PT3 Virgin

As many of us know, HEM1 doesn't work for League/PokerStars play money tables anymore. I suddenly feel like I'm in a canoe without an oar, so I decided to download the 60day trial versipn of PT3. Everything went just fine until I came across this:

PT3 message.JPG (http://www.cardschat.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=42060&d=1328766140)

So, being an eager student, I went to the PT3 Quick Start Guide and looked into installing the PostgreSQL database. Of course I want one that's free, so I click there and that's when my brain began to spin...the list was so long I had no clue which one to click or what to do.

I know there has got to be a quick and dirty way to get this done fast--help me, please.

So did you have HEM already? If so then you already have PostgreSQL installed on your computer(by the way, all versions are free ) If you don't have it installed, then go here: http://www.enterprisedb.com/products...wnload#windows and in the first row, click on Windows x86-32 if you have regular Windows, or click on Windows x86-64 if you have the 64-bit version of Windows. If you already have Postgresql installed from your previous install of HEM, let me know and I might be able to work you through that too.

AH, you're my hero!!!! So, because I do have HEM where would I look for my PostgreSQL? Is it in a separate program file somewhere? And once I find it do I simply change the specs in box #1 (above)?

And I all I know about my Windows is that on my desktop, where I play the most poker, it's XP. Would that be "regular Windows" aka x86-32?

Thank you so much.

Postgres is its own program so should be in a seperate file,I'm running Win 7 so it may be a little different but my file is under PostgresSQL 9.0 in my programs menu. I believe you should be able to find it under your "All Programs" in the start menu.

If you go to My Computer under System Properties you should be able to find your system type which I would bet is 32 bit for XP

Thanks, Potluck. OK I found the PostgreSQL file, it's version 8.4--yay! What's the next step?

As far as how many bits, looked where you suggested and elsewhere but still couldn't find it. Since I found the PostgresSQL file that shouldn't matter now, right?

If you have the file see if you can update it, I suspect that it's fine but always good to check. PT 3.11.9 is a beta and is supposed to have improved Postgres binary path detection, so if you can download that version it may solve your problem. Otherwise open PT3 go to Help tab under troubleshooting there is a PostgresSQL link, under Problems try going through those steps.

If you're in Windows XP then I am 98% sure that you are 32 bit, so that doesn't matter anymore.

As for what's next... you shouldn't have any troubles unless you changed some of the settings when you first set up PostgreSQL. You can find out what port it is listening on by opening up a command prompt(Start>Run>type "cmd.exe"), then typing into that "netstat" and then look through the text for postgres and the port should be at 5432. If it is, then the port isn't the problem, if it is different, then change that number in PT3.

If that didn't help, try finding the program called pgAdmin, looking through there can help you see what you may have for a username or password. I would try to give you step by steps on this, but I am not home or at a computer that has postgres, just mysql which won't help. Let me know.

Potluck and AH, many thanks again. I'm really swamped--will try to get to this tomorrow and post an update.

OK, here's the info from pgAdmin--in the screenie, all that's missing at the bottom of the list is Connected? and Running?

As you can see, I've got the correct port, host and usernames. There is no password assigned (I sure have never used one) and no database password either. Is there a way to correct this? And, if I do, will that mess with my HEM data?

Would it be better for me to install another version of PostgreSQL for PT3 exclusively?

PostgresSQL.JPG (http://www.cardschat.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=42070&d=1328920930)

Since HM works for you, you shouldn't need to do anything with PostgreSQL itself -- it's already installed and working. You just need to supply PT3 with the correct port, username, and password, all of which are defaulted to the values shown in your first screenshot when PostgreSQL is first installed, so unless you changed any of them, those should work. I do seem to recall way back in HM1 that it assumed a different default password or user, so perhaps that's the one your database is configured for.

Since HM works, fire it up and look in its database configuration (start like you're going to create a new database, it should show you the working settings). Copy those settings over to the PT3 configuration and you should be good.

Sorry I wasn't on earlier...

Yea, what D said It has to be the password because everything else looks correct

It worked! I'm sure I'll be back with more innocent questions...thank you for being so gentle with me.

OK so I'm happily doing what you do, you know--loading Stars hand histories and all and then WHAM. There lines after lines saying "play money is not supported". All I've got so far are my Stars real money records, stopping in the wee fateful hours of yes, April 15 2011.

Could this be the policy for new trial people? All the League players who use PT3 say it still works for our play money home games.

