Tracking your Poker Results
By Dave Scharf

In my last column I mentioned tracking your results. If you are not keeping track of all your poker wins and losses, you must start. Not next week or next month or next year, you must start keeping track immediately

Tonight, when you go to the casino or cardroom, write down the following: (1) What you played - game and limit; (2) How long you played - rounded off to the nearest quarter-hour; and (3) How much you won or lost - net, not gross. Start tonight. And, do it every single time you play poker. It doesn' t matter whether the game is in a casino, cardroom or dorm-room. It doesn't matter if the game is for $0.25 or for $1000.00. It doesn't matter if the game is hold'em or Crazy-Pineapple-With-A-Pitch. Keep track! Do it starting tonight.

Here I will give you just three good reasons to keep track. I apologize. There should be a "top ten reasons" for keeping track of your poker wins and losses (damn you David Letterman), but space and my imagination can only give you three.

(1) You will discover that you are a winner, a loser or a liar.

Ask around at your local cardroom or casino. How many of the regulars consider themselves winning poker players? My educated guess is that 80% of cardroom and casino poker players will tell you that they are winners at the end of the year. The other 20% will tell you that they do it for recreation, and that they more-or-less break even at the end of the year. The truth is, at least 90% of casino or cardroom poker players are losers. Why? There is a rake. The house takes 10% of the pot to a maximum of $4.00 each and every single hand. That means for every hour of play, the house make about $120.00. That's a lot of money coming out of the game. There is no way most casino or cardroom players are winners. To be a winner you must not only be a better player than your opponents, you must be better by a margin sufficient to overcome the rake!

Start keeping track and you will know if you are a winner or a loser. You will not be able to lie to yourself. You will not be able to fool yourself. You will discover that you are a winner, a loser, or a liar. As a side note, I recommend keeping track of all gambling: bingo, sports betting, lottery tickets, blackjack, slots etc. I suspect that you will be surprised by what you discover.

I keep track of all of my results using StatKing poker software. It is available at www.conjelco.com. And, for those interested, I maintain a synopsis of my results at www.canadianpoker.com.

(2) You will learn to love losing.

Poker is a game of skill. Chances are that if you are reading this column you already believe that. On the other hand, if there is any doubt in your mind, then skip directly to bingo and lottery tickets and forget about poker. Sorry to have wasted your time. Poker is a game of skill. Believe it. In the long run, the most skillful players will make money. In fact, if the game went on forever... the single most skillful player would get all the money.

Is there a "but"? I mean, there is always a "but" right? Sorry to say, in the case of poker there is a "but." In the long run the best player wins, but in the short run it is luck that determines the winner.

For example, suppose I were to play one hand of no-limit hold'em against Doyle Brunson (the most famous and possibly the best no-limit hold'em player in history). Suppose also that Doyle and I agreed to put all of our money in without looking at our cards. If I could get Doyle to agree (I couldn't) then it would be a 50/50 shot. A coin flip.

Now suppose that Doyle and I played 100 hands, or 1000 hands. With each hand, Doyle and I will each face many decisions: best, raise, fold or call. For every single decision that I am wrong and Doyle is right, his chance of winning my money increases. Suddenly, it's not a coin flip. Suddenly, it's "Doyle gets rich and I go home broke... guaranteed."

The point is that in the short run you will either win or lose. In the long run (if you are Doyle) you will win. Track all of your results and you will come to see this fact: short-term = luck and long-term=skill. Then, when a horrible player goes runner-runner straight flush to two perfect cards to beat your flopped four of a kind (989-1 by the way) then you will be able to shrug your shoulders and say: "whatever will be will be." In other words, if you have proven to yourself that you are a winning player in the long run then short term losses will not bother you because all they mean is that the bad player got lucky -- this time. You will learn to love losing. If you never lost, there would be no sheep to fleece in the long run. There would be no fish in the sea.

(3) It's not NASCAR... nothing happens quickly.

When I find myself at a table with a loudmouth schmuck who is constantly berating the other players at the table I ask the schmuck one question: "How much money do you make per hour playing poker?" If the schmuck is actually a winning player, and he or she actually keeps track of all his or her wins and losses then he or she will know the answer. More often than not the schmucks don't know the answer and they reveal themselves to be what you suspected all along... schmucks.

The truth is that it is almost impossible to win more than two big bets per hour at a casino or cardroom poker game. Translation? In a 3-6 hold'em game the maximum that you can win is around $12/hour. In the short term it will be a lot more or a lot less (that is the effect of luck). In the long term, however, it will be about $12/hour. Good players don't win every hand. Bad players win lots of hands. At the end of the year you will find that you make about $12/hour in a 3-6 hold'em game.

So, nothing happens fast. At times it seems to. You make or lose $1000 in a single evening of $10-20 hold'em and you feel like you are Doyle Brunson. Start tracking all of your results and you will see that you are a skillful player who got damn lucky over that short term period. In the long run, you will make $40/hour in that game. In other words, accumulating money playing poker takes time. It's not NASCAR. Nothing happens quickly. Be patient.