How to track high hand $$$ (1 Viewer)

[fish72s]

Last week at Club 52 here in Melbourne Fl, I made my first ever Royal Flush.
In the past I have won a couple of the hourly high hands and quads promotions but these were only $100 and $200.
The Royal paid $500. I played a few more hours and finished up $20 for the night (not including the $500.)
So I was trying to figure out the best was to enter this in my bankroll spreadsheet.

I can track this money separately outside of the normal win/lose money.
Or I could enter it in the nightly results column and make a note of the $500 royal money. I did this for the other promotion money even though its skewed the nightly stats. But $500 is going to skew the nightly, monthly and maybe even yearly stats. On the other hand it does accurately reflect the overall poker $$$. After all I didn't really WIN anything. This is my money that I dump into the pot every time I play a hand. Of course if I ever win a bad beat then I will have the best winning % of any poker player ever.

Interested to hear what others do?

 

[12thMan]

First, congrats on the ROYAL!!!

For me I don't enter that kind of money anywhere. I know I pay into it and it's part of the rake, but all I'm interested in my stats for is to look at them and say "I'm up/down this much over lifetime/this year/this month/whatever." and I want to do that off the poker game itself. The one or two times this past year that I've hit a high hand and gotten paid I treat it like I found it on the ground as far as my up/down for the night in poker went, Yeah, I have more money in my wallet that my stats won't reflect, but I'm a glutton for punishment and I want to see how bad I suck without padding stats because I made quads on a Wednesday afternoon and got paid $500 extra as opposed to hitting the same hand on a Friday night when there are no promotions going (but they still take the rake, lucky us weekend players. FU Tulalip) and only having the pot available to me.

 

[fish72s]

BTW, The royal almost didn't happen. I had left the previous SB to go to the bathroom and returned on the BB. I was going to wait for the button. I had just bought for the min $50 and didn't really want to play short OOP and with missed blind $1. But a few people said "you are going to have to pay anyway.." and I didn't really want to wait anymore so I tossed in the $3 and sat down. In the hand there were 2 limpers and I got AsJs. Both players were loose calling stations so I raised it up to $10. MP called and flop cam 2sTsKs. I checked MP bet $15. Th came on the turn. Check and MP bet $25.
I went all in for $35. I just assumed he was calling the $10 more; I didn't even see the royal draw. Turns out he had 2c4c and almost folded. He said maybe he could hit a boat (assuming that would be good.)
I was actually expecting the 2 or T to come and when the Qs hit I took a second to see it. I gave the guy his $10 back
So I guess the moral of the story is shake it quick and get back to the tables and play any 2 suited face cards....

 

[fish72s]

First, congrats on the ROYAL!!!

For me I don't enter that kind of money anywhere. I know I pay into it and it's part of the rake, but all I'm interested in my stats for is to look at them and say "I'm up/down this much over lifetime/this year/this month/whatever." and I want to do that off the poker game itself. The one or two times this past year that I've hit a high hand and gotten paid I treat it like I found it on the ground as far as my up/down for the night in poker went, Yeah, I have more money in my wallet that my stats won't reflect, but I'm a glutton for punishment and I want to see how bad I suck without padding stats because I made quads on a Wednesday afternoon and got paid $500 extra as opposed to hitting the same hand on a Friday night when there are no promotions going (but they still take the rake, lucky us weekend players. FU Tulalip) and only having the pot available to me.

I hear you. But what about all those nights that you don't win a high hand? You don't pretend that you dropped $10 on those nights?
Ideally it would be nice to know exactly how much money each night I dumped into the bad-beat / high-hand pools. And the rake $$ too. Then I could track that money separate along with any winning $$$. I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to estimate it but its probably not worth the effort.

Actually I think this question is similar to a question I had years ago about how to track rake $$$. (I almost started a tread on it too; or maybe I did. I can't remember.)
Do you want your spreadsheet to reflect just your $$$ won/lost (and rates and so on..) or do you want it to reflect your skill level in how you are beating/losing in the game.

Its alot harder to make 10BB / hr at a casino than it is in a home game.

 

[Anthony Martino]

Because I want to know my win-rate in a specific game I don't include any promotional money won in my calculations, as it skews your true win-rate over a sample size. FWIW at the Hard Rock in Tampa I've hit one Royal for $500 and two high hands for $300-500 (varied by month, promos change) and didn't include those in my winrate since it doesn't reflect how well or poorly I'm playing in a specific game and limit.

 

[trever]

Why not color code it? Put two entries for the session into your ss, and put the $500 and any other bonus or side winnings in its own color. Anytime you want to see your 'pure' poker winnings, you can just filter your spreadsheet by color.

 

[jbutler]

Why not color code it? Put two entries for the session into your ss, and put the $500 and any other bonus or side winnings in its own color. Anytime you want to see your 'pure' poker winnings, you can just filter your spreadsheet by color.

This seems like the most reasonable thing to do if you want to track your "rakeback" dollars. I've gotten a piece of a couple bad beats and a few high hand payouts and I've never logged them at all, but now I sort of wish I had so I could try to calculate how much I'm stuck in rake over the years. I could try to do it by memory, but I think I'd be off by at least several hundred.

 

[12thMan]

THe color coding works great if you have a spreadsheet, I just use one of those poker tracker apps that are on my cell phones so the only option I would have is entering the highhand money as I won it on the table and then make a note that winnings were actually <$500> or something.

 

[Shaggy]

If your tracking system were more of a database rather than a spreadsheet, you could have a report that included that money in your overall up/down, because imho it belongs there. As others (and you) have pointed out... it does not belong in your win rate calculation. You could add a second column or something to include it separately.

 

[kirchhausen]

I would personally count it towards poker winnings. It's not like I calculate the rake every night and add it back in to what I cashed out for, so why would I make a credit entry for "negative rake".

 

[Mrs Poker Zombie]

I hear you. But what about all those nights that you don't win a high hand? You don't pretend that you dropped $10 on those nights?
Ideally it would be nice to know exactly how much money each night I dumped into the bad-beat / high-hand pools. And the rake $$ too. Then I could track that money separate along with any winning $$$. I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to estimate it but its probably not worth the effort.

The issue I see with that is tracking how much I added to the prize pool. I personally don't want to count how many hands I play in a given span. I'd much rather note that I played, perhaps how long, and amount up or down.

I am in the same boat with several others that I don't treat high-hand / bonus money as winnings. The same hand in a different time block may be worth nothing. That makes it seem weird to me to make it count more in my tracking.

 

[courage]

BTW, The royal almost didn't happen. I had left the previous SB to go to the bathroom and returned on the BB....

But did you wash your hands?

 

[Mrs Poker Zombie]

But did you wash your hands?

Good question.

So I guess the moral of the story is shake it quick and get back to the tables and play any 2 suited face cards....

Doesn't sound like it to me.

 

[fish72s]

But did you wash your hands?

I had to wash both of them, if you know what I'm sayin'