Cold Hard Math

I love math - now that I'm an adult and don't have to do homework based on it.

I love it because it is cold and indifferent, devoid of emotion or sentiment.  I love it because it simply tells the truth, regardless of outside influences.

I love using it my poker game when I can, it helps me make decisions.  When someone is going to give me 3 to 1 odds to chase a 4 to 1 flush, it's a fairly easy fold as long as I don't think too hard about implied odds.   Math is my friend.

I recently learned to love math even more; I purchased a poker tracking app on my phone called "Run Good" for 17.99 and I have to say it was worth every penny.  The numbers that have spewed out of this thing have made me very happy.  Much happier than I thought I would be.

As you may know, I've been meticulously tracking my results since January of 2012; both tournaments and cash games.   In 2012 I was down a bit, 2013, up a bit, 2014 up quite a bit and now 2/3 of the way through 2015, again up quite a bit.

I had a vague idea of the grand totals, but now that I've loaded all of my results into this app, the big picture has become crystal clear.


Since Jan. 2, 2012 I have played in 212 tournaments.

I have spent $18,498 on entry fees.

I have won $25, 211.

I have made $6,713 in profit.   This is a 36% return on my investment.


Honestly, because I kept the spread sheet for each year separate, I had no idea that I was up this much.  Granted, 212 is not a huge sample size for four years, but I'm a strictly recreational player who leads a pretty balanced life, meaning I typically only play a two or three of times a month.  Plus of course an occasional Vegas bender thrown in, where I can easily play 20 tournaments in four days. But overall, I'm not anywhere near close to playing a lot.

I average just under 4 hours per tournament, which is 848 hours total - meaning my hourly profit rate for poker tournaments is a whopping $7.90 an hour.

So yes, I don't plan to quit my day job.

But still - I am so happy that I am a solidly profitable tournament poker player.


Here's a bunch of other cold math that I like, even when it's not good news.  All of these stats I gleaned from "Run Good Poker Tracker."

I have won 25 tournaments - which is 12%.
(I only include 1st place finishes on chops if I have the chip lead.  There are quite a few other '1st place' finishes where we just divided up the money evenly even though I was a slight dog in chips.)

I have made 55 final tables, which is 26%.
Obviously I don't include single table tournaments.  Yes, I do include my monthly multi table tournaments which often have only 2 tables BUT ONLY WHEN I MAKE THE TOP THREE.  I figure this is balanced a bit by the deep runs I have made in larger events, such as when I final tabled the 40 table Bally's Classic twice in two days in 2013 or when I final tabled the Hollywood Park Sport of Kings 20K guaranteed event in 2012 which had 60 tables.

I have cashed 85 times, which is 40%.
This is a pretty darn big number which is both great and not so great.  A high percentage here with a mediocre hourly means I'm min-cashing way too much.

I average $87 per buy in.

My longest tournament winning streak is four cashes.
This is a bit surprising, for some reason I thought it would be more.

My best accumulative streak is $1660.
Don't know if that was from the 4 tournament winning streak.

My worst tournament losing streak is 11 non-cashes.
Again, I thought this number would be larger, glad it isn't.

My worst accumulative loss is $1165.
Glad it's not bigger than my best accumulative winning streak.

The most number of tournaments I have played at one location are in my garage - 51.

Followed by...
Hollywood Park - 32
Commerce - 31
The Bike - 22

and then believe it or not...

The Rio - 8  (which has always been for the WSOP, including the Daily Deep Stacks)
Mirage - 8
Harrah's - 8
Aria - 7
Treasure Island - 6  (weird, I thought I played here WAY more, read on to see why)
GK Binion's - 5 (Garner's home game)
Bally's - 5


My most profitable day of the week by far is Monday - $3,051 of my total profit.
That day is indeed memorable, 3 of my big 4 figure scores came on that day, two of them were on day two in larger events.

The location with the best return on my investment is Treasure Island with an ROI of %368
Makes sense, it's a $50 tournament and I've cashed there 4 out of 6 times for $300-$900 each time.

Most of my tournament 1st place finishes, happened in my garage on Saturday - 8 of them.

Followed by 7 first place finishes in other home games.

Followed by 4 fist place finishes back in my garage during the week (single table SNGs)

Followed by 6 genuine first place finishes in card rooms - 2 of them at HPC, 1 at the Bike and 1 at Commerce, plus 2 more at HPC in their long gone single table SNGs.  Alas, no first place finishes in major events.

My two highest locations for winning percentage were both home games, both now defunct - Eric's game and the Monkeyland Audio game.  I won in both of these 66.67% of the time.   I was always an alternate at Eric's game and I was likely taken off the list at Monkeyland when I crushed souls so frequently.



As I said, good news mostly.

I am now very much inspired to know, via cold hard math, that I am indeed beating this game.  Not crushing it by any means, despite my 40% cash rate - but I am truly in the black and not by a tiny margin.

My cash game stats are largely meaningless, as I have only played 18 sessions in 4 years.  I didn't enter precise times, but I put 4 hours for each session as that's what it is at my home game.

$927 in profit total.

$12.52 per hour.

22.5 bb per hour.

16 profitable sessions - 88%  (including 4 card room sessions, the rest are in my garage.)

Like I said, way too small to mean much; but it's nice to know I'm ahead and that I may have a cash game career ahead of me if tournaments take me out to the woodshed one too many times.


I should note that I have not included the two major WSOP events that I entered with my own money - both this year, the Colossus and the Monster Stack, $565 and $1500 respectively.  I am not bankrolled in any way shape or form for these events, and thus decided to do it to 'take a shot' and have some fun.  If I had cashed I would have not included those results into the app.



Well, there it is.  I really overall feel very positive about this, and have a much clearer picture of where I am at in the 'long game' that is poker.

I would encourage anyone who is at the level of enthusiast or higher, to get a poker results tracking app and keep it updated.  You might be pleasantly surprised, or you might find you have things to work on.   In my case it was both - I'm over the moon that I've shelled out 18K and managed to come back with 25K, but I also know I have to get that cashing percentage down a bit.  Less cashes over all, but more big cashes to get more profits!

Can't wait to get back on the felt with this new sense of self awareness - it's going to be a grand old time!