The Poker Copilot Blog

Lock Poker News

2012-05-31T12:42:00.001+02:00

I took a look today at Lock Poker's new Mac client. It is actually the Windows software made to run on OS X using CrossOver, which itself uses Wine. This is not an ideal solution, and hopefully is just an interim approach. It seems to me that making the Poker Copilot HUD work with this approach is not feasible. However it should be possible to track hand history files.

So in summary: Poker Copilot stats and reports but no Poker Copilot HUD on the new Lock Poker platform.

It should take a few days until I can add support for Lock Poker hand histories. If you have any from their new software, please send them to me at steve@pokercopilot.com

What do MP, EP, CO mean in the positional stats?

2012-05-31T12:17:00.001+02:00

Poker Copilot 3.10 introduced stats by position. The positions are defined as follows:

BB - big blind
SB - small blind
BTN - button
CO - cut-off
MP - in 6-max tables, the seat before the cut-off. That is, cut-off - 1. In full ring tables, cut-off - 1, cut-off - 2, and cut-off - 3
EP - in 6 max tables, cut-off - 2. In full ring tables, cut-off - 4, cut-off - 5, and, if a 10-player table, cut-off - 6

This is in line with Hold'em Manager's definitions.

Adding a new Ongame Network poker room to Poker Copilot

2012-05-28T10:35:00.001+02:00

If you play on an Ongame Network room that isn't currently supported in Poker Copilot, you can send me an email to steve@pokercopilot.com requesting it to be added. I'll need three pieces of information that you can send in the email.

The name of the application, exactly as it is shown your Applications folder. Upper/lower case is important.
While the poker room is running, open "Activity Monitor" (you'll find it in Applications -> Utilities, or just type it into Spotlight). Make sure the poker room is visible in the list of "Process Names" in Activity Monitor, take a screenshot of this, and send it to me.
Right-click or ctrl-click on the poker room app in your Applications folder, select "Show Package Contents", navigate down to Contents -> Bundles, find the file called "client.properties" there, and send that file to me.

(You can take a screenshot by pressing Cmd+Shift+3. The screenshot will be saved to your desktop.)

Adding a new Merge Network poker room to Poker Copilot

2012-05-28T09:02:00.001+02:00

If you play on a Merge Network room that isn't currently supported in Poker Copilot, you can send me an email to steve@pokercopilot.com requesting it to be added. I'll need three pieces of information that you can send in the email:

The name of the poker room
The name of the application, exactly as it is shown in the OS X Dock when running. Upper/lower case is important.
The name of the folder where it stores hand histories. This is always found as a subfolder in your Library folder. Again, upper/lower case is important.

For example, for Players Only, the information is:

room name: Players Only
application name: PlayersOnly.com
hand history folder: Library/PlayersOnly

PokerStars on iPad and Poker Copilot

2012-05-22T10:11:00.001+02:00

A couple of weeks ago PokerStars released their iPad/iPhone app that allows you to play on PokerStars. Poker Copilot can't give you a HUD on the iPad. Unlike on the Mac, on the iPad one app can't not interact with another app. It is simply not feasible.

You can, however, get your hand histories from the iPad version onto Poker Copilot on your Mac. After a session, you can request that PokerStars email your hand history files. Once you receive them, copy the contents of the email into a text file, and save the text file in your hand history folder.

Lock Poker and Poker Copilot

2012-05-22T10:04:00.001+02:00

On May 7th, Lock Poker made this announcement:

Lock is in the process of acquiring assets from Cake and will be re-branding the Cake Network to launch Revolution Gaming…To all existing Lock players this move will be seamless - it will take the form of a simple software update happening on May 31st.

Cake Network currently doesn't work on Mac. Therefore Poker Copilot doesn't work with Cake Network. I asked Lock about their plans for Mac, and this is their answer:

...It appears unlikely our Mac client will be ready for the time of the relaunch so we are right now working on the best solution to allow our Mac players to continue to play...

However, in the 2+2 forums, there is a hint that they may have Mac support available at relaunch on May 31st/June 1st:

The Mac client is over its only real hurdle and is nearly complete. We are anticipating having no problems launching with a Mac compatible client, but do have a backup plan if any last minute problems arise.

