In the first location of the memory journey for that row, you could encode these images into a story:
“Zeus leaps over a tree and lands in some blueberries. He throws blueberries at Dali, who drives away in a taxi. Dali crashes into a giant glass of iced tea which spills on a tree. The tree falls on a satellite, knocking it out of the sky onto a taxi.”
Some rows would require more images than others. The last row would only require three images.
It might require multiple images to represent the colors and numbers to avoid so many repeat images.
That compression would reduce the number of required locations from 3,042 to 234.
I don’t know if this is the best method, but am brainstorming out loud here in case it gives anyone else ideas on how to improve it or come up with a better method. 
I’m a No-Limit Hold 'Em cash game regular. Instead of memorizing 169 squares per table, Josh has the right idea to compress the data. Use hand range notation to restate each table and memorize that. There should be far fewer items to memorize this way.
Then, just attach an image for each location at the table and whether or not you were raised, etc.
I’m very interested in a successful answer to this thread!
Thank you very much
I think we are going somewhere
The colors already means something to me , so here the mnemonic I will use
Green = Trempoline
Red = SpringBoard
Yellow = net
Blue = Boomerang
I need to access the information quickly when I receive my 2 cards, The position in the chart is not really relevant, it’s really the combination of the 2 cards that I want to be able to remember as soon as I see them.
I was thinking of using a number memorization system where I will give a picture to each cards
A= Rocket
2= Snake
3 = McDonald Sign
4= Flamingo
5= Hook
6= Snail
7= Skate board
8 = Snowman
9= whistle
10 = Tent
J = a bottle of Jack Daniel
Q = Queen Crown
K = King Throne
Each hand would now be a combination of those pictures
So Jack-two will be pictured as a bottle of jack daniel
I need to come up with something to differentiated suited hands from non- suited hands.
I could print a Big S for suited on the picture to differentiate them
and here in my first chart J2s is yellow, so I would picture a bottle of JD with a snake wrap around it falling into a net and then falling on the ground and making a mess
Doing one chart would be relatively easy, but my problem is that each chart are so similar that I’m scared that I would be confused really quickly.
So each chart are based on a position at the poker table
the position are
Small blind
Big Blind
Early position know as Under the gun
Middle position
Cut Off
Button known as dealer
I have prepared picture for them too
Small blind = small wheel
Big Blind = Big Bell
Early position know as Under the gun = revolver
Middle position = Military Police Helmet
Cut Off = Butcher Knife
Button known as dealer = Dealer Puck
I don’t know if it’s a good idea but I could incorporate those image to the previous one, so I would know which chart I’m referring too
So in our Previous exemple J2s from the Big Blind
would now become a bottle of JD with a snake wrap around it and a bell tied around the snake falling in a net and falling on the ground creating a mess a a bell ring
Again all this seams to be really complicated,
I’m wondering if i’m not better off just learn them by heart by writing them down again and again until I know them
Thank you
I have an idea that I think will work. When I get some time this evening I’ll type it up and post it. I understand your cards now, and I think they’re really neat! I think it’s a great place to start, sort of reminds me of those basic strategies for blackjack cards (except in this case there are 18 different ones!).
Thank you very much, cant wait to see your idea
I also thought about this before as I play poker. I concluded that the time it would take to come up with a particular system that solves this is not worth it because it is besides the point of these handrange charts. You will memorise a set of ranges, and then after a few years theory will move on a bit and you will find yourself with an inferior range in some spot. Also it is unhelpful to have the action on you and then try to decode your mnemonic within the time that you are given during a decision at the tables, and then follow that up with appropriate actions.
My answer to this issue isn’t really what you are looking for because it isn’t really a mnemonic. It was to just group ranges based on their pattern in the card matrix. For example you can see a very tight fullring UTG-type range: like 99+, AJs+, KQs+, AQo+, and realise that this pattern exists for many different situations, just like what you have in your blue range (although yours is wider). There is obviously a lot of leeway and give/take but it’s a very snap-heuristic way of approaching it which I have found very useful.
