Using PokerTracker for Online Poker

June 16, 2011

Poker Tracker is used for analyzing your own poker games. The program actually lists a varied range of statistics about the tendencies that can actually paint some specific pictures about the strengths and weaknesses of a player. The first and most important aspect of the game is to analyze the Pre-Flop tendencies.

For the ones who are new to the game of poker, the perfect strategy would be to use a bonus or referral code at a soft room like bet365 and then to play a very tight and aggressive game. At the 9-10 handed poker tables, this can cause specific results in the form of VP$IP.

VP$IP is basically the percentage of the hands you would voluntarily place your money in pot. This could be the result of limping in, calling it a raise or completing Small Blind. PFR is yet another important factor that deals with the total percentage of hands that you would raise before a flop. This would also include re-raising.

The Poker Tracker website includes all the essential steps of installation and use to guide people while they are opening an account for using trackers. It has a lot of benefits that will eventually unfold once you know how to use the appropriate tools at the right time. That is the only trick you should consider when playing poker.

New Evidence Against the DOJ

June 13, 2011

If you are reading this blog you probably know that the Department of Justice and FBI have been waging a crusade against online poker operators in the US for the past few years with a new poker crackdown starting on April 15th, 2011. These two official entities are enforcing a law called UIGEA that restricts financial transactions related to online gambling. If poker is not gambling then of course these actions by the DOJ and FBI are illegal.

 

Clearly employees at these prestigious Government agencies did not get A grades in their statistics classes, but others did. Indeed it is hard to find scholars more versed in the science of Statistics than these two eminent economists at the University of Chicago, namely Professors Miles and Levitt. They just published the results of their research attempting to quantify the part of skill in the game of poker. This NBER research paper uses highly technical statistical methodology and it is as close as you can get from a scientific proof.

 

Unfortunately the DOJ and FBI did not read this paper, or even wondered if online blackjack or online poker are online gambling.

 

The approach is simple. The data set consists of all players at the 2010 WSOP. These players are divided into two groups: (1) players considered highly skilled, (2) the rest. The way to determine if a player is ‘considered highly skilled’ is based on public knowledge available to all. For instance online poker pros sponsored by poker rooms such as PokerStars or Party Poker are for the most part considered highly skilled. Or players who already hold a WSOP or WPT bracelet are also considered highly skilled. On the other hand all unknown players or known fish are put into group 2.

 

This division is of course independent of the results of the 2010 WSOP themselves, and this is the key factor to guarantee statistical significance. Then the ROI for each group was calculated, in other words their return on investment for this event. Group 1 had a 30% ROI, while group 2 had a –5% ROI. The Professors concluded that there is strong evidence that poker is a game of skill, based on how large the difference in performance between the two groups was.