Understanding your limits

Yesterday I had a great start, I won 2 ring games, then I won a high stakes tournament. I made a decent profit for one day [it took me almost 3 hours]. Later that night, I was tired but decided to play a bit – BAD DECISION. After I lost the first time, I was on a tilt. At the end I lost everything I made that day [I made a $3 profit J ]. This lead me to today’s topic. How do you know when it is enough?

As you all already know, I am a reliability engineer. Part of what I do is to record work done on equipment and from those records I analyze the history of the equipment so I can come up with the best action [rebuilding, replacing or performing a preventative maintenance] on the equipment. I have been able to increase the production and the uptime of most of our manufacturing lines thanks to that history that I created. This is a good illustration on the importance of building a history with useful data.

Most poker players keep a record of their winnings that’s why I started recording my poker winnings since i was 18. I have been developing what I record and I believe I finally came up with the ideal spreadsheet.

Following is what I record in my spreadsheet for each entry:
Date
Profit/lose [if it was either from ring games or tournaments, and what was the entry fee]
Time
Profit per hour
Location where I played [house game, casino or online (for online I specify the site)]

Also I record the frequency of winning and losing in tournaments (single tables and multiple tables in different indicators), see previous post to see what’s the benefit of this metric.

From this data I can conclude what method is the most profitable for me (so far it has been house games with online at Full Contact Poker a close second). Also, I can conclude my overall profit and my profit per month.

Now back to the first question, How do you know when it is enough?

Using this database and performing some statistical tools, it came up that my optimum profit was at 3.25 hours (3 hours and 15 minutes). And going back to yesterday it makes perfect sense. I made the peak at 2.8 hours, then I lost everything from then to hour six.

So my recommendation is to record the location and the time you spend everyday playing and what is your profit for that day and from that come up with your poker strategy.
If you have more metrics in your records I would love to hear what they are and discuss their benefits.