So I group mine something like this:
Premiums (QQ+, AK)
Super tight (99+, AJs+, KQs+, AQo+)
Tight (77+, ATs+, KJs+, QJs+, JTs+, KQo+, AJo+)
UTG-like
MP-like
CO-like
BU-like
A super simple example is a SB openraising range - this is essentially a CO opening range.
All of these different groupings can be found contained within each other to some extent and we tend to take different actions with each. For example, sitting in the SB facing a BU open, we might decide to 3bet with a purely merged range and just 3bet with a UTG-like range, which is very close to what pokersnowie etc suggests. Or if we want a polarised 3betting range then we can 3bet the ‘super tight’ range and add some other ‘bottom of our folding range’ type hands. Want to 3bet BU vs CO? it’s almost the same as that.
Of course this requires some pre-memorisation but imo it is much more effective/practical than building a mnemonic this won’t help too much at the tables. You may as well print the sheets off and stick them above your screen.
I understand this might not be very helpful and it’s just my opinion - I’m still interested to see if someone can convince me of using mnemonics for memorising ranges rather than a more intuitive/feel-based approach 
[big edit]
if you are really adamant that you want a mnemonic for this you’d have to do something along the lines of mixing PAO with loci method. Use the PAO to create 78 images that represent the unpaired card value pairing (e.g. AK = “a king”, “with his arms in the air”, “wearing a crown”). You can then add a twist to each image to distinguish between suited and unsuited pairings, so AKs would become the king but covered in red paint or something. Preferably that would be unique to each image. Doing this will double your images - it’s quite a task to find 169 unique PAOs and use them just for playing cards (but you could borrow from a default PAO set that you make for general numbers). Then you also add in the 13 pocketpairs.
Once you’ve got all of these you could then work on finding maybe 6 different locations/buildings to work with. Use the different floors in these buildings to represent different levels of action, so the basement floor would be an unopened pot (i.e. your openraising ranges). Then the ground floor would be your ranges for facing a raise. Then first floor for 3betting/facing a 3bet etc and so on. This is the best way I’ve been able to think of to accomplish this task. But as I said, lots of things change in the poker world and you have to make a decision whether you are doing this for the mnemonic exercise or to improve your game. Sometimes the quick and dirty approach is better, but ultimately the best outcome is that you are able to make decisions without thinking about the ranges or retrieving them from memory because you have learned them completely.
My biggest problem after thinking about all of that before was that you have your 6 houses and your images, but now your ranges are totally different depending on your opponent’s position. you obviously can’t just have a static 3betting range from the SB (house #5) for example - your range depends entirely on villain’s position. So you would need manymany more houses, like 6*5 or so (you can take 6 possible positions and for each position you take, the villain you face will be in one of the remaining 5). More to that, you might at some point want to start splitting your range, so maybe you 4bet/get it in with AA when you are UTG only 50% of the time. I know many ranges lately implement this sort of weighting to the actions. After a while it just became tiring to think of solutions - poker too complicated!
Sorry for the wall of text ;p
Some great ideas so far, so I’ll go ahead and toss my idea out there, too. So my understanding is that what you’re trying to achieve is what action to take given five pieces of information: your position, the position before you that raised, the value of the first card, the value of the second card, and whether the two cards are suited or not. All this is pre-flop action. Obviously you’ll have to have different, but hopefully less intensive memory-wise, decisions to make after the flop, turn, and river.
First, make sure you have a solid 00-99 system in place, and know it well. Then, number the positions on the table 0-9, with 0 being the SB, 1 being the BB, 2 being UTG, etc, and always letting the button be 9. So the identity of each of your cheat-sheet cards will be a two-digit number. For example, if the card deals with the Button vs. the Big Blind, your two-digit number will be 91. In my system, 91 is a bat (the mammal that flies). That’s the first part.
