Is a poker tracker a must?

Hi everyone. So im just asking a simple question, is a poker tracker a must? I want to try playing poker semi-pro someday and im guessing it is a yes. I know there a lot of money but if you think long term than its worth it now. Right?

I would say that anyone interested in playing the game seriously should consider using a tracker such as PokerTracker. There are so many ways to analyze your game and find your weaknesses (not to mention your opponent's weaknesses) that you would have a very hard time doing by hand. I would recommend trying the 60-day free trial of PokerTracker 3 to see what it's like.

As for the price, please note that there is a micro stakes edition available as well which is cheaper than the full version if you're just starting out. Also, if you purchase PokerTracker 3 today, you'll receive an upgrade to the soon to be released PokerTracker 4 for free. If you have any questions about PokerTracker, we'll be happy to answer them!

I wouldn't say a must but a very important analisys tool. I think I couldn't find my recurring leaks without it and I would have a very hard time in getting some quick reads on villains without the HUD.

It is not fundamental but it is a very useful tool. Just be sure you can play ABC poker without a HUD though. Playing like a robot based on stats of a HUD is, imo, a bad principle.

I've recently started using oneand if you don't fully concentrate on a game somtimes (if you do something else why playing or play a few tables) then it is very useful. An example is I knew the stats of one guy and could basically guess what he'd do, manage to isolate him on three different occasions with hands like KK and KA and if everything had gone smooth;y I could've took his stack off him (he made a set and a straight so I ended up giving him money) but without pokertracker I wouldn't have known to target and isolate this player who was playing about 90% of hands.

Oh and i also found out that my worst losing hand is Q/10 suited which has made me much more careful with that hand.

RVladimiro said:

I would have a very hard time in getting some quick reads on villains without the HUD.

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BlueNowhere said:

I wouldn't have known to target and isolate this player who was playing about 90% of hands

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That's exactly what I look for in a HUD player. It's very easy to dupe the numbers on you guys.

HUD's, in my opinion, makes for too rigid of a game. And makes it too easy to get fooled by someone who knows what you're looking at.

One of the age old problems in poker is to figure out what the villain thinks of you. If they're using a HUD (easy to recognize) then you know what they're thinking of you.

A little number jiggering and you're whomever you want to be.

JMO/YMMV


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I think you got me wrong, mate. I'm not stats dependant but I do appreciate having a understanding of my opponents range for instance.

Actually I was going to quote this line

Originally Posted by BlueNowhere
I wouldn't have known to target and isolate this player who was playing about 90% of hands

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to say that's the wrong way of looking at it. I don't isolate a maniac from his stats but from his play. I will not play a certain villain in a certain way because of his cbet% or whatever but I do appreciate the data I'm offered.

Like I said the tracker is important to me mostly as an analisys tool. The HUD, while a good add-on, is not that fundamental in my game since I don't even mass multitable. I prefer to play the player for the player with less tables. I don't feel and never felt I was HUD oriented or dependant.

JusSumguy said:

That's exactly what I look for in a HUD player. It's very easy to dupe the numbers on you guys.

HUD's, in my opinion, makes for too rigid of a game. And makes it too easy to get fooled by someone who knows what you're looking at.

One of the age old problems in poker is to figure out what the villain thinks of you. If they're using a HUD (easy to recognize) then you know what they're thinking of you.

A little number jiggering and you're whomever you want to be.

JMO/YMMV


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HEM2 tracks how villain plays against you. to my knowledge pokertracker doesn't offer this all important stat.

RVladimiro said:

to say that's the wrong way of looking at it. I don't isolate a maniac from his stats but from his play. I will not play a certain villain in a certain way because of his cbet% or whatever but I do appreciate the data I'm offered..

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Do you realize how easy it is to make oneself look like a maniac to a HUD? Now that my numbers are on the HUD players juicy fruit list, it's easy to induce big calls with premium hands.EASY, PEASY.

I do believe a HUD is good for evaluating one's own play. But when one makes a decision about their opponent based on that person's numbers. That's where you can get stung.

Again..... JMO/YMMV


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JusSumguy said:

That's exactly what I look for in a HUD player. It's very easy to dupe the numbers on you guys.

HUD's, in my opinion, makes for too rigid of a game. And makes it too easy to get fooled by someone who knows what you're looking at.

One of the age old problems in poker is to figure out what the villain thinks of you. If they're using a HUD (easy to recognize) then you know what they're thinking of you.

A little number jiggering and you're whomever you want to be.

