If a weekly poker game with buddies has been a part of the routine for awhile, it’s likely you’ve picked up on the tendencies and table images of your friends. Playing with the same players on a consistent basis allows you to uncover which players are tight or loose, timid or aggressive, thinkers or actors. You go into each game knowing that Vic likes to bluff and check-raise, or that Dan is stubborn and likes to play every hand, or that Amy is conservative and will only go to the river if she’s got a solid hand. Acquiring this knowledge, whether consciously or unconsciously, is called opponent tracking and profiling.

Tracking your opponents’ play includes watching how and when they bet, when they raise, what cards they bet with and how often they’re in the pot. Taking all of this information helps you develop an opponent profile and determine what type of player they are, so the next time you face off with them, you’ll know what to expect.

Spotting poker tells has always been a sexier part of the game than player tracking. In the critically-acclaimed movie “Rounders,” Matt Damon’s character Mike McDermott, a hardworking law student whose passion is poker, spots the tell of his rival Teddy or KGB, a Russian emigrant and Oreo cookie-eating mob boss played brilliantly by John Malkovitch. KGB would pick up an Oreo during each hand, and when he hand something, he would eat it. When he was bluffing, he would put it down. Spotting tells this easily is something reserved for the movies, making the art of tracking an opponent’s playing pattern the most important key to becoming successful at a game like Texas Hold ’Em.

Professional poker players are able to use these methods since they often come across the same players on the circuit. But with the rise in poker’s popularity, even the pros are finding it almost impossible to keep track of players, as a constant stream of unfamiliar faces continue to jump on the bandwagon.

If you’re the occasional casino or card room player, opponent tracking is extremely difficult. For online players, it’s a different story. With software like Poker Pro 2006, the ability to track the actions of opponents, as well as your own, is not only possible, it’s easy.

The importance of opponent tracking can’t be underestimated. Tracking every single hand gives a history, detailed summaries and statistics that will put your game on the offensive. Critical parts of an opponents’ game to track include starting hands, raising hands and flop play.