playing without a poker tracker...

I've looked for the free ones but they seem to require a $50 deposit and a bunch of FPPs. I have an understanding that I suck bad right now so I don't want to deposit a tank's worth of gas knowing I will have it sucked out of me on a marginal hand. I have this game plan of starting with $10 and working my way up from there with just my gut. So I am just a blind stealing donk right now and a developing master of origami.

I feel like I would benefit from a poker tracker simply to monitor my own play and make the necessary adjustments. Are there any out there that just do that for free or do all of them require "x" amount of flops seen, minimum deposits, etc...?

PokerTracker 3 has a 60day free trial.
HoldemManager has a 15 day free trial.
And RealTime Hud is a free(voluntery donation) hud.

Just try them and see if the help and if u feel there worth the money, they are imo.

I'm pretty sure they are worth the dough. I didn't know they had trial versions available. I really don't have a label for my style. I would like to find out what kind of player I am. PT3 here I come!

I play without a digital tracker. I have never used one, and haven't been convinced yet to get one. I read all the post discussions about them and they sound like a valuable tool, but i do really well with out one. I admit i do keep manual notes on play and if i run into a really phenominal player i put a note on their avatar. I have aspirations to play live professionally after i retire from the army and don't want to taint my game with digital assistance. Any thoughts?

Do you play cash or tourneys? Multiple tables?

I play cash and tourneys, live and online. I only play multiple tables if i'm playing freerolls just for fun and to drill my starting hand selections. I just worry that if i leverage technology too much i'll become dependent on it and my live game (my strong suit because it's about reading cards AND players) will suffer in the long run.

Well, I can't even figure out how to get the stupid thing to work. It asks me for a password when I do the "createdb" thing. I can't figure out how to configure the site I am playing on so I get nothing...

I really just want to track myself and figure out the holes in my game.

You can use the poker tracking software without having the HUD on, therefore you would be able to have it track your playing and keeping your stats for you. That way you are able to at least find the holes in your game, while not getting any extra information without having to do the math or keep the memory yourself. This is mainly what I use it for is going back over my games and seeing how I played certain hands and comparing stats.

I guess i just don't fully understand the tracker, I was under the impression it keeps track of every card that you get to see other people play both the show down cards and anything they dont' muck so that it shows patterns in their betting and strategy. To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure what the HUD is. In the army we have several pieces of technology that use a HUD and it stands for heads up display. Is this similar and if so what info does it tell you?

That is what HUD stands for. And what it does is it shows you customizable information on the tabel screen like how often your opponents volountarily put money into the put, preflop raise, their 3bet percentages, how aggressive they are, etc... so it is nice for people who are playing a lot of gamesd at once that can't wuite keep track of everything that is going on at all of their tables.

And it does keep track of a your opponents hands and what they did for each of them, but it also does it for yourself as well. Therefore you can go back and look at how you played certain hands and what all of your stats are and such. It is kind of hard to explain it all without having you try it yourself. I would say just check it out and see if you like it.

Ok, so curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought him back. I went a ahead and dowloaded poker tracker 3 trial and haven't full leveraged it yet. I did check it out and the HUD makes me feel dirty. I knew that some scmuck had an 87% chance of calling me preflop so when i had the premium hands i made him pay through the nose to see the flop. when it hit i really stuck it to him since i'd been able to see so many of his starting hand selections and just how weak they could be. Overall i must admit it was fun, but like i said in earlier posts i'm afraid of becoming dependent on the technology and that messing with my live play. I will admit at one point i was playing WAY too many hands. I already knew that, but it kept painfully reminding me. So yes, i can very easily see the benefits especially if you are strictly an online player and only worried about your bottom line and not worried about advancing you skills without computer assistance. I haven't gotten in to analysis of my previous play yet, just messed with the hud for a little bit.