Is a Pokertracker a good thing for a beginner?

Let me first specify that by "beginning player", I do not mean someone just starting out - but rather, lets say someone who is within their first 5000-10,000 hands of serious poker.

I used a poker tracker for a little while and then stopped - my reason for stopping had nothing to do with poker - I am using a Mac and so wanted to get a Mac tracker - but then there was a possibility that I would be switching over to a Windows machine and so did not want to invest in the Mac tracker.

So, with that in mind, I am questioning whether pokertracker is a good thing for a player who is just starting out. I definitely understand the benefits of tracking your play - certainly the information is useful.

My concern is that it can be easy to rely on a pokertracker to guage your performance - and that just as judging on the basis of immediate results, this can cause problems.

Consider, for example, that over your first few hundred hands, you may be getting better than average hands - and this will be reflected in your stats - now, since you are just a beginning player, your natural instinct may be to look at your stats and see that your VP$IP is around 28% - which seems high - and so your natural reaction is to then tighten up.

But in this case, this would be the wrong move. Your VP$IP is a result of your better than average hands - by making this adjustment, you are likely to become too tight later on.

The other side is that I think that a pokertracker discourages players from assessing their individual actions. When you are learning and building your skill, you need to look at each play in detail and learn to ask the right questions to assess your play - a pokertracker will give you some easy answers, but it won't help you in those specific situations.

My feeling is that a Pokertracker should not be used at all until you have about 5000-10,000 hands under your belt. By then, you should have become familiar with most of the fundamentals of the game and you should be able to judge your individual plays reasonably well. Then you can start doing the fine-tuning, for which a pokertracker is an excellent tool.

To me though, for the beginner, using a pokertracker to improve your game is like using a butter knife to chop down a tree.

[Cooker]

I think poker tracker is very valuable to people playing online poker, but you must use it properly. It can be a great way to get and store information about your play and your opponents. Online you see so many different opponents it is hard to keep much read on a player, but poker tracker makes that easy (although I often use the sites player note system as well sometimes). Also, you can review your stats and go through problem hands decision by decision to review your choices. This can be a very valuable way to plug holes. It is up to you to decide how to use the stats. If you find over a period that your VP$IP is high over a period, you can see what types of hands you were playing and decide if you were too loose or just catching cards. It is also a good idea to start your stats over from time to time as your play changes.

[4_2_it]

As usual Hank, you are on target. An absolute beginner must play enough to gain a rudimentary understanding of the game. Once that occurs, (could be 1,000 hands for some and 100,000 for others) I think PT is a must have.

You can have a legitimate argument over whether a HUD helps or hurts (I think HUDs are great, but should not be relied upon in a vacuum), but the underlying tool has too much information that it would be -EV to not use it. I have discovered leaks (love of JTs in EP) in my game that were costing me $$$$.

Other than the statistical features of PT (I too have less then 10K hands so I'm not using that part too much) I have been using PT to review my sessions when completed. I look at all my wins and losses to see how I could/should have played them differently or confirm that I played them correctly via hand playback mode. his has been a HUGE help for me. lautzutao had a great Post about this a couple of days ago.

Interesting post...I've been kicking around trying out PT. I've got about 15k hands under my belt at this time and am a small winner over the last 5k hands(I use a spreadsheet to track play and bankroll).

From some of the posts I've seen on here, I get the feeling that many players put too much emphasis on PT stats. I agree Hank, that playing by the stats would not be good for beginning player. Getting basics of the game down(like you say 5k-10k hands) then use PT. You could take your idea even further though, and not even look at your stats until you've logged another couple of thousand hands to get a decent sample.

[aargh57]

Something that I did when I played my first 5 or 6000 hands was to try and be my own PT (at least pf). At first I tried to keep track of 2 or 3 players at a time when they called pf at different positions (early, mid, late). I found that to be too cumbersome so I switched to trying to keep track of everybody regardless of position. This kept me very interested in the game even though I didn't multitable. After that I got PT and yes, I do use it as too much of a crutch at times but I also do many other imperfect things in Poker. I think that it sounds like you've got enough experience that it would be beneficial. You also have a better attitude about it than most in that you will try not to be an auto PT type guy.

[masse75]

Agree with everything said. It's also good to check for leaks...

Got a few ideas on setting up filters to check and see where I was donking it up here. Leakcheck PT filters

[BillFranklin]

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Consider, for example, that over your first few hundred hands, you may be getting better than average hands - and this will be reflected in your stats - now, since you are just a beginning player, your natural instinct may be to look at your stats and see that your VP$IP is around 28% - which seems high - and so your natural reaction is to then tighten up.

But in this case, this would be the wrong move. Your VP$IP is a result of your better than average hands - by making this adjustment, you are likely to become too tight later on.



[/ QUOTE ]

In this case i would pay close attention to the WSF stat. This stat basically tells you if you lucky or unlucky. On average your gonna win about 32% of the time you see the flop. If your vpip is 30, and your wsf is 50, that means your catching cards. if your vpip is 18 and your wsf is 18 your running bad.