poker trackers

any free ones out there?

Not sure if there are any free ones, or if they are worth it. Holdem Manager and Pokertracker both offer free trials and are the two most widely used. Definitely use the free trials. I know that Holdem Manager's trial is only 15 days. I am not sure how long Pokertracker's free trial is but I have heard it is something like 60 days.

The only free one to speak of is fpdb. It has come a long away but is still far from a PT3 or HEM.

HEM is my personal recommendation. Either will pay for themselves in no time, provided you leverage it properly. I can't stress enough how important tracking software is to improving your game.

Download pokertracker. save ur file. when the 30 days are up wipe ur harddrive, reinstall pokertracker and put ur saved files back. the program is a headache to tinker with though.

it only works with cash games, and if ur playing lo stakes ur probably wasting ur time with all that poker tracking software nonsense anyway.

go old school and just use pen and paper. write down how much u started with, how much u win/lose, how long u played, general stuff and any notes u might think will help u later.

keep it simple.

gl

^^^ LOL. Wrong on so many levels...

wheres ur poker tracker when ur playing live? its gonna be a lil notebook, not ur fancy lil poker tracking software . a lot of ppl are better off getting used to taking notes the old way with pen and paper or whatever aids ur gonna use from the start even while playing online.

most ppl arent gonna be playing thousands of hands a day for thousands of dollars. some ppl love and depend those programs thats cool, but i dont like em. i dont need a computer program to tell me how much im up or down in a session at a particular table against a certain some1. some ppl like to nuke things, i like to keep things simple.

like having just some basic math skills and pen and paper lolol.

In some respects I agree that a beginning player would be better off without them, learning to take notes, etc. etc. BUT.. from reading the rest of your post here, I really don't believe you know what they're even all about (correct me if I'm wrong). How will tracking how much ur up or down in a session relate to something like.. "villain folds x% to 3bets".. "villain cbets x%", "Villain folds to cbet x%", defends BB x%", etc. etc. ...??

^^^ this.

It's the same old argument from people who really have no idea how tracking software works or the true benefits it provides. And they completely miss probably the greatest use of tracking software: improving your own game.

Believe me, if it were practical & legal to use at a live table -- like it is online -- people would be doing it there too. Taking notes only goes so far. Besides, live play is way slower and generally way softer than online play, and you have the benefit of physical tells that you don't have online. You can't possibly keep up with the number of players and hands you see online if you play any significant volume. Unless you've got a photographic memory or pour over raw HHs after a match, there's no way you can develop enough useful stats and reads to be useful against more than a handful of regs you might see regularly.

And it's not about math skills. It's not like it's calculating pot odds. And I'm not sure why you'd be using pen & paper for online play when the poker clients give you a way to take notes on players right there in the client? That sounds like old-school just for sake of being old-school, lol.

Would be interesting to know how important those pokertrackers are. I dont use any, mostly out of lazyness.
But maybe if I did, I would manage to increase my winnings a bit.

I even paid for Poker Mate but could never get it to work

Yeeeeeeah I know a lot of you are gonna disagree with me cuz u use and love those programs, its cool. As for learning with those programs.. . its not really an instructional program more like say poker academy, its an exploiting program. But yeah u can learn a few things about holes in ur game, but come on, are ppl more prone to using them to learn or to exploit their opponents (especially with that database)? lol

I just disagree with that type of program because it can be used to exploit how ppl play without the user noticing their opponents tendencies. Like what when x bets etc. or just using the database of who ve played u can notice things that u wouldn’t normally notice by just by looking over a hand history.

Yeah I think a lot of us know what programs like pokertracker can do, ask isildur1 what they can do. But I think we need to know and focus on basic skills before trying to exploit ppls weaknesses.

i think it neglects basic skills like taking the time to scope out how ur opponents play or the mood of a table before sitting down especially in a live atmospher. who needs to do that when u got their names in ur handy database? I think beginners should be more focused on the basics rather than trying to find exploits that a software can give em.

Heck, I think we should all be focused on the basics than relying on an outside source to make our decisions at poker. that’s kinda a no-no isn’t it?- to have an outside influence in making one’s decision at the table whether online or live?

anyway, heaven forbid, what did ppl do before software like poker
tracker and other programs came out? Probably played poker nonetheless. Anyway loved the posts. although I kinda disagree with ya.


GL

I used to be the same about not using a tracking software. Mainly out of laziness and it being a bit difficult at first to get to working and understand.

It as helped me find my holes in my game and I now find myself devoting more study of these numbers in my own game and am seeing my graph slowly inch up.

I understand saying that you think it's exploiting other players. But the fact is youre in poker to get better and make money. Would you go to a live table and agree to always play in early position.... Of course not but that's just the type of disadvantage youre looking at if you're playing with other people who are using a tracking software.

People...

This game is all about exploiting your opponents. If you can't do that, you're in the wrong game. If it's legal, even tacitly encouraged by the sites, then refusing to do so strictly on some perceived principal of unfairness seems silly to me.

That said, the value from studying your own stats cannot be over-stated either. If you're not doing that, then you're missing out as well.