Be Honest with Yourself (and Log Everything)

[frob23]

It is essential that you be honest with yourself regarding your wins and losses.
One of the most important things I find in poker is that you must be honest with yourself. It is really easy to forget a losing session, exaggerate a small win into a large one, or forget you rebought 3 times for $100 each and call a finishing stack of $180 a winning session.

Lying to yourself when playing poker is a devastating problem. It is natural to remember the wins and the big cashes and forget all the small losses along the way. So it's very easy to believe you're a better player than you are or to lose more money than you really should playing.

Raise your hand if you have a friend who is constantly depositing money online; but, he insists that he's really a winning player and he only needs to deposit because he keeps cashing out?

{frob23 looks around the room and sees that most people have their hand raised and discovers that his own hand is raised as well.}

Most of us know this person and some of us are this person. It's not good to be this kind of player because you're in denial about how much poker is costing you and once you lie to yourself, you start lying to others (maybe thinking you're telling the truth). And when they talk about how you never seem to have money, suddenly you're bringing up how you're in the middle of a bad run but it will turn around.

Yes, bad runs happen to good players. In fact, they happen to the best players. But if you're not honest with yourself, you will never know if your bad run is really an extended losing streak.

It is fine to be a losing player at poker.
A lot of people don't want to be a losing player. Well, most of us don't want to be a losing player. But it is not the end of the world to be a losing player -- as long as you are comfortable with that fact. I will try and explain what I mean.

We all play poker for different reasons. I would venture to say that the majority of people reading this will be people who play primarily for pleasure. Yes, they love having some extra money and winning is always great but they play poker for fun and social time. There are players who play some fairly high stakes (compared to what I play) who play mostly for pleasure and play that high because they can afford to and find it fun.

If you are playing for pleasure and recreation, it is not the end of the world to be a losing player. That is, it is not the end of the world so long as you can afford to spend the amount you do on poker. I will bring up some charts and graphs of my own later and one statistic that I will show is that over the last 87 hours of play, I have been losing $0.21/hr. Yes, my ring game stats currently show me as a losing player. I primarily play for recreation and spending $0.21/hr on something I enjoy is certainly within my means.

Obviously, if you are a losing player, it is in your best interest to improve your game in the hopes of becoming a winning player. But don't worry about having to face the idea of being a losing player and not being able to play any more. You can still play as a losing player as long as you're enjoying it and not losing more than you can afford.

Record Every Session of Poker.
This is the key to really being honest with yourself. It is much harder to pretend you're a "Pro" at the tables when you're looking at hard numbers that show only a small profit or maybe even a loss. If you are absolutely honest and complete with your logging, you will benefit from facing the truth about your game.

At the start of this summer, I attempted to improve my logging both in frequency (log 100% of the games) and in usage by cleaning up the format. For my logging I normally use a collection of spreadsheets that I have on my computer. I have also recently found, and been using:
https://www.checkyourbets.com (This site is free to use and promises to remain free)**

I think most people here would like the above site because it makes logging very simple. Once you have done some setup (which took me a while), you can start a new entry in a matter of seconds and with a very small amount of input. It takes me about 4-5 clicks on average to start a log. And rebuying or ending a session is easy too. I even went and loaded all my sessions back to the start of my summer logging -- when I cleaned everything up.

Once you have a log, you can start mining data. In my personal spreadsheets, I record the following data: the date, the site I am playing at, the game, the stakes, my buy-in (plus any times I rebuy), the amount I cash out, and the number of hands played. This takes a few seconds at the start of a session (longer than the website by far) and a couple more at the end (to record the cash out and hands played). I can then use this to find my BB/100, the stakes I do better at, the average number of hands I play each session, how much I am winning/losing, and a bunch of other stuff. With some selection criteria, I can even filter down to find out how well I am doing in $10NL @ PokerNordica & when I play more than 100 hands in a session.

With the website, it's much easier. I just enter the sessions and it will generate charts and graphs for me. It will tell me how much I am making per hour and how my latest sessions have been going. It will make a chart (over time) to let me see a picture of how I am doing. And it can make a bunch of charts that can even show you how you play in certain games, what time of day is good/bad for you, and a lot more. By having this data, you get a better picture of how you play. And having a better picture of how you play is key to knowing what you need to work on.

I have the following graph of my total winnings since my logging started in June. As you can see, I am down about $18 right now. I have played almost 87 hours and have spent $0.21/hr playing poker. It's not great and I would much rather have been winning but I can look at that and ask myself if I am comfortable with what I see. I enjoy playing and it's certainly worth that amount. I actually believe I am a better player than this seems to suggest (and I did have some horrific runs and beats) but the numbers are what they are. I look forward to bringing that number back up but I am happy with where it is. As always, I have room to grow.


Note: That big slump in mid-August was me moving up in stakes and immediately running top set into a straight -- which made for a fun session. I would be showing a profit without that session but I can't lie to myself when it's right there. I did play that and regardless of the sessions I won, I am currently a losing player. Besides, there is no denying the gentle slope downwards before that even happened.

Maybe I will show some other data and graphs in this thread to give you an idea of how you can use this information. But I think this post is growing too long as it is. I highly recommend the above site because it takes away all the excuses to not log. It's simple to use and painless. And, since most of the readers here probably play online, it's right there when you need it.

It is never too late to start logging. Start now. You don't need to go back and load old sessions in... just start with the next session.

Poker is a Long-Term Game.
So you're losing money and you've got 500 hands of data. Well, this means very little about how strong or weak you are as a player. There is a lot of variance in poker, it is a gambling game, so it takes a long time to know how strong or weak you may be. It takes many tens of thousands of hands and the more the better. But you can immediately benefit from your logs even if some of the long-term benefits are a ways off. You can see how much you are up and down each day. You will know how many hours (or hands) you play. And you will be able to watch your bankroll grow.

It starts slow but it will benefit you in the long run. And, if you ever decide to become a Pro, you will be in the habit of logging your sessions like the IRS requires of people claiming Professional status in poker. If you are properly logging all your sessions, you can deduct your losses from your winnings and will be ready if such a need ever arises.

** [I hope it is not a problem to post a link to this site. I have checked and it doesn't seem to compete with RB.com in any manner and appears to make money from the inline text ads that are on the site. If it is a problem, I will remove it.]

[XDRAGON]

Wow, didn't realise you played such low stakes. Im the opposite, i remember and dwell on all the big losses and always forget my big wins after about 5 minutes. If i lose $400 in a day it takes me hours to stop thinking about it, if i win $1,000 in a day im happy for a bit then i just get on with something else.

[frob23]

Originally Posted by XDRAGON Wow, didn't realise you played such low stakes. Im the opposite, i remember and dwell on all the big losses and always forget my big wins after about 5 minutes. If i lose $400 in a day it takes me hours to stop thinking about it, if i win $1,000 in a day im happy for a bit then i just get on with something else.

Yeah, online I play the super-micro stakes because I am determined to never deposit. So far, I am doing well on that goal and have built up a pretty decent bankroll. Eventually, as my bankroll grows, I will move up in stakes. But I am very content playing for pocket change.

When I play live, I play higher. But that is different. It's a lot easier to increase my bankroll live than it is online.