Poker tracking software...

What’s good software for analyzing your online poker play?

I don’t know if I’m just off to a bad-luck start or what. I’ve only played eight days and maybe 1,500--perhaps 2000--hands. I’ll know for sure when I go back and analyze my play. But I’d prefer to do the analysis with software than do it by hand.

To prepare myself I’ve read the books and I’m playing by them. Specifically, the Miller-Skalnsky-Malmuth (MSM) and the Lee Jones’s books, both for low limit hold’em. There are others, too, like Schoonmaker’s book and…I can’t remember them all. But I’ve focused on MSM and Jones.

I bought and played against Wilsons’s Turbo Texas Hold’em software. I primarily play the “Mike Challenge” (testing various lineups) and I keep an accounting of my results in Excel and, over the long run—some 250 session, I’m beating “Mike”. (Perhaps the challenge is bogus, but can I safely say if you can’t beat the challenge, you’re going to have a real tough time against human players?) By the way, I notice that “Sidewinder Sid’s” advice is somewhat looser that MSM’s or Jones’s. But their advice does better against the “Challenge.” So, I’ve gone with them (mostly MSM.)

I should also add that in a few months of the “Mike Challenge” I had only one session of fifty hands where I never won a pot. I’ve done that either two or three times in eight days playing at Party Poker. I don’t think there’s anything to make of that. I just thought I’d make a note of it.

So far, I’ve limited my play to $2-$4. I choose tables where the average pot is greater than $30 and I stay with them, winning or losing, unless the table gets short or drops below $20.

My very first session I went 52 deals without winning a hand. Okay, bad luck. The next day I played ten sessions of various lengths and I had one of 58 deals where I never won a pot. I had another stretch where I went 99 deals winning just one hand before I won another to make it 2 out of 100 deals. I did have one good session. Otherwise, it seems like it’s been one grueling session after another, punctuated with a few sessions with small wins.

This morning I just played 67 hands and my only two wins were picking up the blinds. I said, “Okay, back off and let’s take a hard look at this.”

I can’t be sure, until I go back and analyze my play, but I’m “pretty sure” I’m losing money on AA, KK, and I think QQ. I know that they’re long-term moneymakers, and (at the moment) because of the hands I lost to, I’m confident that with those hands I will, in the future, make oodles of money off the same types of opponents I’m losing to, unless they change their play. (If it’s possible to have “bad beat” stories at $2-$4, I’ve had plenty of them, but I don’t like to dwell on them.)

By the way, when I’m losing, I don’t go on tilt. (Okay, I think twice I called $4 bets when I was sure I was beaten, just to see if the players had spotted me as someone who’d fold to anything because I’m so “tight.” But my original suspicions were right, they had the god-awful goods.) In the meantime, I keep playing my hands the way I should (or at least the way MSM and Jones say I should), confident that the long run will see me make money.

I think software that indicated that I was suffering a run of bad luck (“play long enough, and it will happen to you, too”), or that I’d done something to piss off the poker gods, would make me feel better. I’d hate to think that, after all the work I’ve done to ensure I play well, that I just suck. But I don’t think I’m playing too wild or too tight. I think I’m playing a good game unless MSM and Jones just wrong. (I even make adjustments when I feel, because I’m playing so few hands, my table image is that of a rock, and I’ve used it to pick up the blinds or to buy a pot here and there when the flop “missed” me.)

In the meantime, I doubt Party Poker has singled me out to lose. You know, the old “They won’t let me get any playable hands unless they give them to me just to see me get crushed.” So, I’m working from the premise that the poker sites are honest and I’m just having bad luck.

I should also add that I played Omaha 8 at Paradise five years ago and made just shy of $800. But that was over almost 300 hours. It didn’t seem like that was enough money for the time and effort I’d put in, which led me to think I was doing something wrong. So, I cashed out and bought a Canon G2 (then $799.95) and started taking photos of girls. (I’m a part-time artist and I draw from them.) I guess I’m trying to say, I have won on line in the past. I even claimed the profit on my taxes because I’ve published political pieces that were poorly received (a la James Bovard’s reception) inside the Beltway. I feel as though it’s best for someone who pisses off the powers that be, as I do, to live an exemplary life.

So, before I go though my hand histories with a pencil and paper (lots of paper, and I can do it, my degree, which I no longer use, was in math), what’s good software to analyze my play? Something that might give me “Goldilocks” readings from various positions (like, I’m playing too loose, too tight, or like Baby Bear, just right). Something that will confirm or deny my suspicions that I’m getting less than “my share” of quality hands and the few I’m dealt I get crushed.

I’ll continue to play if it’s just bad luck. I want no part of it if I just stink (or, heaven forbid, if the sites are less than honest—but the software can’t show that with as few hands as I’ve played, and can’t show it at all except to “indicate” it if I set proper confidence intervals).

So, does decent software exist that will help, and let me import my Party Poker hand histories, so I can analyze my play? I’ve seen references to Poker Tracker and PokerStat, but I don’t know if either of them are any good or if there’s another that is better.

I’m going to post this at both Two Plus Two and rec.gambling.poker (where I know I’ll be bait for those living under the bridge).

If you’ve had similar experiences to those I’ve had, especially at the beginning of your online play, I’d love to hear them.

John Silveira

[krimson]

Too long, didn't read. So i'm just going to go ahead and say "Poker Tracker". (www.pokertracker.com).

lmao... 800$ over 300 hours... i'd say that's not enough to make it worth while lol... you'd make more flipping burgers, or offering to scrape gum off the bottom of peoples shoe for a buck...

[toby]

Ya that was a really long post.

1500-2000 hands as everyone will tell you isn't much to determine any sort of real trend. Sounds like you're just getting cold decked, which as you acknowledged, does happen to everyone.

If you are pretty confident about your ability, try playing two tables at once. That way you won't get bored folding 72o on one table nonstop because the other table might have a playable hand.

PokerTracker will do the other stuff you want.

You stole my line. When people asked me why I quit I'd reply, "I'd make more money working part-time at McDonalds's." But maybe I'll try Omaha 8 again, sometime.

Still, any suggestions on tracking software?

Thanks for your reply. I'll look closer at Poker Tracker. But it'll be a few weeks before I try multiple screens. I'm ADD and I'll have to work up to it. But I did, before, when I played Omaha 8.

So far, you're one of two to recommend Poker Tracker. Thanks,again.

[ncboiler]

That is way to long to read. If you want software to track your play and other's play then download pokertracker.

If I was going to make a poker tracking software it would have to have a really catchy name....

This was way too long of a post when you could have stopped at your first line.

Get PokerTracker. Don't research it, don't ask around further, just buy it.

[Octopus]

[ QUOTE ]
I should also add that in a few months of the “Mike Challenge” I had only one session of fifty hands where I never won a pot. <and so on ...>

[/ QUOTE ]


I once went 68 hands (across multiple tables) where I did not put a single penny in other than blind money. What possible difference does this make?

Get pokertracker to ... ahem ... track yourself. More importantly though, stop messing around with TTH and spend your time instead reading and replying to posts here. (And remember that 2000 hands is nothing.)