Track your progress online with this strong package!
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Ask any serious poker player what one of the most important elements is for improving your game, and you'll always hear one common thing - closely tracking your sessions. The only way to really know how you're doing is to keep records of your play, including every 3 minute online session you sneak at the office.

So this year I decided it was time to get serious and honestly record every win and loss, no matter how small or embarassing. I initially thought I'd just create my own Excel spreadsheet, but then decided to browse the 'net to see what's out there (no sense in re-creating the wheel). One of the first sites I happened upon was PokerCharts.com, an online database that does exactly what I was looking for. I wanted something that would record all of my sessions and give me plenty of flexibility to enter notes or segment the sessions by a variety of variables. I've used the software for a month and a half now, and can highly recommend this site.

Apparently created by a group of engineer players who had already suffered through the pains of a spreadsheet system, PokerCharts is a very well though-out application with a simple interface and nice statistical reporting. Accessible from any internet connection, PokerCharts offers features such as:

• Stats like earnings, hourly win rate, average returns, and standard deviations
• Ability to sort and analyze your sessions by date, location, game type, opponents, etc.
• Custom locations and opponents

Their website says it all: "Poker Charts is a completely organized diary and computational scorecard or your poker performance."

I love being able to quickly see not only where I stand for the year as far as my bankroll, but also where I play the best, what time of day I should really avoid, how much time I'm putting in each week, and which opponents I fare better against. For instance, I've done much better at AbsolutePoker than UltimateBet so far, and definitely shouldn't log on after midnight (too tired, just give my money away). These kinds of stats would not stand out so clearly if you tried to go simply by memory alone. Keeping records like this forces you to honestly look at your game.

So how much does something this great cost? A whopping $19.95 per year, and they give you a free month's trial to test it out.

These guys have figured it out. If you're looking for a place to house all of our poker playing data, look no further - Poker Charts has it all!

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