Many thanks to the people who download the current Poker Copilot update, tried it with the various Merge Network poker rooms, and sent feedback. I’ve fixed some problems, and you can download an unreleased pre-release semi-release unofficial update with the fixes. It is here: http://pokercopilot.com/downloads/pokercopilot2.88_rc4.dmg
If all is well with the non-release, I’ll make it an official release in a couple of days.
What’s fixed:
You can now set your preferred seat for 10-max tables. Silly oversight on my part.
The HUD should now with with MTT’s. It was only working if you were only table 1. A Merge Network bug also reports you as being on table 1 in the hand history files, which confused Poker Copilot.
The correct table size is determined for most SNG’s and MTT’s.
The HUD works in Players Only. If only they let me open an account, I would have been able to test this properly myself!
You’ll most probably need to reset your database for the table size detection to work properly.
I’m quite impressed with MacUpdate. Every time I release a Poker Copilot update, within a few hours, they update the Poker Copilot profile on MacUpdate with the relevant information and send me a courtesy email. I’m not sure how they detect the updates but they do a good job.
Much better support for Merge Network poker rooms, including Carbon Poker, Lock Poker, Players Only, RPM Poker, Black Chip Poker, OverBet, and Poker Host
You can set your preferred seat for Merge Network poker rooms in the Poker Copilot Preferences, “Poker Rooms” panel
Note: The Merge Network initial HUD layouts are optimised for Lock Poker. For other rooms, you may still need to initially move the HUD panels to the correct place. Once set, they should stay in place, as long as your preferred seat settings in the poker room match what you set in Poker Copilot
Merge Network table sizes for cash games are auto-detected. Note: for this to work, you’ll need to reset your database.
What’s fixed:
Merge Network – all-in bets are now recognised correctly for all-in equity calculations.
Some Winamax tournaments were not displaying the HUD
The next Poker Copilot will have some improvements for Merge Network rooms such as Lock Poker, Carbon Poker, and RPM Poker.
The first important improvement is letting you tell Poker Copilot what your “preferred seat” setting is in Merge.
Ideally Poker Copilot would auto-determine this. But Merge Network stores the info in a file whose format I’ve been unable to reverse-engineer.
The second important improvement is finding way to detect the table size:
I solved this one by hard-coding a list of Merge Network table names in Poker Copilot, each with a pre-defined size. So, for example, if you play on any of the “Santiago” tables, Poker Copilot knows this is a 6-player table. Again, not an ideal solution, because when Merge introduces new tables, I’ll need to update Poker Copilot. But until Merge add this information to hand history files it is the best solution I’ve thought of.
There are limits to this approach; so far it only works for real money ring games. Play money and tournaments will need other solutions.
It seems yesterday’s Winamax update broke Poker Copilot. However the latest news I heard is that Winamax have today rolled back to the previous update, as there were some problems at their end. So Poker Copilot should work once again. Simply restart Winamax, let it update, and things should work again.
There are two pieces of information I need to add a specific Merge Network partner to Poker Copilot:
The name of the software while it is running, as seen in Activity Monitor
The name of the folder the software creates under ~/Library (if freshly downloaded, this folder is created after you’ve played at least one hand)
In both cases, case and spaces are important.
For example, for Lock Poker, it is like this:
If you want to see a specific Merge Network partner added, then please post the info I’ve requested in the comments. Or send screenshots as above to steve@pokercopilot.com
I make a first deposit of US$20, the minimum amount
My account gets suspended almost immediately and I receive a vague email citing security concerns
I need to convince them via email that blocking the developer of possibly the most popular Mac OS X poker tracking software is not so smart
It’s getting tedious, especially now that I’m getting many requests from US players to add any and all Merge Network partners to Poker Copilot.
If you have an account on Players Only (a Merge Network partner), I’d be most grateful if you downloaded and tried this test update of Poker Copilot. Let me know in the comments if the HUD is working for you on Players Only.
Many American online poker players are moving to Lock Poker and other Merge Network poker rooms following Poker’s Black Friday. Here’s how to make sure Lock Poker is correctly configured for Poker Copilot.
1. In Lock Poker’s Lobby, click on “Settings”
2. Go to the “Game” panel in the Settings window.
3. Make sure the “Keep Hand History” box is checked, with hands saved for “Forever”
4. Click OK
5. Now start (or restart) Poker Copilot. It will detect the Lock Poker hand history folder. The HUD should now also function.
Having problems still? Make sure you have the latest Poker Copilot update.
Update Instructions:
1. Download the latest version here: http://pokercopilot.com/download.html
2. Open the downloaded file.
3. Drag the Poker Copilot icon to the Applications icon. If prompted to replace an existing version, confirm that you do want to replace.
Loyal long-time blog reader Sohail asks about Poker’s Black Friday:
I don’t understand the issue for you. I thought most of your customers are outside the US anyway? If so, the online poker sites switch to different domains and life goes on. Maybe a blog post on exactly why online poker is really affected would be useful.
First, roughly 50% of my customers are in the US, give or take 10%. Losing half of your revenue at once is a big hit for any business.
Second, It’s sort of like this: an earthquake in Indonesia in 2004 caused a tidal wave that devastated Sri Lanka some 4,500 kilometres away.
Less cryptically, an anecdote: I met with a German friend of mine yesterday who plays poker online. She is intelligent and a computer professional. Full Tilt Poker stopped working for her a few days ago. Full Tilt’s software wanted to auto-update, but the update mechanism was broken. She went to http://fulltiltpoker.com/ and saw that nasty FBI/DOJ notice. So she assumed Full Tilt Poker has been taken down for everybody. She wasn’t aware that the company is based in Ireland and can be accessed fully from http://www.fulltiltpoker.co.uk/. She had no reason to be aware of this, as she doesn’t spend her spare time scouring online poker forums.
Many other Germans are scared to keep their money in Full Tilt Poker. Maybe, they wonder, the whole operation will be closed down. Maybe the company will go bankrupt, they worry.
Additionally, a lot of the worldwide poker publicity and advertising originates from the US. This publicity has just had its funding cut off.
What I describe is a worst-case scenario. It could be that online poker bounces back strongly and quickly. However I just don’t know.