What that means for Poker Copilot users who will use Revolution Gaming (ex Cake, ex Lock) is this:

As soon as Revolution Gaming (ex Lock Poker) has a viable Mac native app, we'll work hard to get support into Poker Copilot for it. It might take a few days, depending on the quality and reliability of their hand history files.

Phil Gordon's Little Gold Book and Poker Copilot's HUD

2012-05-17T16:24:00.001+02:00

In his Little Gold Book: Advanced Lessons for Mastering Poker 2.0, Phil Gordon recommends using a HUD when playing online software. He mostly talks of Hold'em Manager, as he in using Windows. For us Mac OS X users, here is how you can set up the Poker Copilot for HUD according to Phil's approach:

I recommend Phil Gordon's Little Gold Book for a good description of how to interpret various ranges of HUD statistics.

Poker Copilot 3.10 Now Available

2012-05-14T13:32:00.003+02:00

Poker Copilot 3.10 is now available to download.

Unfortunately the auto-updater embedded in 3.09 is not working correctly, so you'll need to do this update manually.

What's changed:

New statistics: VPIP by position.
New statistics: Preflop Raised by position.
New statistics: Aggression Frequency by street.
You can filter for Zoom Poker hands (More -> Zoom Poker Only).
Small tweaks and bug fixes.

Known problem:

PartyPoker hands can't be reliably imported into Poker Copilot. There are several problems in PartyPoker's hand history file on Mac OS X.

This update needs to update your database. To see the new stats for your historical data, use "Tools" -> "Recalculate Statistics" in Poker Copilot's menu.

Update Instructions:

Download the latest version here.
Open the downloaded file.
Drag the Poker Copilot icon to the Applications icon. If prompted to replace an existing version, confirm that you do want to replace.

Now you are done and ready to hit the tables.

Crushing the Microstakes and Poker Copilot's HUD

2012-05-09T17:21:00.001+02:00

Crushing the Microstakes is the name of an e-book I just finished reading. Highly recommended. It's written by Nathan Williams, a person who has done exactly what the title of the book says. It's also formatted to be read on a computer screen - large fonts, in a PDF in landscape orientation.

Here is Nathan's recommend HUD setup for playing microstakes cash games:

Voluntarily put money in the pot
Preflop raised
Aggression Factor (although I think Aggression Frequency is a better option)
Number of hands played
Continuation bet (flop)
Fold to continuation bet (flop)
Continuation bet (turn)
Fold to continuation bet (turn)
3-bet preflop
Fold to 3-bet preflop

Here's how that looks in Poker Copilot:

Early Access Version of the next Poker Copilot Update

2012-05-08T16:40:00.001+02:00

If you want to try out all the delicious new statistics coming to the next Poker Copilot update, you can have a sneak preview already. Download and install this update to try out the stats. Go to the "Advanced Statistics" Dashboard, and then on the toolbar, click on the new "Show statistics by position" View button.

All of the new statistics can be added to the HUD, using the preferences.

Upon opening this update for the first time Poker Copilot will update your database. This may take some time.

Please post feedback in the Poker Copilot discussion forum.

How many hands do I need for Poker Copilot's HUD to be reliable

2012-05-07T13:42:00.001+02:00

This is question you MUST be asking as a Poker Copilot user: can I trust the HUD data for a specific player? The answer is, it depends on how many hands you have AND which statistic you are looking at.

Most statistics in Poker Copilot are calculated by dividing a numerator by a denominator. For example, Voluntarily Put $ in Pot (VPiP) is calculated as follows:

Voluntarily put $ in pot % =

       times voluntarily put $ in pot * 100

       / hands played

If you've played 20 to 25 hands or so, you can consider this to be statistically significant. This is why Poker Copilot's HUD initially shows statistics for a new player in grey, only switching to full-colour after you've collected 25 hands against that player.

The calculation for Folded to Four-bet Preflop (F4B) is

Folded to four-bet preflop % =

       times folded to four-bet preflop * 100

       / number of opportunities to fold to
    four-bet preflop

For this to be as statistically significant as VPiP after 25 hands, you need to play enough hands for the denominator to be >= 25. That is, 25 opportunities to fold to a preflop 4bet. How many hands is that? At full-ring microstakes No-Limit Hold'em, probably around 4500 hands.

