Sick of losing your money online? IT geeks have devised an array of solutions that analyse every aspect of your game
 |
|
| It’s like having a great card player working with you – one who never makes mistakes, who never forgets and, crucially, who never gets tired. | |
 |
Anyone who’s watched the Terminator films knows that one day the human race will be ruled by machines. But while you’re unlikely to be killed by your toaster anytime soon, the unhappy fact is that – in poker terms, at least – the robots are already having a bigger influence than you might think.
Certainly if you play online, some opponents are already using highly advanced software to enhance their skills. It’s no longer you against them. It’s you against them AND a computer programme which can remember and analyse every move you ever make on the table.
These software packages cost as little as $40 and because all they do is use information which every player shares – what cards have been played, who is being aggressive, who is most likely to fold to a re-raise, what the odds of filling a hand are, etc. They don’t rig the deck or peek at your hole cards.
But then again, according to one online professional who has seen his win percentage increase significantly since paying for a download, they don’t have to.
‘It’s not like you have a great card cheat on your side all of a sudden. But it is like having a great card player working with you – one who never makes mistakes, who never forgets, and, crucially, who never gets tired.’
Sufficiently alarmed – and, frankly, keen to stop losing so much money on the internet – we tested tour of the best programs available to download and found out what kind of edge they can give the average player…
POKER SPY www.poker-spy.com $49.95
Pros
The first thing you appreciate about this software is that it’s very good to look at. Although there’s enough information on display to fill the dashboard of a jumbo jet, pretty much every piece of it is colour coded, making it – at least after the first half-hour of headscratching – idiot proof. The two main windows are an odds calculator for each hand (letting you know the chances of hitting your outs and the most likely cards your opponents are holding), and a record of how each player at the table has played the last 17 hands. It’s the sort of stuff you might have in your own head if you were autistic and it’s extremely valuable.
Your opponents are rated for their aggression and any mistakes they make – such as playing A-10 off-suit in early position, or not raising pocket Queens – are flagged for your attention. You can also go into the database to see how they have bet their hands over a period of weeks, which will obviously give you a fantastic read on their playing style.
Perhaps most useful of all, you can also review the fate of every starting hand you’ve ever been dealt yourself. These are listed in order of merit and after a month or so you begin to realise that some of your favourite Hold’em hands (for example, J-9 suited, 6-6) are actually big woofing dogs doomed to lose you money in the long run.
Cons
Having all this information at your disposal is one thing, putting it to good use is another. To get the full benefit, you will have to spend hours researching particular players’ betting patterns and then tracking them down again the next day. Also, the windows take up quite a lot of room, so you will only be able to play a maximum of two tables at once. Lastly, armed with all this data, it’s hard not to become a bit of a ‘boring professor’ in the chatbox, reminding people that they got lucky 129 hands ago with pocket Fours or bet their bellybuster straight draw without the correct pot odds.
Conclusion POKERSPY
This will help to sharpen your game, increase your concentration levels and hopefully boost your wins. Which is ultimately what you want – and why it’s our pick of the bunch.
Poker Office $69 www.pokeroffice.com
Pros
This is incredibly comprehensive. Every facet of your game is tracked and you can delve into the database to see how often any of your opponents check-raise, how often they bet before the flop, how much they win per hour…
In short, it’s so thorough you half expect it to tell you when their birthdays are and how often they wipe their arses. There are also some neat graphs, which give you an instant view of your performance and a chatroom for you to swap poker gossip with other users. If you’re prepared to spend the time digesting the data on offer, there’s no doubt you will have a much better chance of dominating tables.
Cons
As its name suggests, this is quite hard work and if you play poker for fun then this is going to feel like you’re back at school. In fact you feel like you need an accountancy degree to get the best out of it, and it’s really hard to absorb all the information on offer in the 30 seconds you have to bet or fold online. It’s not as well laid out as Poker Spy and lacks colour coding. Plus, with so many statistics windows to juggle, you can’t help thinking you need a massive computer like Tom Cruise in Minority Report, just to see it all.
TEXAS CALCULATEM $49.95 www.calculatem.com
Pros
Very simple. Before starting a game, you set defaults for how tight or aggressively you wish to play, then the on-screen window advises you with total accuracy. As each hand progresses, a sliding arrow indicates whether you should fold, check, call or raise, leaving you in no doubt as to the correct course of action. There’s also an odds calculator should you wish to go ‘off message’ and make your own decisions. Best of all, the data won’t clutter up your screen, as the most essential bits are available in a miniaturised version no bigger than your finger, which sits on top of your poker interface. Overall, this is ideal if you’re new to the game and you’re still learning the basics. Or if you’ve been playing losing poker for a while and you want to try to break some of your bad betting habits.
Cons
Compared to the previous two, Texas Calculatem is very basic. As it keeps no record of your opponents’ play, it’s only really useful on a hand-byhand basis. You will have to make your own notes on the people you compete against. Also, when you’re playing to strict instructions it can make you feel a bit redundant and takes some of the fun element out of poker.
POKER PROPHECY $39 www.pokerprophecy.com
Pros
They say that if you don’t know who the sucker is after 20 minutes, it’s you. Poker Phrophecy goes one step further, claiming to let you know instantly the level of opponents you’re sitting down with. By monitoring how often they finish ‘in the money’ in sit-and-gos, it instantly tells you how successful the other players at your table are, allowing you to classify them as ‘fish’, ‘average’ or ‘pro’. It certainly helps if you’re wondering whether someone’s going to respect your bluff or call you whatever they’re holding. It’s also fun to see how you rate – as long as you’re not the fish.
Cons
Very basic software design and hardly any sites are covered. It doesn’t tell you anything about your rivals’ playing styles, only their approximate skill level, and it’s really only of statistical use if they’ve played at least 50 sitand- go tournaments. Worse still, we received a very nasty email from one site which detected us using it and threatened to confiscate all the money in our account. Which admittedly wasn’t much. Like all good journalists we made our excuses and left. And if you want to stay online for the forseeable future you’d be best advised to leave well alone.
Related Posts
About PokerPlayer
