Accounting for game statistics with Board Game stats

For many years I thought that I should finally start collecting game statistics, but refrained from doing so because of the regret of years of uncollected statistics, as well as the laziness of managing game statistics. But my January 1, 2020 resolution was to start keeping track of game stats. And it was one of the decisions that greatly improved my experience as a board game player.

App

I use the phone application Board Game stats to collect game statistics :

• Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.eerko.boardgamestats
• iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/board-game-stats/id892542000

The application can be downloaded with a one-time payment of 7 EUR (the price depends on the operating system!) , but then it can be used without a limit and it is updated fairly regularly. We can safely skip two coffees and start listing the games!

Collected statistics

You can easily add your BoardGameGeek account data to the app and your entire collection is instantly added to it. For each game I can note the players who participated in it, who won, how many points each player got. The application then collects the following information:

• how many times which game has been played;
• which players participated, how many points for each, who won;
• what are the scoring records;
• which places are played more;
• what people do you play games with the most;
• what % of the games played each person wins;
• schedule, on which days the matches took place.

Benefits

For me, this application is very good at showing what games are played more often (of course, it's a shame that it's not from the very beginning of the board game hobby).

It's very nice to tell someone that they have achieved a record in my records. The application also shows the personal records of each player very conveniently, so even if he doesn't win, it's a very nice small victory and motivation to play more.

I like to see which of my friends wins more often in our common games, to evaluate who is more "dangerous" and to be careful when we play something, and it's also cool to see and look back with who you play games with most often.

The application also has a rather convenient point-counting "feature", which allows you to immediately write down the points in a mini-calculator next to the player's name.

Sometimes when it comes to games, it's nice to see which of your friends won a particular game and what everyone's score was. The application has served me for this purpose several times.

I recommend it to anyone who feels like they are here to stay in the board game hobby. It took me about 10 years before I started to count the statistics myself, but I know that the last two will remain not only in memories, but also in data.

Author of the article: Kristaps Auzāns