The second part will be identifying the two cards and whether they are suited or unsuited. You’ll need assignments for all 85 possible two card combinations (13*13/2, because the order of the cards does not matter, so 57 is the same as 75). You can re-use the 00-99 you already have, e.g. a 7 and a 2 would make 72, a 5 and an 8 would make 58. Let your A=1, and your 10=0, for these purposes. Then you’ll need to devise the additional assignments to the remaining combinations (those involving a face card, or one face card and one non-face card). Once you’ve done this, you’ll need a way to determine suited or unsuited. You can have your images be wearing beautiful clothes for suited and ragged, dirty clothes for unsuited. Or have them dressed in anything for suited, but naked for unsuited. You get the idea.
OK, there’s one piece of the puzzle left. That’s your action. You already have your colors assigned to items up above. This may be sufficient. Or you could make them be actions instead of items, like let Red=running, Yellow=vomiting, etc.
Here’s how it would work in practice. You’re sitting on the button, and the BB has raised, and everyone after the BB has folded, and now it’s your turn. Button=9 and BB=1, so the number is 91, which is a bat in my system. You peek at your cards, and you see a 75, unsuited. 75 is Cal Ripken (a famous American baseball player) in my system. Suppose your system tells you to fold in this situation, and folding is the color grey. You could let GREY=smoky for your image. Then you’d have a bat flying into naked Cal Ripken’s face (maybe imagine Cal trying to get the bat off his face), all the while he’s surrounded by grey clouds. So when you memorize this combo image, you’ll hopefully remember the bat=91, and Cal Ripken=75, naked=unsuited, and the smoke=Grey (=FOLD), and you’d know to FOLD in this situation.
All of your memorizing for the specific situation of Button vs. Big Blind will begin with the bat (91). I’m not saying any of this will be easy, especially sitting in a live poker game trying to remember this stuff. You’ll have to practice your assignments and know them at least as well as a memory athlete, but it is doable. If mental athletes can memorize over 2,700 images, you can do it, too. The good thing is you can take your time memorizing your images, since you’re not being timed for that. So you can take a few months to get really familiar with your system assignments, and then spend a few months memorizing the rest of this stuff.
Of course, you know that even this is a simplified system that doesn’t take into account the playing styles of the other players, or the pot odds, or several other factors. You’ll need to modify the basics to account for all this other stuff.
This is an amazing system.
Of course it will take time to learn, but I will do it for the challenge
Thank you very much everyone
Tracym if my basic strategy would change in like say 2 years from now. Would it be easy to unlearn some of my associations and change them?
and can you give an example of what you would do with the Jack, queen and king .
One last question for know. So I will build and learn my Major system, but if I use it for this purpose will I be able to use it for other things or I risk to have a lot of interference and start to confuse everything?
thank you
Once you learn a Major System for 00-99 you can use it for almost any purpose that requires you to remember a sequence of digits: addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc. If you decide to make changes to your assignments in the future, changing a few here or there usually isn’t difficult. Most people do this after they start practicing a lot with their system, if they realize that certain images are not working well, or are too similar to other images in the system. I once had five different balls in my system (basketball, baseball, football, soccer, tennis) and I found that in the heat of trying to memorize things, I would confuse them with each other, so I changed them to more unique items.
For memorizing the Face Cards, since you’re really memorizing 2-card combinations, you’ll have to have a specific image for each of: JK, JQ, JJ, J10, J9, J8, etc. So if my math is correct you’d need a total of 39 distinct images for these combinations. Just use flash cards or Anki to work on these and your other assignments, and you’ll have them memorized in a few weeks/months.
Hey I’m trying to memorize something similar but adding another layer with randomization. It seems like an insane amount of memorize but I want to 3bet hands 30% of the time and call 70% for example. I’m not sure how to add that extra layer of memorization. I’d appreciate any advice. If you’re still around how’s poker going?