JMO/YMMV


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Theres always one! Sounds like the best strategy for out levelling yourself ever.

acky100 said:

Theres always one! Sounds like the best strategy for out levelling yourself ever.

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Whatever incarnation of leveling that means.

I'll never go back to a HUD. Play like the masses?????


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JusSumguy said:

Do you realize how easy it is to make oneself look like a maniac to a HUD? Now that my numbers are on the HUD players juicy fruit list, it's easy to induce big calls with premium hands.EASY, PEASY.

I do believe a HUD is good for evaluating one's own play. But when one makes a decision about their opponent based on that person's numbers. That's where you can get stung.

Again..... JMO/YMMV


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This is why the number of hands you have on an opponent are important when it comes to reliable stats. You obviously couldn't rely on stats if you only had 5 or 10 on them but when you start getting over 100, you get a picture of how they really play.

People are creatures of habit and poker players are no exception. We all have a style we play.

JMO/YMMV

bgomez89 said:

This is why the number of hands you have on an opponent are important when it comes to reliable stats. You obviously couldn't rely on stats if you only had 5 or 10 on them but when you start getting over 100, you get a picture of how they really play.

People are creatures of habit and poker players are no exception. We all have a style we play.

JMO/YMMV

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Exactly. When it comes to reading a HUD, EVERYTHING comes down to sample size. If I don't have what I believe to be enough hands for a certain stat(different for most of them), then it's ignored.

You might think you're pulling off the ultimate scam by playing like a maniac for a dozen or so hands, and then switching to amazing poker mode, but I'm guessing that you probably end up losing quite a bit when you're trying to pull your stunts, and they don't even end up paying off in the long run, so I'd just try to stick to playing solid poker.

absoluthamm said:

You might think you're pulling off the ultimate scam

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Ultimate scam?... Nope.


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If you like to track your wins/loses and general weaknesses then yes it is helpful.

If you intend on playing more than 4tables and using it for HUD purposes then yes, I think they are needed then. For 4tables or lower though, if you take notes and actually watch all the games going regularly you don't need a HUD.

I do have a serious question for the HUD players though.

I'm a live player. I have never deposited one cent on line. I find the lower level play money games on line to be excellent practice for live casino action. Also, it's a good place to donk off some steam for free. So...

Do you guys feel naked in a live game? Or is there some sort of adjustment you make. I'm not being facetious, really. Just seems that if someone relies on a HUD for 99.9% of their hands, live play must require some sort of an adjustment.

No, I played live well before I played online and I have never had any problem not having that information while playing live because I am only playing 1 table, and hands go slow as hell. I have all the time in the world to sit there and pay attention to opponents bet sizings and paying attention to how they played hands that were shown down.

Online, if you are playing more than one table(which is really the only way to play...) why wouldn't you take advantage of that information as long as you are obtaining it legally(not buying HH's)? It would be like a Track and Field runner using sandals to run the 100meter instead of running spikes.

With your last post I realized something else though, your just playing play money? I can assure you of two things:
1. A very small amount of the people that you're playing against are using a HUD on play money.
2. The ones that may be using HUDs are complete idiots, because they are playing play money.

JusSumguy said:

Do you guys feel naked in a live game? Or is there some sort of adjustment you make. I'm not being facetious, really. Just seems that if someone relies on a HUD for 99.9% of their hands, live play must require some sort of an adjustment.

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Playing at a casino is completely different to playing online, as has already been said. HEM just gives me a rough guideline for awkward decisions when multi-tabling, and helps with analysing hands afterwards.

My 2 cents? Glad u asked.

The answer has to be no.
Since trackers only work online, and poker is played live where a tracker don't work, you have to function without one.

However, how do you evaluate live players? Do you wait till his face cracks?

No, you still usually want some sort of idea about how a player plays. So you will watch how he plays, how he bets, when he bets, etc. Watching or understanding what trackers do can help you pick out which items to mentally process in live play. The best reads are made over many many hands over many many sessions. Live play however will never give you those sorts of stats, but they can give you an idea about how player Q is playing this particular session. Add that to the twitch he shows when he has a monster, and it does improve your advantage.

If however you are completely and only an ONLINE player, then having no tracker is about like never seeing AK during any session. Think about that. Never seeing one of the top 10 hands in the game. You are sort of crippling yourself. (for you statistical purists, how bout AJ?).

I can see where it's helpful when multitabling.

Another question. Do you feel that ethically HUD's are borderline? If not, please explain. I'm aware of the old "No, because they make no play suggestions." argument. And I'm not trying to raise that old conversation. But, when I used to use one, I felt dirty. I could find plenty of excuses why it's okay. Still felt dirty.

