Poker Software - best feature?

SeaRun

SeaRun

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I'm curious about what everyone thinks is the best feature of this type of software and how it helps players most?

Analyzing your own game?

Analyzing other player's stats?

Something else?

All of the above?
 
PokerTracker

PokerTracker

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We commonly explain to players that our category of software is often misunderstood. Players tend to over value the graphs and the HUD the most, but that is an error.

Generally speaking Graphs do not tell you anything about your playing ability, not much you can gather from displaying profit vs time that you cannot also determine from a report; but reports can help you find leaks in your game, or areas in your game where you need to focus on to win more. The best players in the world that use PokerTracker tell us they mostly use our application for reporting - I think this says a lot about the quality of the reports and custom stats options available in PT4 as well as how the best players stay on top.

The HUD is also commonly misunderstood. The stats in the HUD tell you frequencies of actions divided by the number of opportunities to take that action, it does not tell you the range of an opponent. For example we have shown demos where over an 800,000 hand sample a player had a 3Bet percentage of 9.14%, but the actual rage he used to 3Bet was nearly 70% of all possible hands within the chart - a stat should be used as a starting point to estimate an opponent's range, but this can only come from using many of the stats combined to create what we call an "Opponent Profile" in your head. Once you know your opponents playing style, it becomes much easier to determine their range. Also another issue is sample size, you need a very large sample size for many stats to begin to converge towards accuracy... every stat is different, for example VPIP converges rather fast, but 4Bet takes a long time and Check Raise River CBet could take 25,000 hands or more to converge. Once again generally speaking the HUD does not provide an edge for players... the edge comes from your knowledge of the game and your own abilities. Instead think of the HUD as a performance enhancement tool, it helps your memory of who your opponents are as it mimics a live playing environment.

Cliff Notes: You can learn the most about your game by using reports after the game is done, this is how the best players use PokerTracker.
 
SeaRun

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Thanks for a detailed explanation.

I'm going to try both to see how each works, feedback it gives me, etc.

Gotta watch some tutorials though, this is like calculus all over again!!!:afraid:
 
SeaRun

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Gone To The Dark Side - HM2

As I said in another post and has been recommended by so many, I'll try a few 30 day trials and see which one I buy.

For now, here's the results of my first 100 + hand session. I know this is a minuscule sample, but it will hopefully allow more experienced players to tell me what is more important than what when analyzing my play post game.

  • VPIP - 32.0
  • PFR - 11.5
  • 3-BET - 3.13
  • WTSD% - 21.2
  • W$SD% - 71.4
  • Agg - 8.67
  • Agg% - 46.4

EDIT TO ADD: This was from a $0.01/$0.02 NLHE cash game.

R0ZoEPl.png
 
RDB

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Your VPIP and PFR should be a lot closer. It's like the advice Mike McDermott gave the law professor in Rounders - "tight and aggressive". I would suggest checking out some strategy forums for the micros and reading the advice there.

I'm not sure if you are playing FR or 6m, but you want to be closer to 25/22 at 6m and 17/14 or so at FR. This will all obviously depend on your postflop ability and your opponents.

But this is a nice outcome!

I think the best feature is the ability to study your opponents. In sports, you would watch game film, chart tendencies, study what they do in situations and device a game plan to counter it.

In war, you would scout out the enemy, trying to find weaknesses and how to exploit them.

Likewise, in poker, it is good to learn about your opponents, find ways to exploit them.

Tracking software provides this opportunity. You can step away from the table, review hands, see patterns, and make notes and plans for an opponent.

you can also run complex calculations regarding equity and look at the best lines to take. This is not possible at the table in the time you have to play a hand.

Finally, the ability to review your own play and keep records is so much easier.

As with Poker Tracker, we offer a trial and are always available to answer questions. Good luck at the tables.
 
SeaRun

SeaRun

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Your VPIP and PFR should be a lot closer. It's like the advice Mike McDermott gave the law professor in Rounders - "tight and aggressive". >>>>SNIP


Normally (since I joined here, anyway) I would consider myself TAG, but today when playing these 100+ hands the cards were falling like I had just made a sacrifice to the Poker Gods, so I was running with it, and admittedly playing more LAG. But so many times when I limped into a pot, the flop was a dream.

As for HM2, it's done and gone. Didn't last 12 hours. Froze my laptop once, and the program itself froze twice and wouldn't load, even after uninstalling and downloading / reinstalling.

So, I just finished downloading PT4 and will try that.

Jamie
 
RDB

RDB

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Normally (since I joined here, anyway) I would consider myself TAG, but today when playing these 100+ hands the cards were falling like I had just made a sacrifice to the Poker Gods, so I was running with it, and admittedly playing more LAG. But so many times when I limped into a pot, the flop was a dream.

As for HM2, it's done and gone. Didn't last 12 hours. Froze my laptop once, and the program itself froze twice and wouldn't load, even after uninstalling and downloading / reinstalling.

So, I just finished downloading PT4 and will try that.

Jamie

What are your laptop specs? Which Operating System, Firewall, and Anti-Virus are you using? The problems you describe are often caused by conflicting security software and/or lack of exceptions being set in the security software. We can help you to solve these problems if you still have the software installed and send us the necessary log files but if you uninstalled it there isn't much we can do. If you install it again and want to work with us to resolve the issues please start a thread on our forums or send us an email and we can extend your trial period while we work to resolve your issues so you get a full 30 days of trial experience once the issues are resolved.

Regards,

fozzy71
 
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