How to read a results line

Poker results are written in a shorthand that assumes you already know the format. Once you can see the four parts, most of the confusion goes away.

The four parts

1. The event. Series, event number and buy-in. A $25,000 event and a £250 event are not comparable achievements in either direction.
2. The field. How many entries. Re-entry events count entries, not people, so a field of 278 is not necessarily 278 players.
3. The finish. Position out of that field.
4. The payout. In the currency the organiser actually paid, which is why a British player's line can be in dollars.

The fifth thing, which is ours

A date. Not the date of the tournament — the date somebody read the page and copied the line. Records get corrected, disqualified, restated. A line without a retrieval date is a line nobody has taken responsibility for.

What to distrust

• Lifetime totals with no as-of date.
• Positions in a ranking with no explanation of what the ranking measures.
• Any figure described as earnings, income, salary or worth.