Poker Tracking Software
By Wes Burns
Learn about using poker tracking software to improve your game and keep better statistics on your play as well as your poker opponents.
It was inevitable that online poker would eventually lead to the development of dozens of types of poker tracking software. Most poker tracking software is garbage but there are a few programs out there that poker players should utilize. These programs are used to aid poker players in keeping track of stats, learning the odds of complex situations and much more.
Some people argue that online poker tracking gives players an unfair advantage but I must disagree. Poker programs such as the ones discussed in this article don’t have access to any secret information. All they do is make it easier to collect statistics and make sense of those numbers. Plus, this poker software is available to everyone, but not everyone is willing to put in the effort to use such programs.
Poker Statistics Programs
Out of all the types of poker tracking software out there, poker statistics programs are the most useful and important. Two programs in particular come to mind: PokerTracker and Holdem Manager. Both poker programs are absolutely vital to serious online poker player. Their entire function is to watch every hand you play and break everything down into statistics.
For example, one of the first statistics poker players look at is the percentage of hands they play. As you may know, one of the biggest mistakes new players make is playing too many hands. These one statistic alone will tell you more about your game than you ever realized.
Both programs go much deeper than that, though. You can break almost every aspect of your game down into numbers. For example, you can find out how often you fold on the turn, how aggressive you are on the river, how often you try to steal the blinds, how often you defend your blinds, how much money you make with each and much more.
As if that wasn’t enough, you can also find all these same statistics out about your opponents. Every hand you play and witness at the table is logged and saved in a database. That also includes every action your opponents have taken. This comes in handy for finding leaks in your opponents’ games.
Finally, both PokerTracker and Holdem Manager come with heads-up displays (HUDs) that post each opponent’s stats above his head at any of the online poker sites. All it takes is a glance to find out how often each opponent raises before the flop, how much money that opponent has won/lost while at the table and much more.
Odds Calculators
Odds calculators, for the most part, are tools for the lazy man. If you don’t feel like learning how to count your outs and figure out how likely you are to hit your draw, odds calculators are just for you. These programs attach themselves to your poker tables and then tell you how likely you are to hit your draws and whether or not you should call.
In all honesty, if you’re serious enough to pay money for an odds calculator, you should be serious enough to learn how to do this stuff on your own. The odds for all the most common draws can be memorized in about five minutes. Poker math can get complicated, but you don’t need to know everything down to the tenth decimal place. My suggestion is to just do a little reading up on the subject of “pot odds.”
Multi-Tabling Aids
These tools come in very handy for serious grinders. Many poker players who run 12 or more tables at a time find this kind of poker software useful. The purpose of programs such as these is to make it easier to type in bets, switch tables and click buttons. Some programs even make it so that you can do everything with your keyboard. A couple programs that come to mind are Table Ninja and AutoHotKey.
Tournament Tools
There are several tournament tools out there that can be used to play an almost perfect tournament game. These programs can tell you exactly when you should go into push/fold mode based on the size of the blinds, the prizes and the number of players remaining. They will also tell you when you should push and when you should fold.
One of the most popular programs is SNG Wizard. This program uses Independent Chip Modeling (ICM) to help you determine exactly when you should push and when you should fold. Sit and Go players should definitely take a look at this one. There are also similar programs for multi table tournaments.
Cheating Programs
If you run across a program that claims it can cheat at online poker, you should stay very far away. Nobody has ever released a cheating program and probably never will. First of all, poker sites have extremely tight security. Second, nobody would be foolish enough to develop a cheating program and then decide to sell it for a pathetic profit. Anything that claims to be a poker cheating program is some sort of scam to either steal your money, poker password or both.