Hey all,

First post, and might be posting to the wrong place, so please forgive me if I am. I currently play anywhere from 40/80 a 100/200 limit on a regular basis, and I have been a winning player for quite some time. With that said, I have serious flaws in my game. Periodically I revert back to my old overly aggressive play without much thought as to what I'm doing, only reactionary betting. I am hoping that you all may have some guidance on what type of tracking systems you use for live play? Poker tracker is great for online play, but does nothing for someone like me that plays cash games.

What works for all of you? Maybe I can apply some of your methods and build a tracking system that works for me,

Cheers
Z0mbie
(I prefer to remain anonymous for now, if that's ok)

What are you trying to track?

Poker....

Oh, I thought he must of meant something else. I track my poker with my iPhone camera and just assumed everyone else did too

I use poker income on my iPhone. Every time I sit in a game I just 'add a live game' with the stakes and buy in , when I take a break I 'pause' and at the end I enter results. I'll take down interesting hands in the session using the notes feature for this session. Another feature I use a lot is taking detail notes on players tendencies using the 'players' feature of the app.

Good luck


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oh no! not you too!!! i thought you were smart. dang it.

what the hell does "must of" mean? you must've meant "must've" which is a contraction of "must have".

Sorry, autocorrect error. I meant "musk of something else."

Thank you for your input. I am not familiar with that app, so I'll be downloading it now. I'm sure every little thing will help.

I find writing down losses on hands I shouldn't have played in the first place helps.

At the end of a session, whether or not I win or lose for the day, seeing these numbers totaled up will always turn my losers in to winners, and in some cases my wins, in to much larger wins. Seeing for myself where I waste is helpful. With that said, I feel a little ridiculous bringing out my little notebook everytime I play a hand poorly.

never tracked 1 session. still have no clue what my wr is.

Paging Dr IRS. Dr IRS please come to the audit department

You can fail to track any single session yet know the aggregate of all your sessions.

The aggregate won't help you file your taxes correctly.

If you are a professional gambler, you might be able to get the right number on your return. But you won't have any records to back it up if you are audited. If you are not a professional, then you won't have the right numbers on your return.

I guess i am mistaken. Sounds like one number should be enough to satisfy the IRS if you're ever audited

So sit down and take a picture when you buy in and then when you leave?
I wonder if it's possible with an iPhone or other device to capture the entire session from your perspective. Would be great way to go over your own and others play.
At Commerce I feel like my life might be in danger if it appears I'm trying to record players.
Thanks

Turn the camera on your phone on and then put it in your shirt pocket with the stop sticking out

Holy jackpot! So simple and elegant. Thanks you. That helps a lot. My memory ain't want it used to be. AARP recently started soliciting me for membership which seemed preposterous until I looked at my drivers license. I owe you if you're ever in LA.

Not "might" but "will."

If you're a pro, you are able to pay the correct amount of taxes you owe. Now I understand that may be little consolation when Dr IRS snaps on the latex glove but at least you're not in the fast lane headed for federal pound me in the ass prison the way you are if you neither track your individual sessions nor your aggregate.

True, and if you live in one of those states where you can't deduct, then you've underpaid taxes too. But again, instead of focusing on the corner cases where someone earns as much gambling recreationally as they earn, focus on the fact that even if you haven't been keeping track of individual sessions, you can still pay the correct tax most of the time.

Is it best to just track individual sessions? Sure. Is it the end of the world if you don't? No. The worst is if you track and don't pay. Second worst is don't track don't pay. Second best is don't track but oay. Best is track and pay.

It's not a corner case. Anyone who gambles regularly as a non-professional is going to have a vastly different AGI than they otherwise would, which will have real implications on their tax liability. Not to mention, many people would not itemize deductions if they didn't gamble so now are losing their standard deduction if they have to itemize to take gambling losses.

Also, an accurate number on a schedule C is worth just as much as a number you pull out of your ass or no number at all without any substantiation. If it's important to you to pay the "right" amount of tax, great, but the IRS isn't going to care.

Also, very few people go to prison for tax evasion. The IRS usually only targets high profile cases that they think might deter other tax evaders. More frequently, they just assess a bunch of penalties.

Yeah, having an accurate aggregate number means jack ****. It's poker, the IRS has no way of knowing what your exact income is so having just an exact number is just as useful to you as picking a number that sounds good on your way over. It's not the aggregate number tht triggered your audit, so you're most likely not going to have the numbers they're interested in me they're just going to tell you what you made

Depends on how you define worse but I'd bet any option tht involves accurate tracking is waaaay better than any that doesn't once the IRS gets involved

I'd also like to point out that you're defending a point no one was talking about. He said he didn't track his sessions, I said the IRS wouldn't like that, and you countered with he could still know his aggregate and bad tax advice

Funny how this thread pivot to IRS and tax filling. I'm gonna bet that OP never had that in mind. I'm guessing he merely wants to track his sessions and be able to see how he is doing and how to improve etc.


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I asked, he never responded. It seems hard to believe anyone who is a winning player from 40/80 to 1/2 can't figure out a way to track his sessions or results. You can find apps for that by just searching "track poker." What advice are we supposed to give?

I think he wants a live HUD type app. I know of one that exists for iPhones. It's discrete so people think you are just on your phone, but it's very expensive. If you actually want something like that and don't mind investing a mere 5ish big bets I can pass along the contact info

IRS Pub. 529 expressly forbids reporting the net of wins - losses as income.

Sum of winning sessions only is *other income* on Form 1040
Sum of losing sessions (not to exceed wins) is an itemized deduction on Schedule A

Note that this means on some State tax returns you pay taxes on your winning sessions and can't deduct any losing sessions.(e.g., MA & RI tax on AGI, which is income before deductions)

You're like 3 exchanges behind.

The question isn't "Are you ****ed?" but "How ****ed are you?"

If you live in a state where you can deduct, what you netted can be used to calculate exactly what you owe. And yes, it's not the correct way to fill out your forms, but if during an audit it comes out you made a reasonable effort to pay the correct taxes, you'll get a lecture and some fines.

If you record your sessions and pay less than what you owe, you will be perceived as intentionally trying to dick the IRS, and that's extremely bad. Like jail bad. I argue it's even worse than not keeping records.

I would imagine this is probably correct and that's why I said depends on how define worse. One way probably gets you bent over if you get caught more, the other way gets you bent over more often but gentler.

So which ever is worse for you lower variance or lower frequency