POKER SOFTWARE - PROGRAMS, UTILITIES AND POKER TOOLS TO IMPROVE YOUR GAME

Poker tools are a family of either web-based or downloadable applications that perform a degree of statistical analysis in order to help poker players manage the vast amounts of data they begin to accumulate when playing poker online. Most online poker rooms include a facility that allows players to download a text file of their hand history for their own information. Certain applications called hand converters have been developed that take this raw data and present it in a way much more conducive to analysis by individual players, but also for sharing with other players. Seating order, stack sizes, pot size per round and blind size are all the sort of data that hand converters correlate and present in a user-friendly way for the user. The sharing of these text files between players has become something of a controversial subject as it has meant that players end up having access to the game data of players they have not even encountered yet, thus introducing a whole new dynamic to the competitive aspect of the game. Most online poker rooms treat the sharing of this kind of data as collusion but there is very little they can do to stop the practice.

Odds calculators are another sort of tool that has been made available to online poker players. Odds calculators can take game data, such as the hand a player currently holds, what is on the flop, the number and position of other players and the pot odds and offer a play by play probabilistic analysis of the game.

The massive degree of interest in online poker over the past few years have led to the development of another family of applications such as Poker Office that feature full integration with the software that online poker websites operate and may be used in a live game situation to provide a player with reliable, real time statistical information about what is going on in the game at any given moment. Poker Office for example (used for Texas hold 'em), does not need any player input whatsoever via hand histories or any other method. It simply integrates with the game you are playing and gives you all sorts of live information about your and your opponents games. Software such as this provides betting statistics, betting patterns, win rate statistics output as graphs, calculates pot odds, offers players the possibility of replaying any hand that the program has had access to, and gradually builds as it has access to more and more data into an enormously valuable resource. The more data it has access to the more it is able, not only to help a player in a live situation, but also to offer analysis of the players game and its weak points away from the table.

These types of all inclusive poker database programs are also a thorn in the side of many live poker players who see the online game as an easy shortcut to experience and this sort of software as a way of cheating. The question for the poker novice is whether or not to use these sorts of programs or not. Our opinion here is that programs such as Poker Office are an invaluable way of keeping all your poker data in one place and analyzing it easily. Due to sheer volume, online poker data quickly becomes unwieldy, even after several weeks of regular play. The problem with these programs is that when used by players who have not yet developed the skills of analyzing odds in real time and reading opponents games, they result in a laziness that does not serve the player in question. Most professional online players agree that software is an invaluable tool for honing your game, but it will not make a bad player any better, it will actually just make them worse when not able to refer to a computer program during play. However for poker players who have mastered not only the basics, but also advanced strategies, software such as this, used correctly, can only help you to improve your game. Remember there are no shortcuts and hard earned experience can't be emulated by a computer program, not yet anyway.