Keeping tips separate from chip counts?
In my life outside of poker, I’m a generous tipper.
But in my poker play, my tips bring down my win rate.
Does anyone here separate their tips from their final chip counts?
It seems standard for people to accept the cost of tipping into their win rate.
I’d like to tip the dealers better but not at the expense of lowering my win rate.
Right now when I tip floor people, chip runners and waitresses, I deduct it from my buy-in count.
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8 Replies
Do you also separate the amount of rake you pay?
It might be worth it to keep track of tips to see how much a really big tipping habit is costing you, but if you’re already tipping reasonable amounts then no need.
Sounds kind of silly. You care if tipping the dealer more lowers your win rate from 10bb/hr to 9bb/hr. But you don’t care if you tip well at a restaurant for dinner even though it has the same impact on how much money you have?
If you track your results and take it seriously , you should have different types of entries for your wins/losses, tips, travel expenses, jackpots won, comps, any kind of expense or win. When you look at win rate you just have to be specific if that rate is including which factors.
I keep track of tips in my Poker Analytics app, and tipping at $3.80 per hour right now. It's likely a little bit of an underestimate because I am sure there are times when I forget to enter tips. Net winnings after tips is $22,568, with $1660 in tips paid. So I'm tipping off 6.8% of my winnings. It's definitely a lot less the the average rec player at my room, and probably more than what the pros tip.
I am sort of obsessive about my win rate. But I suppose since everyone else's win rate includes losses from their dealer tips, my win rate should also include them too.
"I’d like to tip the dealers better but not at the expense of lowering my win rate."
Doesn't that mean that ANY top lowers win rate, therefore 'logically' you should not be tipping at all with this philosophy.
There is a difference between the win rate that is calculated in my app, and the net take home profit from my cardroom visits (which is minus meals, and other types of tips that I don't deduct from my win rate). But yeah, it makes no difference except that I like to look at my win rate and waver between feeling satisfied and dissatisfied.
The only reasons I can think of to track tips is if you think you might adjust how much you tip in the future, or if it effects your taxes in some way.
In the end, it's an expense just like rake.
What's funny is obsessing over a spreadsheet whose information likely has minimal real world reliability.