Not ranting on them. Just a simple question.


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Before I ever used one, I was outraged about what I perceived as a cheat. However, once I got one, I realized that if I take the game seriously, I need to keep records, and those records need to be as detailed as possible. I write slow, big and sloppy, I tried, barely able to deal with a single table.

All the trackers are doing is collecting all the facts, and allowing you to organize those facts in some way that makes sense to you.

I still can't figure out how to use the "4 bets small connectors oop on Thursday" stat.............

Remember that those stats take many many hands on any player to actually be useful. So if you play the same game and see the same players day after day, wouldn't it be nice to have organized thoughts about each of them?

The trackers can help you make more informed decisions. That's all.

DJ... you know I respect you bro. And I agree to a point. A HUD allows you to remember more than is humanly possible...

Hypothetical...

The richest guy in the world sits down at the wsop. He hires a guy to track everything available for EACH TABLE. And all these guys relay their info to a main compiler guy. And that guy relays all this compiled info to the richest guy in the world in real time. No matter what table he's moved to, he continues to get all this info IN REAL TIME from his hundreds of minions.

Would the WSOP allow this? Maybe they would... I dunno.


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JusSumguy said:

I can see where it's helpful when multitabling.

Another question. Do you feel that ethically HUD's are borderline? If not, please explain. I'm aware of the old "No, because they make no play suggestions." argument. And I'm not trying to raise that old conversation. But, when I used to use one, I felt dirty. I could find plenty of excuses why it's okay. Still felt dirty.

Not ranting on them. Just a simple question.


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There is no reason to feel dirty about it unless you are using hands that you never played. It doesn't even come down to the statement that it doesn't make suggestions, it's more that it only gives to aggregated information based on the hands you have already played, from the hand histories that the sites give you.

If you really didn't want to use tracking software, you could pour through your hand histories and find out all of the information on your own as well, it would take forever, but it could be done, and then you could write that information into the notes file for that player and use it like that. That is what people would do before tracking softwares were released en mass. They would only really do this for the regulars because you couldn't realistically do it for every player you play against unless you don't play very often.

So yea, if you are using your own hand histories, then there is nothing wrong with it, that is why sites allow programs like PT3 and HEM, and not Poker Edge and Poker Crusher, which use enormous databases of mined histories that players never used themselves.

JusSumguy said:

I can see where it's helpful when multitabling.

Another question. Do you feel that ethically HUD's are borderline? If not, please explain. I'm aware of the old "No, because they make no play suggestions." argument. And I'm not trying to raise that old conversation. But, when I used to use one, I felt dirty. I could find plenty of excuses why it's okay. Still felt dirty.

Not ranting on them. Just a simple question.


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I would much rather nobody had a HUD and would be happy if they were banned. I don't feel dirty when I use one though. An answer to your other question as well. I used to always play without a HUD and have played live poker as well before so no I wouldn't feel naked without a HUD.

RVladimiro said:

I think you got me wrong, mate. I'm not stats dependant but I do appreciate having a understanding of my opponents range for instance.

Actually I was going to quote this line



to say that's the wrong way of looking at it. I don't isolate a maniac from his stats but from his play. I will not play a certain villain in a certain way because of his cbet% or whatever but I do appreciate the data I'm offered.

Like I said the tracker is important to me mostly as an analisys tool. The HUD, while a good add-on, is not that fundamental in my game since I don't even mass multitable. I prefer to play the player for the player with less tables. I don't feel and never felt I was HUD oriented or dependant.

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You seem to have took my comment as I use solely the HUD to decide my next action, this is not the case. A quick look at the maniacs stats showed he was raising over 50% of hands and had a VPIP of 90% over more than 50 hands. He raised, a few called then i did a big re-raise to get them out the way (everyone respected my raise more than his and did as i hoped). I knew he was fairly wild but i didn't realise just how much, I was multitabling and was on the final table of 2 tourneys so it was rpetty hard to concentrate on what was happening when i was faced with some big decisions elsewhere. If I'#ve got stats to back up what I think well that sbrilliant and thats why it is a useful tool

JusSumguy said:

Hypothetical...

The richest guy in the world sits down at the WSOP. He hires a guy to track everything available for EACH TABLE. And all these guys relay their info to a main compiler guy. And that guy relays all this compiled info to the richest guy in the world in real time. No matter what table he's moved to, he continues to get all this info IN REAL TIME from his hundreds of minions.

Would the WSOP allow this? Maybe they would... I dunno.

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No takers?


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