In the next Poker Copilot update, the detailed player info you see when you click on a player’s HUD panel is slightly different. Improved, if you will. Better, even.
You now see the numbers behind the statistic, as a fraction. For example: If “blind steal attempts” is 50%, you can see if that is 1 attempt of 2 opportunties, or 10 attempts of 20 opportunities.
This should help you evaluate the statistical significance of the stats in critical moments. Or in plain English, better information means better decisions. Better decisions means better chance of winning.
There’s also a couple more stats in there: “Won at showdown” and “won without showdown”.
You can have multiple windows open, each showing stats for a different position, or stake level, or player, or hand. The examples here show two windows side-by-side. However you can have as many windows as you like.
A pair of aces versus ace-king suited: Looks like I’m too aggressive with aces, scaring too many people away pre-flop. And something is going very wrong for me with Ace-King! Better tighten up.
Playing on the button versus in the cut-off: Comparing two different stake levels:
On the discussion forums for small software companies that I frequent, this worry is often posed by those new to the scene:
“if I release my product before it is the most awesome software product ever, I’ll make a bad first impression. And then no-one will ever bother checking out my software again.”
Fact: almost no-one will check out your software when it is first released. Getting website visitors is a slow, hard grind. It doesn’t really matter if your software is basic, lacking the killer grogulate feature, looks ugly, is slow, and has bad copy on the website. You can gradually improve that stuff over time.
Evidence: a chart of traffic to the Poker Copilot website from the day I released. Traffic in July 2009 was 30 times greater than traffic in July 2008 (the first full month after release).
Version 1.0, released on June 30th, didn’t do much. It only worked with Full Tilt cash games. It’s main purpose was to tell me whether I was playing tight enough and aggressive enough. But of the few people who did find it and try it, one or two gave me feedback. Like, “please support tournaments” and “please support Poker Stars”.
That feedback was the start of a never-ending torrent. And torrent of feedback is what shaped – and continues to shape – Poker Copilot.
Support for Full Tilt’s German client. Hand histories need to be in English but you can now run the client in German. Other languages will follow soon.
Improvement to start-up and shut-down. You can now cancel start-up if it takes too long. After a crash (something I’m working to eliminate) or force quit you are given a choice at next start-up between resetting the database and recovering the database.
There’s now a “Window” menu that follows Apple guidelines for application. It lets you minimize Poker Copilot’s main window by pressing [Cmd]+W
The HUD frames are smaller and tidier
You can pause the HUD from any HUD window.
You can access HUD config from any HUD window.
What’s Fixed?
The HUD continues to become smoother and more responsive
“Current Session” on the dashboard no longer returns the whole day’s stats
Technical Notes:
Hands are now loaded more slowly into your database, as a result of a change in database configuration. The trade-off seems to be between “fast import and unstable” and “not-so-fast and stable”. The second option wins.
If you’ve been getting strange crashes at start-up prior to this update, you should manually clear your database. Instructions are here.
Slitherlink brings back memories. Memories of being stuck for a few days in sticky, tropical Dar es Salaam, Tanzania a couple of years ago, with nothing to do except Slitherlink. The name “Dar es Salaam” is Arabic for something like “haven of peace”. I found it to be a haven of dullness. I’ve been to numerous cities around the world, and almost always find a way to pleasantly pass the time. But not Dar es Salaam.
This million-person city seems to have been cannily designed by leading experts to be the most boring city in known history. I couldn’t even find a cinema. I did find a small shopping centre that caters for ex-patriates. By far the biggest and most popular section was the alcohol section. As far as I can tell, the ex-patriates in Dar-es-salaam mostly try to drink the boredom away.
Downtown I found one – and only one – cafe. It was pleasant enough, but not the place to pass too much time. In the ex-pat shopping centre I bought a puzzle book which had – amongst others – Slitherlink puzzles. I sat in my airconditioned and overpriced hotel room for most of each day, doing all the Slitherlinks in the book. Then in the cooler evening I’d go for a walk through the city, desperately and futilely trying to find a lively bar. Eventually I’d end up at the Kempinski hotel, the only place I found with a half-decent restaurant.
Why didn’t I leave sooner, you ask? I couldn’t reschedule my flight out. And it was the wet season which meant that if I left the city there would be a good chance of getting stuck somewhere due to muddy roads. Forcing me to stay even longer. And I was more than ready to go home.
Tip for anyone planning to be in Dar es Salaam for more than a few hours: There is one – and exactly one – activity I can recommend. Take the ferry to Zanzibar. And stay there until the last possible moment. All the photos in this blog entry are from Zanzibar.
In Zanzibar the street food is cheap and delicious. The beach views at sundown are sublime. And once you are swimming in the water you won’t want to get out for hours.
Here’s a Poker Copilot update in which I believe I’ve tracked down the most severe HUD issues that multi-tablers have been experiencing. I’d be grateful for those willing to give this update a try.
I cranked up my poker room simulator to super crazy mode. That’s when 17 tables run at the same time, each simulating a hand every 10 seconds. More than 100 hands per minute. On my late-model iMac, things kept running smoothly. On my older MacBook Pro, there was some noticable flicker, but not distractingly so, in my opinion.
There’s also a few HUD tweaks which should make it a nicer experience.
A database query I wrote sometimes returns something other than the results I expect. Which of these is most likely the problem?
the database server is faulty
my query is faulty
I assumed the database server was faulty. After a couple of hours trying to discover a work-around, I looked a bit closer at my query. Which was, of course, faulty.
Yes, Poker Copilot 2 still has some painful problems in the head-up display. But it’s getting there. Really. I had to go out of town for a couple of days, which slowed me down. But things are improving and soon I’ll have another update.
You can see some subtle changes here that I’ve made while tracking down the issues:
I received a padded envelope from France today. No letter inside, just this: Winamax is a popular poker room in France. There seems to be a concerted campaign by many Winamax players. Their goal: Winamax support in Poker Copilot.
Guys, you’ve almost won! I hope to be adding basic Winamax support once I get these darn stubborn HUD bugs fixed. You can help by sending me sample Winamax hand history files, preferably in English, to winamax@pokercopilot.com. A large range of hand history files helps: heads-up, 6-max, full-table, ring games, tourneys, SNGs, satellites, special event tables.
