I am offering some advise as to your individual diaries of your VP play.
I would like to preface my remarks by disclosing that for almost 15 years I
was called to testify in many cases as a drug expert where I would refer to
notes made at the time of the analysis in the laboratory.
In addition, I did send my entire diary to IRS in 1995 as part of an audit.
In general , I always make entries in ink in a bound booklet. If I make a
mistake , I do not tear out the sequentially numbered page but merely mark
through the error and continue on.
I make my entries while in action and therefore the entries are many times in
various shades of blue-black inks and tell-tale water marks from a drink(s)
is also visible. My handwriting varies somewhat from very neat to a scribble
format.
Just like a news reporter scribbling notes, IMHO, your diary should look like
you are in the field. In addition to what I feel is necessary for IRS (date,
property, machines #, win-loss,etc.) many players like to include the game
and denomination played. Whatever you feel would best help you analyze your
strengths is good but not necessarily what may be pertinent in an audit.
When I get home, using a spread sheet, one may then summarize by day, by
game, win/loss, cashback, bounceback, drawings, and the ever-present
miscellaneous. The raw data from your accompanying notebook is what give credibility to
your computer printouts.
For those of you that are "hiding" some of your play when not being tracked
by a card, I would not list any of that data in any way in your official diary.
After an interval of a few years, it is interesting to scan some of your
older diaries and remember those very good/bad sessions.
Good luck,
Anteroz
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