How to Source and Date a Published Poker Data Table

A poker data table can be arithmetically correct and still leave an important question unanswered: correct as of when, and according to what?

Put the answer beside the table—not only in a bibliography or the page byline. A compact note should identify the source, the period covered and the table’s most recent substantive update. This lets a reader distinguish a fixed probability from a tournament record that may change.

The approach follows a broader data-publishing principle. The W3C recommends metadata for people and software, including a dataset’s publication date, last-modification date and publisher. It also recommends documenting provenance and assigning each dataset a version number or date (W3C Data on the Web Best Practices).

Give each date one job

A table may need several dates, but they are not interchangeable.

Label	What it tells the reader	Example
Data through	The last event, tournament or reporting period represented	Data through: 18 July 2026
Source updated	When the source says its underlying record changed	Source updated: 20 July 2026
Source accessed	When the publisher retrieved or checked the source	Accessed: 24 September 2026
Table updated	When this table’s values, method, scope or provenance last changed	Table updated: 24 September 2026
Article published	When the surrounding article first appeared	Published: 3 September 2026
Article updated	When the page received a substantive editorial change	Updated: 24 September 2026

Use only the labels that add information. A historical WSOP event table may need an event date, a source link and a last-checked date. A live or cumulative bracelet table also needs “data through.”

An access date does not establish that the source itself was current that day. It establishes only when an editor checked it. If the source displays no publication or modification date, write “accessed,” not “source updated.”

Page-level publication and modification dates should remain visible and clearly labeled. Google recommends a prominent user-visible date, labels such as “Published” or “Last updated,” and corresponding datePublished or dateModified structured data (Google Search Central). That page date should not replace the table-level date when the table has its own coverage period.

Put the note directly with the table

A useful presentation order is:

1. A short table title or caption
2. The table
3. Assumptions and definitions
4. Source and method
5. Coverage and update dates
6. A short change note, when needed

A caption identifies what the table contains; it is not a substitute for provenance. The W3C’s accessibility guidance says a caption functions like a table heading and helps screen-reader users find and understand the table (W3C Web Accessibility Initiative). Where the publishing system supports it, use a caption actually associated with the table, then place the source block immediately below.

A worked probability example

Royal flush probability in a five-card deal

Quantity	Exact value
Possible royal flushes	4
Possible five-card hands	2,598,960
Probability	4 / 2,598,960 = 1 / 649,740

Assumptions: Five cards are dealt without replacement from a standard 52-card deck with no jokers. Card order does not matter. Method: There is one royal flush per suit. The denominator is C(52,5) = 2,598,960. Source: Calculation by Poker Player Press; see the full hand-probability table. Calculation checked: 24 September 2026. Table updated: 24 September 2026 — provenance note added; values unchanged.

This example does not need “data through.” Its value does not age like a tournament leaderboard because the defined deck model is fixed. It does need the assumptions: changing the number of cards available, adding jokers or asking for the best five-card hand from seven cards changes the sample space. The distinction is also important in the site’s explanation of royal-flush frequency in different dealing situations.

Source the inputs, not merely another answer

For calculated poker tables, name the inputs and show enough arithmetic to reproduce the result. A probability publisher should not cite another odds table as if repetition proved the number. State the deck, number of unseen cards, cards to come, replacement rule and whether order matters.

For tournament tables, prefer the official event result or organizer’s record. Link to the exact result page rather than an organization’s home page. If the official record is unavailable or incomplete, label the alternative source and avoid presenting disputed order, prize or field data as settled. The same rule applies when reconciling older records such as the 1978 WSOP Main Event payouts.

When a table combines records, calculations and editorial classification, separate them:

• Records: sourced fields such as entrant count, finishing place and prize
• Calculated: totals, percentages or implied odds computed from those fields
• Editorial: categories or notes assigned by the publication

“Source: Poker Player Press research” is too vague unless it is followed by the underlying records and calculation method.

Move the update date only for a substantive change

Do not refresh “table updated” merely because an automated build ran or an editor fixed punctuation elsewhere. Data.gov gives comparable guidance for source-file timestamps: a timestamp should change only when the file content actually changes (Data.gov).

A table update date should move when an editor:

• adds a new result or reporting period;
• corrects a value;
• changes a formula or assumption;
• replaces or adds a consequential source;
• changes the table’s scope, definitions or column structure;
• adds or corrects provenance information needed to interpret the table.

Keep the original publication date. For meaningful revisions, add one plain change note: “Corrected third-place prize from $X to $Y after checking the official result.” If the numbers did not change, say so. This preserves the difference between a new version of the table and a newly formatted copy of the same data.

The minimum useful line for a changing poker table is:

Source: [exact record]; data through: [date]; table updated: [date]; change: [brief description].

That line gives readers what a bare “last updated” label cannot: origin, coverage, version and the reason the date moved.