As such I consider a stat such as F4B to be far more useful for analysing your own game, rather than making a decision about a villain. Before you made a decision based on an opponent's F4B stat you should definitely click on their HUD panel to bring up the pop-up panel which has full information. In dark grey you'll see the numbers behind the stat. Make sure that the denominator is at least 20 or so before using the stat to make a critical decision.

You can see in the screenshot above that after 1,100 hands, that all the denominators are large enough except for "Folded to four-bet preflop", "Folded big blind to steal attempt", and "Folded to continuation bet on turn". Here is a good rule of thumb for full-ring No Limit Hold'em for the most important stats:

Stats reliable after 25 hands: Voluntarily put $ in pot (VPIP), Preflop raised (PFR)

Stats reliable after 150 hands: Aggression (Agg), Three-bet preflop (3bet)

Stats reliable after 500 hands: Continuation bet on flop (CBET), Folded to three-bet preflop (F3B)

Stats reliable after 1000 hands: Continuation bet on turn (TCBET), Four-bet preflop (F4B)

With less than this, be cautious, double-check the denominators, and use your own judgement about the player based on the stats that already are statistically significant.

In 6-max and heads-up, these statistics will become statistically significant quicker.

Coming soon: PFR by position, Aggression by street

2012-05-04T17:14:00.001+02:00

I went on a statistic-adding rampage today:

But that's not all. Two new toolbar buttons allow you to turn on/off:

* VPIP/PFR by position

* the numbers behind the statistics, where appropriate.

There's still plenty to do before I can release an update with these changes, as well as a lot of testing. Additionally I need to make sure performance is still acceptable with 30 new database fields per player and game needed for these changes. If you have 100,000 full-ring hands in your database, that's roughly 30 million new pieces of information to store in the database.

Comments on this Blog

2012-05-02T17:24:00.001+02:00

In the last couple of weeks I tried an experiment with blog comments. They would go to the discussion forum as well as displaying on the blog posts. However it seems that the provider of our discussion forum still has some quality-control work to do with this feature. I've now gone back to the old commenting approach.

Sorry to anyone who has been confused as to the mismanagement of blog comments lately. Things are now back to normal.

Important information from 2+2 : Two Plus Two Forum Outage

2012-04-27T13:39:00.001+02:00

This is important. The Two Plus Two Poker Forum has been hacked, and any email/password combination you used there is now vulnerable. Read more here:

http://forum.pokercopilot.com/discussion/329/important-information-from-2-2-two-plus-two-forum-outage

Coming in the next update: VPIP by position

2012-04-26T19:37:00.001+02:00

Today I made internal adjustments to Poker Copilot so that it can calculate VPIP by position:

This is how Poker Copilot's "More" -> "Advanced" filter currently looks in my office.

There's a lot of work still to get this ready for you to use though. Some screens will need to be redesigned and tested.

A Nice Email…in French

2012-04-26T17:30:00.001+02:00

After today's update to fix a Winamax issue, a satisfied customer writes:

Bonjour,
Je tenais à écrire à ce mot pour vous exprimer ma pleine satisfaction de votre service clientèle et de vos collaborateurs.
A chaque sollicitation de ma part, j'ai toujours eu une réponse rapide, agréable, claire et une solution. Et tout malgré mes mails écrits en français ! A regret mais mon anglais est très basique et les traducteurs existant ne sont pas très efficace.
Encore une fois, félicitations pour votre réactivité, efficacité et courtoisie de votre service clientèle.
Merci,

With Google Translate I got the gist, and it was pleasant. That's the thing when something goes wrong in your business; it gives you the chance to turn unhappy people into happy people.

Poker Copilot Tip: Move HUD Panels without the Full Statistics Popup

2012-04-25T18:43:00.001+02:00

You can move around Poker Copilot's HUD panels without the full popup getting in the way. Hold down the "cmd" key when you click on a player's HUD panel and the stat sheet won't appear. This is an obscure and undocumented feature that has been present for almost as long as the HUD.

Update for Winamax Users

2012-04-25T18:24:00.001+02:00

It seems Winamax has just released version 2 of their Mac software. Congratulations Winamax team.

