PokerSoftware Interview with PocketFives Mod wackyJaxon

Recently, PokerSoftware caught up with online poker pro wackyJaxon, a successful poker player and well-known personality in the online poker forums. Aside from that, wackyJaxon is the Head Moderator at PocketFives.com and took time out of his busy schedule to answer poker software-related questions.

PokerSoftware: Thank you for taking the time to talk with us, Jaxon.  Do you use any poker software programs currently or have you used them in the past? If so, which ones?

wackyJaxon: I am currently using Holdem Manager while playing.  It works on all of the sites I currently play on and I find the heads-up display easy to manage.  The HUD works on multiple sites at once and displays useful stats on top of the player, showing their tendencies.

I typically look at how often a player is raising pre-flop, how often they limp pre-flop, how often they steal the blinds from the cut-off, button, or small blind, how often they continue-bet flops, and their overall aggressiveness.  The stats you can show are limitless, but having too many available can make it difficult to multi-table effectively and still look for the information you need to make quick decisions.

I also set up my HUD to show stats based on how many players are at the table.  This is especially important for sit and gos, as a player’s tendencies early in the game will be different in many cases to later on in the game.  The same would hold true for tournaments when seeing the same players playing six-max versus nine-max.

Although I rarely play tournaments, when I do, I have a special setting I can use to show stats only for the number of big blinds a player’s stack has.  When I used to play tournaments more often, I found this was useful; however, now when I don’t have a lot of hands from previous tournaments on players, I keep this filter off.  As a result, I just rely on HEM as a tool for decisions, but use observation more than what the stats are telling me due to the sample size the stats represent.

For cash games, I use Holdem Manager as a primary tracker of my profits and losses in Hold’em and Omaha.  Although I have to manually track my hands on other versions of poker, I find it useful to have this information in one place.  It also allows me to easily graph the data and show my all-in EV versus how much I made.  This isn’t that important of a stat, but during downswings when my all-in EV is showing positive, I know that I am not necessarily playing badly, just not having flips or dominated hands fall my way.

In the past, I used PokerTracker 3.  PT3 is very similar to HEM in the way it tracks cash games, tournaments, and SNGs.  I stopped using it because when it first came out, it was constantly crashing on my computer.  Other players I know that use this software say the updates they had took care of all of the bugs, but I got used to HEM and never went back to PT3.

One reason for me to go back to PT3 over HEM is that PT3 tracks Stud, Stud High-Low, and Razz, whereas HEM only tracks Hold’em and Omaha.  As a Mixed Game player, it’s useful to have all of this information in one place.  I have to manually look at sessions when playing on Stud tables and keep that information in a spreadsheet instead of having the data all in one place.

Another advantage of PT3 over HEM is that PT3 can show your profit and loss in cash games against particular players.  I have heard that the new version of HEM in beta testing will allow me to do the same in HEM.  HEM, however, has add-ons that are not found in PT3 like Table Ninja, which allows you to use hotkeys, Leak Buster, and Table Scanner.  I am consistently utilizing Leak Buster, as at times it points out something I would not have thought of otherwise about potential mistakes I am making during cash game play.

PokerSoftware: Do you use poker software for your play only or do you also use poker software to keep track of the horses in your stable?

wackyJaxon: When staking cash players, I like them to send me samples of their hands.  I usually ask for them to send me the first 50 and last 50 of each day they play.  I use this to check for leaks within HEM using Leak Buster and manually look to see if there are any hands to warrant discussion.  I also encourage my horses, whether in cash games, tournaments, or SNGs, to use either PT3 or HEM.

For my horses that play tournaments and SNGs, I double-check the results they are sending by looking up what they played on Official Poker Rankings and Sharkscope.  My primary tracking is on Excel or Google Docs, depending on what is more comfortable with the horse, and I can easily calculate make-up and profit sharing without the use of any additional software.  I know of larger stables that use programs like donkbluff to assist with this as well.

PokerSoftware: Which types of poker software programs do you think are bad for the industry or unethical?

wackyJaxon: There are many programs that use shared information for tournaments and cash games to give you an unfair advantage against your opponents.  It’s one thing to use your own information, but I believe shared databases are very unethical and I am happy when I see the poker sites clamping down on their use.

Harder to track is people purchasing hands, however, and installing them in their PT3 or HEM databases.  I also find the sites that sell this information to be unethical, but there is little the poker sites themselves can do to stop this from occurring.

Lastly, there are sites that sell artificial intelligence to make decisions.  This can be as simple as a wizard that tells you when to raise, fold, or call or as complex as pushing the buttons for you and playing for you.  Although all poker sites prohibit the use of artificial intelligence, there are very few that clamp down on its use.  Luckily, once it’s detected that someone is playing very robotic, you can use this to your advantage by knowing their style will not change very much.

PokerSoftware: What types of poker software programs would you like to see available in the future?

wackyJaxon: I tend to play a lot of Mixed Games, including Eight-Game tables on PokerStars.  Unfortunately, there is no database or HUD available that allows you to track all forms of poker.  If a HUD came out that supported these games, along with Badugi, 2-7 Single Draw, 2-7 Triple Draw, Crazy Pineapple, and Five-Card Draw, I would pay up a lot more money than PT3 and HEM charge to have all of this in one place.

PokerSoftware: Which do you prefer: playing poker with a mouse, using auto hotkeys, or using a USB controller like the XBOX360?

wackyJaxon: I have tried using Table Ninja, a USB controller, and the Poker Controller, which is USB device designed for poker.  Although many people prefer this to using a mouse, I tend to play eight tables or fewer at once and find the use of the mouse to be efficient for my needs.

Some of my horses prefer Table Ninja and a friend of mine who 30-tables SNGs does so using an XBOX controller.  Call me old-fashioned, but I find I make fewer mistakes using the mouse, as it’s too easy for me to hit the wrong hot key with Table Ninja and I am not all that comfortable using a USB device.

PokerSoftware: Overall, what do you think about the pricing of poker software?

wackyJaxon: I think for someone who plays mid- to high-stakes, the pricing of these programs is fairly low and extremely valuable for the money.  One decision going your way because you utilized a HUD, for example, pays for the software.  If I had a personally designed program that incorporated all of the cash games I play, I would pay five times as much to own and use it.