With the advancements in technology, accompanied with the internet, poker has been booming. On the internet, players can easily find an online poker site along with their individual or network-based poker software. However, these software packages only allow the user to play poker, which is its intended purpose. What if a player wanted to track his statistics and hands, they would need a third party software program that can be synced into the regular poker software. Many online poker sites do not allow any kind of third party software that can give the player an unfair advantage over others, and this is why some software developers have taken caution when creating them. The popular software out there today did not just pop out of nowhere, they have history behind them. Using software like this also has its pros and cons.
Poker Software History
When the online poker boom hit, many focused on developing their own software in order to play poker, but it was not until later that some decided to focus on developing software to helped the player while they competed; many different kinds of software were developed to help the poker player, like Hand Converters and Odds Calculators.
Odds calculators came before the hand converters. The first ever poker calculator was the Poker Probe, which was developed in 1990 by a person named Mike Caro. Mike Caro is a poker pro, as well as a very knowledgeable poker and casino executive. Many years later, when poker was going full swing on the internet, the first hand history converter was made. The PokerStat was brought out into the light in 2001 and started a long line of software products and tools that offer similar features.
Popular Poker Software
Some of the leading third party poker software that is being used today by poker players has been used in order to track their poker stats, as well as analyze and calculate their odds such as with PokerOffice, PokerTracker, and Hold’em Manager. These three types of poker software have different abilities, but they all basically have the same function, and their companies also dictate how strong of a software they are (quality, supported by a bigger number of poker rooms, etc.) and how trust-worthy. There are other types of poker software out there, players simply need to know how to look for them and to make sure they do not violate the terms of the poker room software.
Poker Software Functions
Poker software can be found easily online, but can be tricky for those that do not know what to look for. Most third party software is designed to help the poker player while, and after, they play. One of the most important, and key features that the poker software has in common is the fact that they are able to track and analyze the player’s opponents. This allows the players to “read” their opponents more efficiently, which lets them make better choices as they play. They also allow the player to keep track of their own stats. Players love to know how well or badly they are doing, so they can change and improve. They also include simple functions such as odds calculators, so that players can calculate whether or not the odds are in their favor when placing a bet, whether they have high or low chances of getting a winning hand according to what is on the table already.
Pros vs. Cons of Poker Software
With any software, there are always positive and negative aspects to them. In terms of poker software, the pros would include having the upper hand, keeping track, and being able to analyze the opponents. On the other side of things, the cons for using poker software would be limiting gameplay, decrease in competitiveness, and loss of interest – not to mention the possibility of players having to rely on it and negatively affecting them if they do not have a software helping them.
Being able to analyze an opponent, or even your own playing strategy, can be very useful. The software lets the player do this with the least amount of trouble and effort, doing most of the heavy lifting for the player. The software can also track past hands, and is able to help predict what a future outcome could be. It is a very handy tool to use when starting out, as it will help players improve drastically. It helps them pick up on the opponent’s movements and analyzes them, so that the player can make better decisions.
When using the software it could limit gameplay, as some software analyzes the poker room and finds the easiest opponents for the player to compete against. They may not find that many tables with these kinds of opponents, so the player could find themselves always playing against the same people. As the player would compete against easier opponents, this would mean that the player will not have to try as hard to win. With this decrease in competitiveness, it could actually make the game boring.
Poker software can be useful for beginners to intermediate players, but the experienced players should only really use it to keep track of their own progress.
