I use Poker Tracker, and I love it. The main reason why I love it, is because I can keep track of my wins and losses, right down to each session, starting hand, and so much more. It’s a useful tool for learning what mistakes I might be making and how to improve my game. Every once in a while I’ll look deep into the statistics and see where I can plug a hole or two in my game.

The other major advantage of using Poker Tracker is the HUD. For those unfamiliar with this, it basically overlays vital information about your opponents onto the table. The basic stats are; hands played, voluntary $ put into pot (not including blinds), preflop raise percentage, and overall aggression factor. Some people argue that such software is cheating or is unfair as in the real world of poker (live casino play) you have to find this information through observation, and so should be the case for online poker. However my main argument against this is that many online poker players will just be there to grind away on multiple tables, playing virtually nothing other than premium hands, and while it’s their right to do so, it wouldn’t happen in live play (people would notice and they’d get no action). Without a HUD it would be very hard to notice the players who play in this way, and they’d probably end up winning my money.

I was playing $1/$2 NL hold’em last night on Poker Stars and there was a player sat to my right, and I’d obviously been on his table before as my HUD had 150+ hands of data stored. This player’s basic stats were 1/1/-. Clearly this player was not playing poker, but just folding everything. Then out of the blue he calls a raise when not in the blinds. I had QQ and folded. What does Mr Super Tight have? Yes you guessed it, AA. His stats changed to 2/2/-.

While I think a HUD is fair game, I don’t think it’s right that people’s data can be bought. There are many sites that will sell hand histories, and you can import this data into your software. I think this is wrong and is cheating. It’s not right and is bad for online poker in general. I also think sites like Sharkscope, which mines data from the sites and displays it publicly is also wrong. It’s a matter of privacy and if a player wants to win or lose then it should be their right to do so in private. I know many online poker rooms are very much against this type of data mining, and Poker Stars has banned the use of Sharkscope on their site. I think this is the right thing to do, but they are probably facing a losing battle, as there are now so many data mining sites. My fear is that one day online poker will just turn into a battle of who has the best software.

Oh and before I go, just to update on my previous post. Unfortunately I’ve not won a WSOP seat just yet. I’ll keep trying though - you just never know!