I’m feeling uneasy about the effect that Poker Tracker is having on online poker these days. It’s giving players an unfair advantage and ruining online games.
Poker Tracker alone is an incredibly useful poker tool. It gathers your hand histories so you can analyze numerous aspects of your online play, such as your win rate, ROI in certain positions, and your average loss/profit for each hand. You use it after a game to train yourself to become a stronger poker player, just like how a boxer trains with a punching bag to improve his fighting skills.
The problem is that there’s a bunch of add-on programs for Poker Tracker that directly effect your play at the table. Programs like PokerAce HUD and GameTime+ overlays everyone’s Poker Tracker stats directly on the table. Combine this with a hand history miner, like IdleMiner, and you automatically know everyone’s ROI, preflop raise percentage, aggression factor and more.
Now it’s like a boxing match where one fighter has gloves on and the other’s wearing iron knuckles. It’s not fair or ethical!
Poker sites love these programs though. It brings in the multi-tabling players who play 30,000+ hand per week. In the long run it can only hurt though. The games will get tighter as more players realize they can play almost statistically perfect with the help of certain programs. Players will just pass their chips back and forth resulting in smaller wins and bigger overall losses for everyone.
The solution is for the poker sites to simply ban the use of any real time Poker Tracking tool. Without these bot-like players everywhere, games will get looser and there will be more opportunities for players to capitalize on pure poker skill. The online poker ecosystem will return to normalcy once again.
I personally agree with this point, yet online poker rooms will never ban these products use because like you said it results in money being shuffled around. This money being shuffled around results in more rake for the online poker rooms.
your a loser
its not illegal for a boxer to use a punching bag
get over it anyone is allowed to use poker tracker so why dont you
The point is that poker tracker is hurting games. It’s fine when you use it to analyze your stats, but programs that overlay everyones stats over the table give players an unfair advantage. It encourages players to 12-table low limit games like a bot to squeeze out tiny profits at each table.
As long as it’s legal you should use it. It’s the only way to keep your edge up against another player with poker tracker. But we’d be much better off as poker players if nobody could use poker tracker.
Poker tracker doesn’t overlay everyone stats.
It only shows the stats from the past sessions you played with the others players at the table. Therefore I don’t see how it could more unfair than a notebook or simply a good memory.
Yeah, but not having pokertracker is freaking killing me against those that do. I’m getting manhandled. So, if anyone knows of a good mac pokertracker/hud, please let me know.
This is the dumbest comment i’ve ever seen. As long as you are only recalling hands you have played with that opponent like tracker does, it doesn’t matter. Other programs that upload hands from all different people to a centralized database is a different story, and those programs have been banned by the reputable sites. As ho says, its just like having a notebook or a really good memory. The problem with online play is your not going to remember playing IgotChips820 2 months ago whereas you meet that donk in a casino u remember his face and the dumbass plays he makes. Tracker makes the game more realistic. Besides if you can’t come up with the numbers PA hud overlays in a live game please tell me your screen names so i can take your money.
the fact is that stupid ass things like poker tracker are ruining the skill base a player has to have to be a good player. My generation is doing a fantastic job of RUINING POKER! and it makes me completely sick.
This has to be an advertisement for the Product. All he is doing is praising it and letting everyone know what it can do. Its a fucking AD!
In response to Brandon, Open End Software has Mac Poker Pro available. I have been using it for over a year and really loved it until recently. As my database has grown, the program has become slow and it bogs down more than it give me real time updates.
There is an online forum for Open End, but the Admin of that site does not respond much to posts. You get the feeling of going across a desert in a bus and the bus driver dies, leaving all of the passengers to simmer in a bus going nowhere.
The rumor is that Hand Tracker is coming out for Macs and I am eager to make the switch.
Pokertracker should be banned? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that ship has long since sailed. PT and the various HUDs are an integral part of online poker. It’s a tool, nothing more, and it can’t play your hands for you.
For those who feel online poker is somehow ruined, there’s always live poker.
PT is not ruining online poker. Sure, those stats are extremely helpfull but they don’t tell you everything. Two players with the same stats can be playing in a very different way. In the end, especially in higher stakes games, the players who pay the most attention, have the best understanding of the game and know how to exploit certain opponents, run off with the biggest piece of the pie.
I know many high limit players that sit in on multiple low stakes games to mix up there stats and pretty much autofold every hand. could this be for tracking purposes? i’m talking .01/.02 games wher eusually they’re sitting at 200/400 limit he
I use Poker Tracker and PA HUD. Some people are obviously biased because they have used it so long and they probably couldn’t win on the amount of tables they play without it. Personally, I would prefer that the products had never existed but I guess you gotta adapt. I don’t use them when I one or two table.
Does this not prove, then, that poker is not a game of luck but rather skill? Professional poker players use math all the time to calculate their odds of winning a pot, whether the other players are bluffing based on their knowledge of the opposing players. Although I do agree that to use these programs as ‘bots’ for online poker is harmful, I cannot agree that using them for the intent they were created, as an aid.
