Poker Software

When it comes time to get serious about making money playing online poker, it is a good idea to browse some of the helpful ancillary software available that can help you improve your game, make the right decisions, and get an edge over a large portion of the millions of other players out there. Below you will find a list of the most popular poker programs amongst poker professionals, including the benefits which each one can give you.

Holdem Manager and Poker-Tracker

One of these two pieces of software can be found on every successful poker player's hard drive. Poker-Tracker and Holdem Manager are programs which track all of the hands which you play online, and can give you a statistical analysis of your play and help you monitor your wins and losses for each poker session.

These programs keep track of all the hands you've played, but that is not what makes them valuable. The key to using these programs effectively is in the tools which they provide to help you analyze your online play.

You can search through all of your played hands, and use a number of filters to pinpoint certain situations. These programs enable you to see the amount of hands you play at each stake, your average session time, and the hands that win you the highest number of pots.

These filters also let you look at where you are losing money, such as finding hands which should have won, but didn't, or seeing what times of day you play your worst. You can also re-evaluate your play to see if you had the proper pot-odds when making a call, or if you should have folded instead of re-raised.

The software also enables you to analyze your opponents by taking a look at all of the hands an opponent played during a particular poker session. You can use the information gleaned to go back into your poker client and write more notes about that player, building up a profile on every single player who you frequently play against.

One of the best aspects of these programs is the Heads-Up Display (HUD) which runs while you play poker. The HUD runs right on top of the table you are playing at, displaying real-time information about your opponents based on the data it has collected. Every time more information is received, the HUD updates its information, allowing you to get a picture of each one of your opponents, and alter your strategy accordingly.

TableScan Turbo

Some poker-clients have built in table-selection and waiting-list features that are easy to use and will get you on the tables you want to join very quickly. Others don't however; and this is where TableScan Turbo comes in. TableScan Turbo will scan the lobby of your poker client and list all available games at a specified stake. You can then filter those tables by number of players, waiting list size, number of shortstackers, number of multi-tablers, average pot, players/flop etc. You can even integrate TableScan Turbo with your tracking software allowing you to find the softest tables while avoiding the regulars.

Not all poker clients feature smart and intuitive table selection and waiting list interfaces. For those that don't TableScan Turbo is a great piece of software that can get you on the best tables, fast. It quickly scans all the tables available at the stakes you want to play, and then lets you filter the results by waiting list size, stack size, players who are multi-tabling, average pot size, number of players, and so on. TableScan Turbo even syncs with tracking software in order to let you choose the tables with the weakest players.

TableScan Turbo then lets you choose which tables you want to play at, and will automatically put you on the waiting list for those seats, or even sit you at an empty table, if you wish. All you have to do is highlight the table you want to play, and TableScan Turbo does the rest. This program cuts the time it takes to find good tables, especially for multi-table players, and helps you avoid the distractions of searching for tables while playing.

TableNinja

When you want to step up to the big leagues and start playing multiple tables en masse, Table Ninja is a program you simply can't so without.

Table Ninja has a number of features which make multi-tabling so much easier. It places colored boxes around tables when it is your turn, so you always know when you have to act. It also allows you to enter a preferred bet size, reducing the amount of mouse clicks it takes to bet down to one. The program also automatically buys you in to tables you want, and makes sure that every table you are at has the same buy-in and blind posting settings. You can even use it to sit-out at every table with just one click when you need to take a break.

Players who only play a couple of tables at a time will get few benefits from Table Ninja, but for those players who don't feel right unless 16 tables are on the screen while they also check their fantasy football teams, it can be a real lifesaver.

PokerStove

PokerStove is a little program which calculates equity and odds against specific hands or ranges of hands. This program can help you evaluate your play by letting you re-create situations and seeing if you made the right play based on hand equity and pot odds. All you have to do is enter your cards, the board, and the cards your opponent had (or the range of hands you think they might have had) and PokerStove tells you what your equity was.

The process can be a bit time consuming, and is not very useful on the fly during a hand; however, it is a great training tool for learning hand equity in a variety of situations. After using it for a while, you will learn exactly what the equity is of a straight draw, top pair, or any number of cards. You can then start estimating hand equity, and using PokerStove to confirm if you made the right decision.

Flopzilla

Flopzilla is the next level after PokerStove, letting you calculate how often you or an opponent makes a certain hand after the flop based on different starting hands. You select a range of starting hands, and then input the flop cards, number of players, and dead cards, and you can see how often certain cards will make a post-flop hand.

Also mostly useful for post-session analysis and training, it is a great tool for learning how to put your opponents on certain ranges of cards and deciding if the board cards are advantageous to them. You can quickly start to learn and feel when a board may look excellent for one of your opponents, but it actually rarely results in them making a winning hand.