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Poker Software, Tools and Programs
Many poker purists don't believe in using poker software to help them improve their game. While it's not
necessary to be a computer guru and have dozens of poker programs assisting you out, most serious
players do use at least some kind of software package to help their game. On this page, we've listed and
reviewed a number of tools that we think can help you out.
| Software |
Description |
Price |
Poker Tracker
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Poker Tracker is by far, the most popular software package out on the market right now. It is
a comprehensive database application that runs reports, shows stats and displays information about your game by
reading your hand histories. You can find out how aggressive you are, how often you defend your blinds,
how well you play every hand, how you play depending on position, your total wins and losses, your
ROI (return on investment) for tournaments and just about every statistic imaginable.
In English, Poker Tracker is useful as a tool that you can use to examine your game by looking
directly at your history of how you play. Most players are able to use this information and find leaks
in their game, which is why PT is so useful.
A free trial copy is available at their website, which enables you to import 1,000 hand histories before
requiring you to register. You can also get a free copy of Poker Tracker
by participating in our forum promotions.
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$55.00 |
PokerStove
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There is a lot of poker software designed for calculating poker odds. Unfortunatly most of them use
general purpose algorithms to perform the odds calculations. This generic approach doesn't take advantage of
the full range of possible optimizations. To fill the gap, there is PokerStove, a texas hold'em poker
calculator which can fully enumerate complex preflop situations about 100 times faster than next fastest
tool available.
I personally have Poker Stove installed on my computer and it's the piece of poker software I use most frequently,
next to Poker Tracker. It's very useful for analyzing hand vs hand situations, as well as ranges of hands vs other
hands, which is something that is very useful for the advanced player to analyze.
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Free |
PokerOdds
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PokerOdds is another software program written by Tim Babb for calculating probablility statistics about hands of
texas hold'em. PokerOdds generates a wealth of statistics about any incomplete game of texas hold'em. You can
specify any known pocket, community, or dead cards when making the calculations. This program is also written
in Java and works on Macs as well (yes, there are a few mac poker
users out there.
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Free |
DD Poker
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DD Tournament Poker is a no limit texas hold'em software that has emerged as one of the fastest
sellers on the market. Many poker books and old poker resources have referenced Turbo Texas Hold'em as
essential software. That said, TTH from my own experience is terribly out of date and no longer
modern enough to be realistically used by serious players. DD Tournament Poker however, is becoming
a good replacement in the types of features that it can offer.
DD is very good for beginners and also has enough features to help experienced players as well. It
features a range of opponent profiles to choose from, different types of tournament structures to practice,
free online practice arenas so that you can play against other users in public or private tournaments and
one of my favorite features, a home game tournament manager.
A full review of this software package will be available soon.
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$29.99 |
Poker Edge
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Poker Edge is a unique program that came out in 2005, which datamined the Party Poker servers to
build a giant database of over 90% of the players at the site. They then used this information
to build a client program that enabled you to see the statistics of each player sitting at your table.
Recently, Poker Edge ran into problems however, as their software was considered an unfair advantage
by the people at Party. This meant that anyone using PE was given a warning, then banned from Party Poker's
servers. As such, we recommend against using this particular piece of poker software. You can still
read a full review however.
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$15/month |
Party Poker Skins
Below, I have made some custom table backgrounds for Party Poker, which will replace the background image of your Party Poker table. This is a somewhat neat
'tool' as I've made two skins that include outs and drawing odds on the table, so you don't need to reference a cheat sheet
or have a browser window open.
DISCLAIMER: If you decide to install these Party Poker skins, you do so at your own risk! I will NOT be held liable for anything
that goes wrong with their software. These are unsupported by both me and Party Poker, so if the directions confuse you - DON'T DO IT!
Screenshot of modified dealer skin (above)
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Background table skins:
- Modified dealer with odds table
- Shana Hiatt with side odds
- Shana Hiatt only
Installation: Download the image you want into the Images subdirectory under your Party Poker folder. After you've downloaded the
file, go to the directory and find the file called table.jpg and rename this file to table_backup.jpg (you will need to be logged out of
Party Poker to do this).
Find the image you just downloaded and now rename this file to table.jpg instead. After that, start up Party Poker
again and you should see the new skin!
If you don't like the new skin, simply delete table.jpg and rename table_backup.jpg back to table.jpg and your original
table will be restored.
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Congratulations Graphic
"Eat It Muthaf*cka!"
"You Owned His Ass!"
"Get A Real Job!"
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Although I don't use these myself, I imagine people get tired of the regular "Congratulations"
graphic that appears when you win a pot on Party Poker. So, I decided to make some more
humorous graphics to replace the default message.
Installation: Backup congratulations.gif and replace with downloaded gif file.
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Additional Software Resources
You can purchase various poker software from retail
site, WeDoItAllVegas.com. This site offers popular software such as Poker Acadamey, Turbo Texas Hold'em,
and Tournament Texas Hold'em.
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