How do you utilise the Hand History feature on Sky Poker? Were you aware that it existed? Or do you use it to go back over some of the plays you have made in past hands to have a little 
gloat about how you won a particular hand?
Once you’ve joined Sky Poker (and there’s no easier way to do this than by obtaining a Sky Poker promo code by clicking on the link here) and start to play on the site as in the words of the famous Police song “Every move you make, Sky’ll be watching you!”
In this article, we’ll examine what the Hand History option is and more importantly, how you can use it as a very powerful tool in your quest to become a better and more profitable poker player.
What is Sky Poker’s Hand History feature?
As the name suggests, Sky Poker’s Hand History is a record of all the hands you have played at Sky Poker over a certain period of time. Each hand played across every table on the site is given a unique reference number and the action that unfolds at the table is automatically stored in the Hand History of every player sat at the table.
This information is then stored on the Sky Poker servers so that players can log in and search through this huge database of information for their own hands. You can do this in one of a variety of ways including specifying the date or time of the hand you played, a range of dates, the type of games you played at Sky Poker (Cash Games, MTT’s or Sit & Go’s for example) or if you know the ID number of the hand you can also search by the unique reference number.
This really is the key to using the Hand History feature relatively smoothly. Once you have mastered finding your hands and bringing the information up, you can then go about using the information contained therein to inform and improve your play.
There are essentially two different ways you can do this on Sky Poker.
Review your play
The first of these is to sit down and take time away from the tables to review your play on the Sky Poker site. This is a useful way to pick up on any obvious mistakes that you have made and it also is a good way to see how certain opponents, especially those that you may face on a more regular basis, tend to play.
The amount of value in the information you can gleam from reviewing your Hand History is, however, directly related to your ability to understand the game at a higher level. Daniel Negreanu for example, is far more likely to be able to review his own play and analyse his mistakes and his strong play in a positive manner, than a new player is who has limited experience of playing the game.
Therefore, it is imperative that if you are going to analyse your game using this tool, that you have immersed yourself in at least the basic strategy of poker for a beginner player, and have moved on to some of the more advanced strategic skills if you are a player that has a decent amount of experience.
The benefits from reviewing your play are always related to the depth of understanding you have about the game. The greater your knowledge, then the greater you will be able to glean information from your Hand History and use the feedback that you generate to inform your future poker play going forward.
However, the paradox is here that the players who need the most information about how they have played a hand to improve, beginner players, are amongst the most ill-equipped to make those judgements. How can a beginner player use their Hand History information to improve their game if they don’t have the knowledge some of their peers possess?
Fortunately Sky Poker has a perfect solution for that problem too and that is to use your Poker peers to assess your play in the Sky Poker Community.
Peer Review your play via Sky Community
There is no doubt that the ability to post details of your hand in the Sky Poker Community and receive detailed feedback from experienced poker players about what you did well and what you 
did wrong is one of the most beneficial aspects of the site to a new player.
Using this facility is also extremely easy. All you need to do is call up the information about the hand you have a query about and then note down its Unique Reference Number. Then head to the Sky Poker community and find one which one of the for forums at the top of the page which most matches your query.
Once in the right forum, create a new post, input as much extraneous information about the hand as you can reliably remember (whether players were playing aggressive, passive for example) and then enter the reference number. This then places all the data about how the hand played out from the deal through to the conclusion of the hand for other poker players to see.
By using the information you provide, other players can then review how the hand went and give you advice about what you did well, what you did wrong and even what the move your opponent made reveals about them as a player. Furthermore, the advice you can receive will explain why top players make certain decisions.
For a new player, this is a massive boost as it allows them to gain a far deeper understanding of how their hand played out and their play at the table, than is available to them by reviewing their data alone.
Best of all, if there is something you don’t understand, you can post a follow up question which again other members of the community can respond to and give you a further explanation if required.
When used to its full potential, the Hand History option can be a lot more than simply a record of your play at Sky Poker, it can inform and improve your game making you a stronger poker player in the long term.
