How PokerTracker Has Helped My Game

For many years, I have played online poker and, to be honest, haven’t done too badly at the game. I also noticed, however, that there were players who always seemed to be doing vastly better than me and over several different tables at the same buy-in. I figured that they were using some form of poker software, but pushed the idea of using any out of my mind.

The reasons for that were simple. Much like one of my interviewees in an earlier article on PokerSoftware, I thought that using such devices was against the spirit of the game. In poker, I reasoned, you were pitting your skills and wits against your opponents’. Likewise, you wouldn’t have the same abilities if you were playing live (although I have noticed many players, including Gus Hansen, using digital voice recorders to save information they deem critical). This thought pattern has changed somewhat over the years given the amount of the software that is available nowadays.

I never bought a software program to run alongside my poker game until just before the New Year. As 2008 drew to a close, I decided to purchase PokerTracker 3 because it has had a significant impact on the way I play and my thought processes that I put into the game. Most of that has been because of the Heads-Up Display (HUD) that operates in the background while you play.

The HUD is one of the most valuable parts of PT3 in that it gives you - without having to click on a player’s name on a particular site and navigate through the hoops - pretty much every statistic that you could ever want to know. The initial box shows key stats such as to how many hands you’ve logged on a player, how many times he or she has raised, and how aggressive your opponents are after the flop. These are all critical factors that I have used in making my decisions at the table.

I offer an example from a table I played the other night. It was a $3/$6 Limit game and I had suffered a couple of tough beats that had my chip stack below where I had started (trips against a flopped straight on one occasion and trips against a flopped boat on another). Through the HUD, I located a player on my right who I felt I could take advantage of and build my chip stack back up against. I played a total of nine hands against this player and won seven. Through using the software and its information, I was able to offset some of the bad beats and book a win for the night.

The information that the HUD provided helped me tremendously, especially when I took advantage of a deeper examination. To follow up on the example above, when I clicked on this particular player, I could see how he had played on every street and knew that he wouldn’t go to the river without the goods. I used this, along with nicely coordinated boards, to make some bluffs that worked out.

The software also has given me information on players that I should look for when I decide to play. The statistics that PT3 contains will let you know your success rate against everyone that you have played. If you find a player that you have a great deal of success against, you can search for them again later (this is where the buddy list programs come into play nicely). Therefore, if there is a player who always is handing you the worst end of the deal, then you now know to stay away when he is at a particular table.

One other thing that has changed my tune regarding software is the fact that it unemotionally tracks either your success or failure. Occasionally in the past, I would forget those ugly nights when nothing worked out and wouldn’t put it in my poker statistics. The PT3 program makes it impossible to do that by tracking each session and, in bright red, pointing out those nights when you weren’t at your best. I have used that lately to reexamine my play during one losing session (the only one out of ten since I started using PT3, by the way) and figured out what I was doing wrong from the hands I took to battle. However, there’s no chance I’m going to share this information with you.

Overall, the PokerTracker 3 software and its HUD have changed my opinions on whether or not to use them. I have to admit that it is sometimes too easy to base your decision on what it tells you - something that I have fortunately resisted the urge to do, in most cases - but it is incredibly useful as additional information to take into consideration. Now if I could only get the multi-table thing down, perhaps I could have a greater year at the tables in 2009!

Check out our PokerTracker review today.