How big is your spreadsheet

[ecrujet]

On my spreadsheet I have all my sessions recorded, this includes what site, date, total time played (in minutes) how much won or lost, how much bonus earnt per session and bb won lost per hour.
My daily duties include posting the date how much won/lost, stakes played time played and points earned towards bonus and the spreadsheet works out the rest.
In addition it also posts automatically to a main summery where I have listed month by month total winings and how much this equates to money earnt per table hour and how much was earnt in bonus and/or rake. Using double entry I can see at a glance how much i have on each site I play and my neteller balance.
I also have total winnings to date and total money withdrawn and total money available (money on sites and money in neteller). Once set up this requires very little maintenance and I see this as mostly essential information plus I enjoy doing it and seing if I can earn more month by month.
From all this information I can see (amongst other things) what my most profitable sites are, who pays the best bonus/ rakeback per hour from the sites I have played and I just love seeing how much profit I have taken from each site I have played.
I personally dont think you can get enough of this type of info, I can try a new site and after a couple of hours play (3 tables) I can work out if it is more profitable than another site relating direct to my style of play rather than relying on the bonus whore grid.
It also inspires me to try and get more hours in per month and to try to earn more cash per table hour per month and the effect it has on my profit when I move up in stakes.
I was wondering
what is the minimum info some of you are working with
Does anyone value the importance of record keeping as much as me
Would you encourage newbie players to keep the best records they can.

[Muzzard]

lol just use pokertracker

[Robb]

lol just use pokertracker

+1

I love spreadsheets - use them a lot. And I tried tracking my winnings that way when I got started. But once you have PokerTracker, the amount of info you have available to sort, search and query is about million times better and billion times more accurate and trillion times more useful than any analog record keeping you can do.

[ecrujet]

It works well for me and I also play sites that you cannot use poker tracker on (such as cake) and you cannot keep records of where your money is on poker tracker (I tend to have money on 4 or 5 sites and my bankroll is huge). I have poker tracker and it is essential to new players but a spreadsheet costs nothing and can contain different types of information.

[Robb]

a spreadsheet costs nothing and can contain different types of information.

Sure, but nothing you mentioned above (except current BR levels on sites) is more than a 5 second search on PT, and you're spending hours each week gathering and analyzing it.

[jyms]

Has OP ever seen PT?

[kmind]

I'd definitely get pokertracker or holdem manager. That said, excel sheets can still serve a good purpose. I know of players who keep records daily and include some things that PT has but also put in like money taken out and notes from each session. And then there are also other players who have a very detailed excel sheet (what I am working on) that kind of goes into how much money you expect per month and how much you can have as "leisure" money as well as other records.

[Robb]

That's great, kmind, but OP was all about site specific win rates, earn / hr etc on which stats PT has any homemade spreadsheet asswhooped and then some.

[kmind]

Yeah, just offering suggestions I guess.

[ecrujet]

ok I am officially a nerd.
It all started about 4 years ago when bonus hunting was a large part of your earnings maybe the largest part of your earnings, you cold play break even poker and earn $100s a month. We built our bankroll on bonus money, then we had to learn how to play.
unless I am mistaken you cannot see how much bonus or rakeback you have earnt using poker tracker.
It can tell you how much rakeback you have paid but not your true income.
In the last 12 months I have earnt $4650 in bonus and just $1581 in rakeback I dont believe poker tracker can do this?
A poor win rate with a good bonus can be better than a slightly better win rate with a poor or no bonus. (at least it used to be at low stakes, I don' know now).
Never would I challenge the analitical qualities of poker tracker, it is simply the best, but keeping a track of where your cash is and how you got it,when and where you spent it and how much youve got left is something poker tracker does not do or claim to do.
My spreadsheet requires on average 6 inputs per day and all the info I require is automated.
My original post was not all about site specific win rates and earnings/hr or at least it was not meant to be, I was just trying to say (probably badly)I would rather earn $300 in play and $250 in bonus than $400 in play and $100 in bonus. In that scenario poker tracker would give the second option as the highest win rate but to me its all about money in my bank.

[Andrew]

I use a spreadsheet and Poker Tracker. My spreadsheet is actually older than my PT so it has additional info that PT doesn't (due to a hard drive reformat). I'd recommend anyone serious about keeping track of their play to have an additional spreadsheet. It allows you to see exactly what you are doing, how you are doing and the money involved in every session. The extent to which you can use the spreadsheet is done to you, but at the minimum I'd say use it as an accounts file. Someday you may need to show someone your earnings/expenses/losses.