Poker Results Tracker
I use a tool creatively called Poker Results Tracker. It doesn’t have infinite bells and whistles, but it does some things that are really cool:
- It uses GPS to figure out where you are. So you start a session, and it says, “You’re at the Bellagio, right?” I’ve twice now gotten to put a casino in that it had never encountered. But now that I’ve done it, the next person that uses this app in those casinos won’t have to enter the casino name.
- It automatically does currency conversion. So let’s say you’re an American playing poker in London. Which you should do. All you have to do is tell PTR that you’re playing in GBP (British pounds). It says “Cool.” At the end of your session, it looks up the current exchange rate, and converts your results to your home currency (presumably USD).
- You can export your results to a .CSV file for importing into Excel, Google Sheets, etc.
- You can import a CSV file from another app.
PTR also has a bit of a social thing going on, so you can share/track results with “friends.” I have friends. I even have friends who play poker. But I think of my results as mine and their results as theirs, and we don’t discuss stuff like that with each other, so such features are wasted on me.
An important benefit: I’ve emailed the developer a couple of times and immediately got polite, useful replies. It’s difficult to overstate the value of support like this.
Poker Analytics
A lot of people like the Poker Analytics app. I tried it a year ago, and honestly, it felt too powerful for me. I am a former software engineer, and powerful software apps don’t scare me. But this tool is so feature-rich that I was spending too much time trying to configure it to my needs instead of actually using it.
Again, a lot of smart people I know use Poker Analytics.
Beware GIGO
GIGO (“Garbage In, Garbage Out”) is a computing expression meaning that if you start with crappy data, the results you get are useless, or worse, misleading. In the case of poker, that almost always means insufficient data. The type of poker that gets you to the statistical long run the quickest is online cash games. At the other end of the spectrum are live tournaments. Even a professional live tournament grinder is unlikely to play enough events in their lifetime to have a statistically high confidence that they’re winning at the rate their results reflect. Anybody who’s a recreational player is riding a variance curve, and few will be able to say with any certainty that they’re a winning or losing player.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you enjoy playing the game (in whatever format you prefer) and can afford the losses or find something to do with the winnings, great. Just be hesitant to believe your own tracking app.
Use something
The key is to use something to track your results. It can be as low-tech as you wish, as long as you do it. I know a very successful Las Vegas pro who makes notes in their phone, then transcribes them into a spreadsheet when they get home.
The most sophisticated results tracker will be zero good to you if you don’t use it religiously. It’s easy to write down a big win. It’s a much harder thing to commit a crushing loss to “paper.” Though I find that once I put a big loss into my tracking app, it starts the healing process.
As I noted above, don’t try to read too much into your results. But, for instance, if your app tells you that you’ve lost a disturbing amount of money over the last month, or quarter, or year, then that’s something to look at closely. Conversely, if the app says you’ve won $10,000 in the last six months (and you’ve kept records religiously), then go ahead and book that Hawaiian vacation. I mean, if you’re not a pro, and that’s not food and rent money.
Aloha.
