Understanding your results does not start with more strategy. It starts with a reliable record. The question is what to record: too little and you cannot calculate what you want later, too much and you give up within two weeks. This guide offers a practical field list.
Why memory isn't enough
Memory is not fair about wins and losses. Most people remember their big scores vividly and are vague about a long string of small losses, so they tend to overestimate their long-term results. Only numbers written down session by session are free of that bias.
The 5 required fields
If you can only log five things, log these. Leave any one out and the statistics that follow break.
| Field | What it is | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Date | The day the event started | Monthly and yearly trends |
| Total cost | Buy-in + fee, including every re-entry and add-on | ROI, bankroll level |
| Prize | What you actually collected — 0 if you did not cash | Net profit, ROI, ITM rate |
| Hours | From sitting down to leaving | Hourly rate |
| Currency | The currency the event was priced in | Converting events abroad |
Logging a prize of 0 matters a great deal. Many players only write down the events where they won, and a log like that has no statistical value. The events where you left with nothing are the ones that most need recording honestly.
6 optional fields worth adding
None of these is essential, but each one lets you slice the data later and see the conditions under which you do best.
- Format: deep stack, turbo, bounty, satellite and so on. ROI and hourly rate often differ a lot between formats.
- Location or venue: some venues' structures, fees and player pools suit you better than others.
- Field size and finishing place: these give you a finishing percentile, a metric that settles faster than ROI (see variance and sample size).
- Number of bullets: how many times you entered. It shows whether you re-enter too freely in certain events.
- Expenses: travel, accommodation, food. Not part of ROI, but they decide your real overall result.
- Notes: a sentence or two — the hand you busted on, how you felt physically, what you think you played badly.
The notes field is more useful than it looks
Numbers tell you what happened. Notes tell you why. If you look back after three months and your worst sessions all carry notes like "came straight from work, exhausted" or "just lost the previous event, rushing", that is something no statistic could have told you. It pairs well with a monthly review routine.
Four habits that keep a log alive
1. Log it as you leave the table
Fill it in the next day and the hours will be wrong. Fill it in the next week and even the cost may be wrong. Make logging part of leaving the table, as automatic as racking your chips.
2. Log every event, especially the ones you would rather forget
A record is only meaningful when it is complete. Skipping one terrible event throws away the credibility of the whole dataset.
3. Fix your definitions
Do hours include breaks? Does cost include the fee? Decide at the start and do not change it. Records with shifting definitions cannot be compared with each other.
4. Keep the effort low
If logging means opening a laptop, finding a file and filling in eight columns, you will not last a month. The smoother the tool, the more complete the record. Spreadsheets and apps each have strengths — see spreadsheet or app.
The smallest version you can start today
If you have no records at all, you do not need to do everything at once. From your next event, log only the five required fields. After three months you will have your first real dataset, and you will know for yourself what else you want to capture.