The trial version should not be limited in any way, unless they changed something in the last several years (I haven't run the trial since PT3 was first released).

From what I understand, PT3 does still support play money home games, and I know for a fact PT4 Beta does because I'm using it for the League Games until HM fixes theirs again.

I know, that why I'm doing the trial. I hopped on a play money table last night and PT3 collected that info so that's the good news. The bad news is that I have ~2K hands on many of the League players and PT3 won't import them. I tried auto which didn't work so I went to Manual and this is what I got:

PT3.JPG (http://www.cardschat.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=42103&d=1329089945)

Have you heard that's going to happen? Hope so. In the meantime, here's another question but it might be too advanced for me: is there a way to import all those HHs for HM to PT3?

So they say. I pointed out to them the simple fix they needed to make in their HH parser while also encouraging them to code their parsers properly so such simple changes to HH's don't break them. By way of demonstration, I even whipped up a code sample of a simple regex parser that could withstand some ridiculous modifications and still be able to pick out the relevant parts of the header they were looking for. The response was they agreed their parsers needed work and were in fact about to undergo an effort to totally revamp them. So we'll see how long it takes -- obviously the play money games aren't a huge market for them, but this problem extends far beyond just play money. Their parser logic is so brittle that they're constantly chasing small HH changes when they could code it correctly and survive a large majority of them.

So in the meantime, I'm using PT4 for League Games, but still use HM2 for everything else.


I don't know if it will get you around the play money thing that PT3's importer is complaining about, but normally to import HM hands into PT, you would either point PT3 to the archive folder(s) setup in HM and import. Or you'd export your HH's from HM to a folder, then point PT3 to that.

In a pinch, if you have the tools to do multi-file search and replace, you could theoretically "tweak" the HH headers to get them to import as real-money hands. I considered doing this for awhile but decided against it. If you use HM/PT to track real money winnings, it would throw off your results.

First I think I'm going to see if the HUD works on Tuesday and then maybe, just maybe, consider getting into this more complicated stuff.

That said, I'm really glad to hear there's still a chance that HM will be working in the future.

Sigh......got screen after "play money not supported" during my game today. And of course the HUD was never displayed. I guess my romance with PT3 wasn't meant to be.

Now I suppose I should go through the rigamarole of uninstalling and all...

After the last update, HM2 is working on tonight's League Game again. No idea of HM1 though.

Ok now if you guys helped Lark I know you can help me!

I used PT3 up to BF and some how I think no I know I deleted it and have reinstall it. Now having a problem with the PostgreSQL 8.3. Error message below:

What do you guys think?

Attached Images

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Did you check the logfile indicated in the first error dialog? The second dialog isn't of any practical use because it's just the standard catch-all VC++ runtime error dialog, probably generated because PT3 aborted after it couldn't initialize its database due to the first error.

Did you uninstall PostgreSQL after BF or has it been installed the entire time? When you reinstalled PT3 (assuming you reinstalled) did you provide the proper db credentials and port?

D' I must have deleted PostgreSQL also cause it's not listed in my programs but if I click run and type it in I can still access the files. Should I delete them?

Strange, it should show up in Add/Remove Programs until you uninstall it from there (or using the uninstaller), at which point the files should be gone. Plus if PT3 didn't detect it, it should have prompted you to reinstall it.

I would attempt to reinstall PgSQL to the same location it was before. Then run PgAdmin (it comes with) to make sure it can connect to the local PgSQL instance.

Yes this is crazy. PT3 is saying I need to install PgSQL and it goes thru the starting process then I get that error message above. PgSQL is not list in my add/remove programs but still has files in C:Program Files.

Download and install PgSQL separately. Also look for a postgres user account on Windows and delete it first -- it may be conflicting with the subsequent install.

Uninstallers only clean up what they install, they won't delete anything like configuration files or databases that you create post-install. I would backup+delete or at least temporarily rename the existing PgSQL folders, delete any PgSQL user account(s), then download PgSQL separately and install it.

I'd tend to recommend the latest v9.x PgSQL which should be backwards compatible -- I'm actually running 64-bit 9.x and it works great for me with both HM and PT (all versions). But if you're overly cautions and want to stay on 8.x you can. All the Windows PgSQL downloads can be found here. Once you have PgSQL installed successfully, then PT3 should recognize it and install.

Ok its working now! Thanks David, you were most helpful as always sir!

No problem, glad you got it working.