I like Google Analytics. I use it daily, and have done so for years. A week or so ago, Google Analytics received a nice user interface update. Graphs are better looking, and the site is easier to navigate. But one change disappoints me: line charts no longer start the y-axis at 0. Here’s a chart of Poker Copilot sales in recent weeks, produced by Google Analytics:
It looks like my sales last week were about 10 times higher than the week before. That’s not the case at all. This chart starts the y-axis at a value slightly lower than the smallest data point. I now find the chart misleading. My sales really don’t have so much variance from week to week. Poker Copilot is a mature product that has reasonably consistent sales.
There are cases where it is useful not to start the y-axis at 0. This is not one of them.
Instead of using a separate domain name for the russian version, I’ve used the main Poker Copilot website domain: http://pokercopilot.com/ru/. The reason for this is that getting a .ru domain name is complicated and expensive, especially if you are not operating directly in Russia. I’ll be interested to see if I get a Google PageRank benefit for this new website from using my long-establish Poker Copilot domain.
Sometimes I err. Like the current update, which I didn’t test with Mac OS X Leopard (10.5). And it turns out it doesn’t work on Leopard. For now, there is a work-around update of Poker Copilot 3.02 specifically for Leopard:
I’ve created a new “Recent Updates” web page that allows you to easily find and download older updates of Poker Copilot. This will help if a similar situation occurs in the future. You can then simply go back one version.
The first time you run this update, your Poker Copilot database will be updated. This will take a long time. You can’t use Poker Copilot until the update is finished. As a guide, my database of 600,000 hands takes about 30 minutes to update on a current model iMac with a SSD hard drive.
Step 1 (for ring games) and Step 6 (for tournaments) take the most time.
What’s changed:
A new menu option “Tools” -> “Recalculate Statistics” will update past hands with new and revised statistics.
Fully translated into Spanish (España).
Bluff Room Poker now supported (Merge Network partner)
Updated text for cbet to “cbet on flop” where appropriate
Moved player icons config to a separate preferences panel
Improved the HUD font chooser
Reordered stats in dashboard and HUD into more logical groupings
Removed decimal points from display of 3-bet and CR stats
Added # of tourneys played in session to right-hand menu bar info
Added support for Coral Poker (but untested)
And one more thing:
Added two new statistics: continuation bet on turn and folded to continuation bet on turn
What’s fixed:
Fixes to all-in EV calculation on PokerStars multi-way pots with antes and an all-in big blind posting.
Added detection of ante size to Merge Network tournaments
Posting screenshots of changes in recent days helped me discover some simple mistakes, such as some pre-flop stats in the post-flop section. I’ve fixed these, and now the layouts of the three screens concerned look as follows:
The HUD:
The advanced dashboard:
The “Get Info” window:
Hopefully the only thing that looks out of place now is my playing style indicated by the statistics…
I write Poker Copilot in Java. Java doesn’t have a nice font chooser. There are a couple of free substandard ones available on the web. I’ve been using one supplied with JFreeChart, the open source java charting library that I use in Poker Copilot. It is good enough, and gets the job done, but the source code includes comments that state that it is a “barely good-enough” solution. Here’s what it looks like:
The “Help” button doesn’t do anything. The list of fonts always initially displays the first options, rather than the currently selection option. There is no preview. It wasn’t using Poker Copilot’s translations.
I’ve long been unhappy with the font chooser in Poker Copilot, but I was also aware that this was a symptom of my perfectionism, and that spending time on a better font chooser was not going to earn me a single additional sale. So I kept putting off. Until today, when I decided to fix this. So I spent a pleasant afternoon starting with the JFreeChart code and tweaking it, tweaking it, tweaking it, using the native OS X font chooser, until I had something I’m happier with:
It is better and more usable, although I’d still rather be able to use the native font chooser. And yes, this does now allow you to choose 7 point fonts.
Addendum: You really wouldn’t want to use Georgia Bold Italic 16.0 point as your HUD font…
Loyal Poker Copilot customer Dimancho suggested a more logical layout for the HUD popup. As of the next update the stats will be grouped by category: This should make it easier when scanning for the right statistic to help make a tense decision.
