Using the right tools

Most important part of the game. Recording results.

This is a part of the game that everyone seems to neglect. We all have been under the illusion that it doesn't matter whats the results say and that's its a waste spending time filling out some speed sheet with a load of numbers on it just to tell yourself what you already know.

Well let me tell you, your not the only one to have made this mistake and not realised until its been to late.

Recording your results tells you a lot more than just how much you're up or down, it paints the picture, fills in the blank spaces and gives you all the answers to the questions you thought you didn't know. Well if you had of been recording the results you would of known all along the games that you won at and the games you lost.

Your speed sheet should list as much info about your particular game as possible.

Things like,

-the type of game nl holdem or pot limit
-was it a re buy or freeze out
-how long the clock was
-what was the blind structure
-what was the entry fee
-how much did you win
-how many runners
-how long you played for
-what position you finished

These are all the things you need to know about your game to create a picture so that over a period of time you can analyse where you strengths are and your weaknesses lie. Some people think that because you have lost at a particular game then its over and therefore nothing you can do about it. Well its quite the opposite. There is something you can do. Simply work out from your results which games your better at and if your like me you will understand that some types of games just shouldn't be played. After playing poker for about twelve months the only type of games I was playing were re buys. I noticed that in 12 months I played only 4 freeze outs and cashed in them all. This was straight away told me that I had more of an edge playing freeze outs than re buys even though I was cashing in 3 out of ten re buy tournaments.
I use a a computer program to track my results a i would be lost with out. I recently come to the conclusion that my strike rate in sit n go's is extra poor which tells me its an area of my game that must be worked on. I've taken the bull by the horns and started a sit n go challenge to help sort my game out. I have dropped to a $5 limit so that if I do loose then it wont cripple my bankroll, but at the same time my strike rate in my multi table tournaments is very profitable and so this allows me to play $50 multi table tournaments.
You can devise a speed sheet on excel or something similar or use one of the many computer programs that's available online. You can get a tool called poker dominator that is excellent for this job click here.