Poker Software

Could someone give me a general rundown on what software like Hold 'Em Manager does?

In a nutshell -

These programs read the hand history files pulling out bits of data and store these bits in a database and then can create 'views' of this data such as

profit per hand in cash games, how many times you've seen AA, winning % with AA, $$ won with AA

How often 'joefish' bets out UTG, what hands did he showdown with, is he making money or losing money

What your profit is in $2+$.25 tournaments with more than 1000 players, what % of hands did you go to showdown with, what % won at showdown

Hand replayer so that you can see how a specifc hand played out

Ability to display player stats as an overlay on the table as you are playing, more commonly known as a HUD (Heads Up Display)

All of the websites for these tools have screenshots that show a good sample of what they can do.

you should have a look to their website, it explains already many things. And another good thing to know is that it does pretty the same as Poker Tracker 3, even if by our days, people seem to prefer Holdem Manager now.

Playing without a HUD these days is like taking a knife to a gunfight.

I want to buy it and improve my game, find holes in my game, etc. I can only put in maybe a few hours a week of studying the results. With work, life, playing poker, etc. I don't have too much extra time to study the results.

Is it true it requires tons of study? Like I said I can only spare a few hours weekly - I fear buying it but not having the time to get anything out of it. I realize that the more time you put into it, the better. Thank you.

I think it's clearly a tool that can be very hard to learn.
There are many tools that you won't have time to learn, but there are some essential tools that you will be able to master quite fastly.

I just have a question regarding the licence, as I will have to buy it myself, can't get it free.
Is this a lifetime licence ?

I wouldn't say tons of study are required. I have been able to get a lot of it with as little as 2-3 hours a week when I am playing a lot.

1) You can get most software free if you deposit at one of their sponsor sites, check their home pages.

2) You can spend lots of time studying yr stats if u like, is very helpful, but primarily I use the HUD to show profiles of other players built over time, very helpful when assessing what your next move should be. For example, if you know that of the last 800 hands, villain has folded to CBet 80%, then you can go ahead and CBet without really thinking about it. If he only folds 20%, then u have to start thinking value betting rather than CBets... See??

Like I said, a powerful weapon while playing... what if villain is seeing 30% of flops with no raises, and folding 80% CBet? Or seeing 14% of flops, raising 2/3 of them, and only folding 20% of the time to flop bet??

BTW there are lots of threads (one stickied) on the software and issues, you would do well to search them out...

Thanks!