Poker Copilot Hidden Features 4: Summaries

In this video, see how to view the numbers behind the statistics in the Hands summary, Players summary, Stake Level summary, and Position summary. See how to add additional statistics to the summaries.

PokerZebra now running on Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5)

PokerZebra is the working name for a Texas Hold’em Poker Odds Calculator for Mac OS X. You can download PokerZebra here. Leopard or Snow Leopard required. I suspect it will only work on Intel macs, but I could be wrong.

I hoped to introduce ranges of hands this weekend. But I chose to be social and hung out with friends instead.

Here’s what you need to know:

  • This works on Intel Macs running Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) and Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6). Perhaps I’ll be able to add PPC and Tiger support soon. No promises though.

  • Currently ranges of hands are not supported. This will come soon.

  • Send feedback and bug reports to pokerzebra@pokercopilot.com

What’s the All-in Equity Value Here?

I’ve spent the couple of days comparing Poker Copilot equity value calculations with Hold’em Manager (HEM). When I find discrepancies, I tweaked my code to fix the problem.

Below is an unusual case, where the HEM result leaves me baffled. I was the big blind, but didn’t have enough chips to fully pay it. Therefore I was forced to go all-in when posting the blind. I was holding pocket aces.

HEM says my equity was 3.4%. It says my expected value was -85 chips. I’m puzzled as to how this was calculated. Any ideas, blog readers?

Full Tilt Poker Game #17296899286: .COM 250 Play Chip Sit & Go (129805519), Table 4 - 200/400 - No Limit Hold'em - 7:22:32 ET - 2010/01/03
Seat 2: Tarheel Hugo (8,165)
Seat 3: tampaxs (11,920), is sitting out
Seat 4: Beschiii (22,415)
Seat 5: ALLA53 (11,040), is sitting out
Seat 6: Hondaddicted (17,385)
Seat 7: stevoski111 (95), is sitting out
Seat 9: mfgiovani (16,200)
Hondaddicted posts the small blind of 200
stevoski111 posts the big blind of 95, and is all in
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to stevoski111 [As Ad]
mfgiovani folds
Tarheel Hugo folds
tampaxs folds
Beschiii calls 400
ALLA53 folds
Hondaddicted calls 200
*** FLOP *** [8h Ts 9c]
Hondaddicted checks
Beschiii bets 400
Hondaddicted calls 400
*** TURN *** [8h Ts 9c] [7c]
Hondaddicted has 15 seconds left to act
Hondaddicted bets 1,695
Beschiii has 15 seconds left to act
Beschiii folds
Hondaddicted shows [Jd Kh]
stevoski111 shows [As Ad]
Uncalled bet of 1,695 returned to Hondaddicted
*** RIVER *** [8h Ts 9c 7c] [6c]
Hondaddicted wins the side pot (1,410)
Hondaddicted shows a straight, Jack high
stevoski111 shows a straight, Ten high
Hondaddicted wins the main pot (285) with a straight, Jack high
stevoski111 stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1,695 Main pot 285. Side pot 1,410. | Rake 0
Board: [8h Ts 9c 7c 6c]
Seat 2: Tarheel Hugo didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: tampaxs didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Beschiii folded on the Turn
Seat 5: ALLA53 (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: Hondaddicted (small blind) showed [Jd Kh] and won (1,695) with a straight, Jack high
Seat 7: stevoski111 (big blind) showed [As Ad] and lost with a straight, Ten high
Seat 9: mfgiovani didn't bet (folded)

Genuine Praise

You know someone really likes your product when he offers to invest in it.

A great idea. Many thanks. I feel that Poker Copilot will go a long way… Are you looking for investment at all? I think the Mac poker software market has a huge gap ripe for exploitation. Feel free to hit me back and we’ll get in touch if you’re interested!

Why would Poker Copilot’s Creator install Hold’em Manager?

The All-in Equity Value Chart is almost done. I’m now looking for unusual conditions to make sure the results are still correct. My aim is to ensure that Poker Copilot’s All-in Equity Value Chart gives identical information as Hold’em Manager (HEM). That’s because, as far as I can tell, HEM seems to be the gold standard in giving online poker players in the Windows world what they want.

