The end of the year is quickly approaching. Now is the time to start preparing for how you are going to structure and track your play over the next year. If you aren’t doing anything at all, you should. If you are already tracking your play and results, it is a good time to look at how well you are doing in terms of religiously tracking every session and what other data could be useful to you.

Pretty much from the beginning, I had a basic spreadsheet where I put in my results, even back when my poker play meant a weekly $10 tournament with nine or ten players. Over the years, my poker play and spreadsheets have both evolved. Columns have come and gone, things I thought were important no longer get tracked, and new stats have made their way in.

If you are or plan to be a winning player, you should keep excellent records. If you are playing for fun and entertainment, then whether you keep records is up to you. For most of the readers here, I am going to assume you either are or have aspirations of being a winning player. So, crack open Excel and get to work on a spreadsheet or find some other established ways of keeping track.

I’ve seen some people use apps on their phones, but for me they were never quite as familiar or versatile as the Excel sheets I have built for myself and customized over the years. Others simply keep track in a Notepad-type app, but this makes getting totals, manipulating the data, and digging deeper difficult and limits the value you can get out of your records. I actually often use a simple note on my phone, but only to log the relevant information so I don’t forget.

One of my favorite stats I haven’t been tracking for all that long is my hourly rate. I keep up with it when I start a session, when I finish, and how many total hours I played down to the quarter hour. I can then use this to see what my overall hourly rate is, but more importantly, I can break it down by game and location to get a really good idea of which games I should make a priority and which ones I should put on the bottom of my list.

I was actually very surprised after about 18 months of data at the difference from game to game. As such, I have been able to move my schedule around to where I am getting more hours in at the most profitable games while cutting out games where, for whatever reason, my hourly win rate isn’t nearly as good.

Games change and situations change, so we all have to constantly adapt, but part of adapting is having as much accurate information available as possible. There is no better place to start than with a fully complete and comprehensive look at your poker play.

Most New Year’s resolutions fall by the wayside long before Valentine’s Day. But, if you want to be a long-term winning poker player and aren’t keeping stellar records, now is the time to start and make sure you don’t let up.

Court Harrington has worked on the business side of the poker industry in roles including tournament reporting for PocketFives, radio hosting for PokerRoad Radio, coaching for the WSOP Academy and privately, and a variety of behind-the-scenes responsibilities for poker media businesses. He also plays in cash games and tournaments. Harrington is currently doing consulting work and exploring business opportunities outside of the poker industry. You can contact him at Court@CourtHarrington.com.

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