Your article did give me pause in the manner to which these programs, that I use myself, should be used, and I do find them useful if I could only figure how to use them!
Well it cant be doing that much damage to the poker community after all poker pros are never talking about it as if it were a problem to them. Iv not see ant videos of online pros using or encouraging these programs. Im pretty sure alot of the top online tourny players jut use instict alone and would other wise review hand histories by either reading them or by using poker tracker to analyze thier play. overlays may suggest to raise this guy or avoid that guy but still no 1’s perfect and the info may get you into more trouble than its worth
Honestly you can look at poker tracker with many different views…. The key reason why it’s not “cheating” or an “un-thical” advantage, is becuase it is available to ALL poker players to use. Poker is a game of skill. Every poker player has the tools to build their skill however they can…
SHiP IT
hey man its like this if u dont want people to use poker tracker or other programs that are like it then go to poker rooms that do not allow them and believe me there are a hell of a lot of poker rooms out there that dont allow these tracker programs period. i play at a half dozen small time sites which do not allow tracker software and its great but i also use pokertracker at the bigger sites which do but i prefer to play without so most of my time is spent at the smaller less well known sites and believe me world wide the are 1000,s of poker rooms find one and quit ur bitchin
Such a moronic post. I have played countless games with and without PT and PAH at varying levels. Online poker is a volume game, especially at low stakes (<20 ABI). You will play thousands of people only once or twice, so the stats you accumulate on them will be session specific at the very best.
With a larger sample size it is simply an affirmation if your read on your opponent is correct or if you need to reassess his style.
It is a tool that so you don’t need to follow everyone’s action all the time. Yes, this is pretty usefull indeed when you have 4+ tables open! But even without it you should easily be aware if your blids are tight and will fold to a steal, who is the loose maniac who raises any 2 etc. The stats just help keep things in perspective. The long and short of it is that PT is not a bot. It does not give you hand advice and like many posters before it is the same as a notebook and a pen, albeit a much faster one, something that is needed when you play so many hands per hour! You have a right to store all the information that is freely given and PT is good at doing that.
As for ethics, I do not see why that is an issue, the software is available to anyone. If there was a bias to which players are granted the privilege to use it, that would be different.
Conclusion: Wanting to ban PT is just a silly excuse to cover up your losses when all else fails. PT is a tool and nothing more. In the online scene it is extremely valuable because of the high throughput of opponents and hands. A human simply cannot process information that quickly error free. It does not backdoor stats, but rather only stores stats from hands you play. These stats are a usefull guideline if used properly, and alleviate increased effort when playing online. Since it is openly available to anyone, and does not affect the outcome of a hand it is perfectly legal and ethical.
As previously said in a comment, this post is an AD, don’t waste your time commenting the pros and cons, it’s too obvious it’s an advert.
What is your feeling after reading the post?
To try PokerTracker isn’t ?
Jeff,
Since poker tracker runs on your own machine, how do these small time sites know if you are using Tracker or not?
If they can tell what programs your are running on your home machine, other than their client, I would consider that a serious breach of security.
I absolutely agree with your post.
We need to make non-professional and hobbiest players aware that they are at an unfair disadvantage when playing on a poker site that allows the use of software such as poker tracker.
If you think that Poker Tracker gives an unfair advantage to those who use it, do you also belive that those who read online poker articles also have an unfair advantage?
Poker Tracker only uses data that is generated by the poker room software. If people were to look at this data, does this give them an unfair advantage. I think not. Personally, I think taking advantage of this data is a must, if you want to analyse your game and improve as a poker player.
The problem here is a problem that is inherent in online poker. When you’re looking at a screen and a bunch of names and avatars (sometimes avatars, sometimes not) it’s extremely difficult to recall past actions with a specific player. Compound this with multitabling and it becomes near impossible.
This is not a problem that you encounter playing live poker. Everything is slower when playing live and it’s so much easier to put hand histories to a face. In this way pokertracker makes effective online pay possible. It certainly makes multitabling possible.
Remember that pokertracker does not offer any advice or counsel you as to your most optimal move in any given situation. You still must know how to apply the information that it gives you.
And as already has been posted, because pokertracker is a client side program, there is pretty much no way to stop this kind of application- even if a poker site removed the store hand history option from their software.
the part where you said this brings multitablers 30+ tables is not true PT cant run on that many table it barly runs on 10. and the quote that players can play statistically perfect is bollucks just because you play a 22/18 game in a 6max game doesnt mean your good, you can suck feircly
Any good poker player already uses his reputation to his advantage. I use poker tracker, but only so i know what others who use poker tracker expect from me. My game is constantly evolving in response to the change in other player’s play.
Try using how i played the exact same hand 1 month ago to beat me in a hand today….. Good luck!
Like others have said, all PT does is give you information you already have in your head. If you think it’s ruining the game you’re very misguided.