Cheat yourself in PT?

[snickers99]

Have you ever cheated in Poker Tracker by deleting a bad session? I had an awful day Saturday and almost decided to delete the session from PT and replace the loss with my non-bankroll money. But I didn't because I realized I would only be cheating myself. Made me wonder if anybody else ever did this or thought about it.

[caffiend]

Yes and no. I do a bit of book cooking now and then, but I don't consider it cheating. More often it's selective pruning of extraordinary events.

For example, if I went berserk with $8 on a .02/.04 NL table I wouldn't feel bad dumping that session after the auto import. Nor do I think it's cheating to wipe out oddball limits. If I've got well over 1,000 hands at every limit but one I'd consider dumping it.

Recently I did "cheat" in that I threw away all record of my time at Poker Room. Although it's true I was taking a bath there, the main reason was that I just wanted to put it all behind me. I had signed up for the bonus, and hated everything about the place. Not being used to their points system I struggled to even clear the damn thing, mainly because I spent too much time in games that didn't generate many points. After the halfway point it was better to grind it out at tables I'd normally avoid rather than play better games with somewhat better winning potential.

Even outside of Poker Tracker I've been known to drop wins and losses from the books if they're small and one time deals. That's both to reduce clutter, and to prevent skewing the numbers without using filters. Basically if it's something I'm 100% sure I won't be able to play enough of to get a good confidence interval I don't worry about it too much.

[aj]

Really interesting topic. I know I have considered it (and to be truthful, did it once soon after I purchased PT). Since I am mostly a SNG player, I deleted one tourney result when I went out 10th on a play I am still embarrased about.

I, like you, decided it was silly and I was only going to completely invalidate any data if I kept it up. Haven't done it since but I still think about it sometimes.

[ugignadl]

I've done it with my early play.

When I first signed up to PP, I invested 50 USD, and played the 1/2 limit tables. Bam, half an hour later donked away all my chips.

Then I invested another 50 USD, played the 0.5/1, and donked away all my chips in two hours.

Then I invested another 50 USD and decided to become a good poker player.

The reason I deleted those results was not to get rid of the negative $100 in profit (I custom built a hand to add that in after I deleted them) but instead to make my stats when playing 0.5/1 and 1/2 limit HE accurate. I completely changed my game after that (obviously) and with those evil hands corrupting the history examining 0.5/1 and 1/2 was ... difficult.

[beezee]

I dont know if this counts as cooking the books, but I have often forgot to start PT's hand capture feature... when it was email dependant... and lost many sessions that way. I also have a printout of probly 60 SNGs I never got summaries for from 2004. I often wonder what my ACTUAL stats are in poker.

[uncledave]

Hmm...

I lost my database after the first 6000 hands or so... so I'm missing my poker career beginning. I'm not sure that's cheating but I guess it leaves a hole in my history.

Over the years I suppose it becomes more and more insignificant.

DS

[caffiend]

It can become insignificant in weeks. I mean, I doubt you're playing exactly the same after three months as you were at day one.

Perhaps the real divide is people that use Poker Tracker to track wins and losses, and people who use it just to capture hand histories. I keep a seperate log of wins and losses, and play on unsupported sites so I don't expect my entire life to have been imported. All I expect is that the sessions that are in there are complete and have accurate stats.

[levistep]

No I haven't, but I would get so annoyed during tourneys that i'd immediately X out of it after getting eliminated. This screwed up my win %, and I got really mad. I tell great stories.