Here’s two simple charts to compare – the first is from Poker Copilot, and the second is from HEM.

Screen shot 2010-03-24 at 5.33.16 PM.png
Screen shot 2010-03-24 at 5.33.22 PM.png

These look identical to my eye. Hopefully they do to your eyes as well.

In order to create the Hold’em Manager chart I had to run Windows on my Mac using Sun VirtualBox and install Hold’em Manager. I hate to praise my competitors, but the whole HEM install process has vastly improved since last I looked at the Windows poker tracking software.

Whenever I run Windows on my Mac, I feel a little dirty afterwards, as if I had been doing something that I really shouldn’t be doing. I think I need to have a shower now to wash the dirt away!

Request for Ongame Network Players

I posted this on 2+2 today:

If you play poker on the Mac, and play on the Ongame Network, you’ve probably noticed that none of the Mac OS X hand tracking software gives you a HUD. This is due to strange things happening when one tries to programmatically find out an Ongame poker table window name. If you’d like to see this fixed…

Read the whole post on 2+2.

The Poker Copilot Email Series

I’ve been trying to dedicate Monday to marketing. “Monday Marketing” is a time to improve the contents of my website, create new tutorial videos, research new methods of online marketing, and implement them.

Today being Monday, I added the Poker Copilot Tips email series to the website. This is intended for first-time downloaders of Poker Copilot. The sign-up form is on the “Thank You” page you see after downloading Poker Copilot:

Screen shot 2010-03-22 at 6.43.06 PM.png

(This image is non-clickable: you can sign up here.)

The purposes are as follows:

  • give potential customers who are new to poker analysis software immediate access to helpful information.
  • letting people store in their inbox links to our discussion forum, our documentation, the blog, and the Get Satisfaction site.
  • to ‘remind’ people who are on their 30-day trial that time is running down.
  • to let people who didn’t buy Poker Copilot during their trial that they can contact us with requests and complaints.

The emails are light, each only a few sentences. These sentences are teasers with links to full information back on the Poker Copilot website. Hopefully while reading the information, they also are tempted with the seductive website to click on “Buy Now”, get out their credit card, and become a proud owner of Poker Copilot.

Everything is user-respectful. Signing up is optional. A confirmation link is sent via email to ensure people really want to sign up. A single click at the bottom of each email unsubscribes. A prominent link on the signup form states our privacy policy in clear, simple terms. I’m using a third-party service called AWeber to handle the whole service, taking advantage of their expertise to do things right by email subscribers.

Talented Writer Addicted to Video Games and Cocaine

Tom Bissell pulls himself away from video games long enough to write of his three-year video games addiction:

I also knew that Vice City’s violent subject matter was said to have inspired crime sprees by a few of the game’s least stable fans. Other such sprees would horribly follow. Eight years later, Rockstar has spent more time in court than a playground-abutting pesticide manufactory.

I lost most of my free time in 2007 to World of Warcraft. I played in German, and convinced myself that it was a good way to improve my German language skills. Then suddenly one day, I found it totally uninteresting. Dull. Boring, even. And like that, I stopped playing, never to start it up again. I’m grateful that I don’t seem to get addicted to things.

PokerZebra Ready for Download

You can download PokerZebra 0.2 here. Snow Leopard required. PokerZebra is the working name for a Texas Hold’em Poker Odds Calculator for Mac OS X.

It was great weather today. Too good a day to spend indoors. So I didn’t do much work on PokerZebra. Basically just packaging what I’ve already done.

Here’s what you need to know:

  • This only runs on Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6). I’ll change things soon so that this works on Leopard. Maybe next weekend. I blame Xcode for leading me by default down the Snow Leopard-only path. Only in testing did I discover that it automatically added Snow Leopard dependencies to my project.
  • Currently ranges of hands are not supported. This will also come soon. As loyal Poker Copilot customer Joram pointed out, without ranges PokerZebra is not too useful.
  • Send feedback and bug reports to pokerzebra@pokercopilot.com

Now the weekend is over, I’ll be switching back to normal Poker Copilot development. Hopefully next weekend I’ll pick PokerZebra up again to finish it off.