Buddy Lists "Find the Donkeys"

Buddy lists are a great feature when your playing poker online.  If you’re only using buddy lists to keep track of your friends, then you’re losing out big time.  Keeping track of all the donkeys/drunks is what you really should be using your buddy lists for.

Sites That Allow Buddy Lists

Almost all online poker rooms allow you to keep buddy lists.  The exception to this rule is that most Java poker rooms don’t have that capability.  Finding donkeys is not too hard when you’re playing.  Sometimes people are just drunk that night and playing a little crazy.  You want to have hundreds of people on your list.  Make descriptive notes on everyone you play against.  When you finally get a large amount of players on your buddy list the first thing you do when you log-in should be to check it.  

Buddies of All Kinds

There are so many bad players out there, and you should keep track of them.  You will find all kinds of people you need to keep track of.  You’d be amazed at what you find.  You can find players that go all-in every couple hands just for the joy of going all in.  You’ll find players that only bet with the nuts, and players that don’t even know what hand beats what.

Low Stake Buddy Listers

You’ll find that buddy lists are more important in the lower staked games.  If you are a low stakes player, there’s no reason you shouldn’t have at least 100 players on your list.  There’s also no reason you can’t make a couple hundred dollars off these people every day in a short period of time.

Note Taking

Outline the way your players play on your note lists.  The way you do this is to right click on the player sitting down.  Click on the player or avatar, and usually a notepad will pop up.  Jot down if they were playing drunk, loose, aggressive, and how much they bet when they had certain hands, and if they could be bluffed or not.  Taking notes on good players is a good thing as well.

Remember players play differently every night. You shouldn’t follow your notes to the death.  Sometimes you caught the player on a bad night and they were just playing a certain way.  Most of the time, you will find that players play the same every single night.