The new version seems to fix an issue with dates and times in their hand history files. Poker Copilot expects this to be wrong, depending on your timezone, so has been autocorrecting it. Unfortunately as of the new Winamax update, Poker Copilot is auto-miscorrecting it.

Here is an unreleased update which you can download if this problem is affecting you.

Please do write in the comments whether this update fixes the issue for you.

Poker Copilot 3.08 Now Available

2012-04-24T15:38:00.001+02:00

Poker Copilot 3.08 is now available to download.

Unfortunately the auto-updater embedded in 3.07 is not working correctly, so you'll need to do this update manually.

What's changed:

Zoom Poker now works at lower window size (minimum 1039x732)
Added Aced Poker support
Added BestPoker support
Added SuperBook support

Update Instructions:

Click here to start downloading Poker Copilot 3.08.
Open the downloaded file.
Drag the Poker Copilot icon to the Applications icon. If prompted to replace an existing version, confirm that you do want to replace.

Now you are done and ready to hit the tables.

Coming soon: For the rest of this week I'll be adding some new statistics.

Poker Copilot Blog: 1000+ blog posts

2012-04-18T01:17:00.001+02:00

So I noticed today I've written 1,005 blog posts. 1,006 counting this one…I never knew I had it in me…almost four years worth of stuff.

Some of my most popular posts:

Do Big Shiny Download Buttons Work?

Player Icon Definitions

AJAX-style please wait images

A Pair of Aces Twice in a Row

Poker Copilot and Zoom Poker: Update

2012-04-17T16:26:00.001+02:00

I spent some time today getting Poker Copilot's Experiment Zoom Poker HUD working with slightly smaller windows than before. You can now have the Zoom Poker window at a minimum size of 1219x863 pixels. More info here.

Poker Copilot 3.07 Now Available

2012-04-16T18:32:00.001+02:00

Poker Copilot 3.07 is now available to download.

What's changed:

Added true/false/any to each Advanced filter
Added UnibetPOKER support
Updated German language pack
Updated Portuguese language pack
Merge Poker hands were giving some spurious values for "take in big blinds" in the summary screens. This is now fixed.
Modified Party Poker parser to work with date and table structure in German. This is a temporary measure.
PokerStars tournament summary files with more than one tournament can now be handled.

This update does NOT need to update your Poker Copilot database.

Update Instructions:

Download the latest version here.
Open the downloaded file.
Drag the Poker Copilot icon to the Applications icon. If prompted to replace an existing version, confirm that you do want to replace.

Now you are done and ready to hit the tables.

A poker player uses Poker Copilot to improve

2012-04-12T18:28:00.001+02:00

There's a nice forum thread on cardschat where a player uses Poker Copilot to get advice and improve his game. It almost reads like a case study in how to use Poker Copilot to improve at micro limits. I recommend reading it, especially if you are new-ish to Poker Copilot.

Although you'll need to filter out this outlandish claim:

micro limits are almost impossible to win at, the variance created by loose players is a killer.

That's really bad advice.

This is much better advice:

You need more A in your TAG. 14/8 is too passive. 14/12 is more like it. Also 3bet more.

"14/8" means 14% VPIP, 8% pre-flop raise.

Coming in the next update: FALSE filters

2012-04-12T12:55:00.001+02:00

Currently Poker Copilot lets you filter by any statistic, but only if that statistic is true. For example, you can filter for all hands in which you had a 4-bet opportunity. But you can't filter for hands in which you DIDN'T have a 4-bet opportunity.

The next update changes this. The Advanced filter lets you select "is true", and "is false":

The filter bar indicates "is true" and "is false" with a plus or minus sign in front for the relevant statistic:

I added this out of my own frustration. Sometimes I'm trying to pinpoint a problem and I determine that the problem DOESN'T lie in a particular "statistic is true" setting. To inverse the filter I've had to go manually to the database. Not any more.

Mockup of Potential Poker Copilot Dashboard Concept

2012-04-12T10:48:00.001+02:00

Yesterday evening I spent some time brainstorming a more graphic layout for Poker Copilot's dashboard. Here's a draft of how I can, for example, show VPIP.

It is aimed at first-time users of Poker Copilot who want to get an understanding not just of their statistics, but what the statistics mean in terms of playing style.

At the moment this is just an idea that's on the list of potential improvements.