Do you think poker software like poker tracker has ruined online poker ?

[bigbadken]

I have been reading again about how it is essential nowadays, to have the latest poker tracking software. Even to the point that it was said , not having it, is being ignorant really ! I fully understand where they are coming from. Personally though, ive never had the tracking software and have no wish to get any. Now having said that, i do realise, ive probably done my game no good without it and thats why i only play the penny games now when i do have some time to play. My point and question is however, do you good people think, the software has indeed damaged online poker ? Personally i think it has, player numbers seem to be going down, poker site numbers are less than they were and i honestly think interest has gone in the game. My wife used to enjoy a game but now has no interest and i see a lot of forum players are no longer playing which i find very sad really. I think now though, that the game is not so simple as it was, you now need to have the tracking software, spend a lot of time learning how to use it and it is now about who can use it in the best way. I had a young relation of mine asking me about the game the other day and i had to be honest with him and tell him if he was thinking of playing he would need to buy the software, learn how to use it and realise what the other players were up to, needless to say, he soon lost the wish to get involved in the game. What are your ideas on the subject ?

[Bart(UK)]

Re: Do you think poker software like poker tracker has ruined online poker ? I think it has certainly sped up the growing profit/loss gap between regs and recreational players, although a lot of other factors involved in the general decline in traffic (lack of competition/choice of networks, regulation of various country markets, changes in tournament formats and for live events the rising costs of traveling/accomodation) to name just a few. Recs need to win sometimes to keep the ecosystem balanced, so it certainly isn't helping. I personally think HUD are only useful for cash game players where sufficient volume of hands can be accumulated on the regs. I really don't think you can use the software effectively in tournament play due to the many different ways a player will play the same range at different stages of a tournament or stack size and lack of sufficient volume to base decisions on. I've never been keen on their use, to the point of morally objecting to the allowance of them, but I know a lot of players do use them, afterall poker is a game of small edges. After trying them for a while I found any worthwhile size of hands history just sucks the life out of your RAM, so becomes counter-productive. Hopefully others will put a more positive spin on the topic, just depressed myself re-reading what I wrote :rollin My middle names are "level playing field for all", my parents must've had a weird sense of humour ;)

[PokerWolf1]

Re: Do you think poker software like poker tracker has ruined online poker ? I have holdem manager but I haven't loaded it up for over a year now. I very rarely play cash and as Bart says I think it is far more useful to someone that does. I actually have found it counter productive in tournaments at times. Spots where I want to trust my instinct but I would be going completely against what the program is telling me. So I fold like the program tells me would be the right decision most of the time - except this time it wasn't and I would have had a top 3 stack. I would much rather trust my instinct and my own notes in tournaments. It is useful for analyzing your own game of course like going over a hand later on which you may have played differently - maybe it allows you to make a post game note on a player too. I really don't buy into the whole 'must have' attitude, though. Might be more useful for reg heavy high buyin tournaments but certainly not for rec heavy tournaments such as the storm, big 11 etc.

[repton3]

Re: Do you think poker software like poker tracker has ruined online poker ? I used to have the original Hold 'Em Manager years ago on my old laptop, and like has been said above I didn't really find it very useful for the games I play (or the volume). I actually found it quite annoying as I had to have a Database service running all the time on the laptop and it slowed it down significantly - OK it was a crap laptop. I used it a few times to try to analyse play after the event but t be honest I was too lazy to really figure out how to read it all properly. Again if you're a cash game grinder with loads of tables open then yes you probably do 'need' the extra software to compete against the others that also use it and are doing the same - I understand that for these types of people they grind a living out by working off very small edges and making money in the long term, and being one of the few without the extra info would no doubt decrease these edges. I'd prefer it if no one had this software at all and it was more level all round, but really I'm not going to lose too much sleep about it. I'm not opposed to 'offline' tools such as the sharkscope website or other results tracking type sites because I feel these are a bit different. Analysing performance and statistics outside of the live playing of games I see as just good practice, as opposed to overlays on your screen pointing you towards what decisions you should make as you are playing a hand.