I asked a friend of mine who plays poker online and offline on a regular basis how much money he makes off poker per month. He told me honestly that, while he knows that he does make a profit he doesn’t really keep track of it and he couldn’t tell me an exact amount. This got me thinking. Why don’t we keep track of our poker play? If we’re making money off playing poker shouldn’t we treat it like a business, keeping records and analyzing our performance?

Too many poker players don’t keep track of their successes and failures and I think that by doing so they could increase their winnings. I’ve started keeping records over the past few months-recording how much I make on an hourly basis, what limits I played at and how much I invested-and I’ve had some interesting findings. It seems that I make a lot more money per hour playing $2/$4 limit games than when I play $3/$6 limit games. So much for the idea that higher limits equal higher payouts!

When you keep records of your poker playing you may stick to the simple details, such as the limits and earnings. However, you can also record everything from the time of day, what you had for lunch, your mood and more. This way you can discover the conditions that lead to the biggest profits and try to recreate them in your future poker endeavors.