theonlinepokerleague.com Blog

Tournament Indicator - Free Trial

June 19, 2007 on 6:32 am | In General, Poker, League games, Bonus deals, Tips | No Comments

Over the years I’ve tried a few programs such as Calculatem for my tournament games but I’ve always found them lacking as they do not really give you the information that you need but last weekend I stumbled across Tournament Indicator on YouTube. This one looks good and have some interesting features such as:

• instant M calculations
• player profiling
• tilt factor monitoring
• matchcard showdown (ie what are you beating)
• odds calculations
• miniview and customised settings
• video tutorial guides

I took advantage of their free 48 hour trial last weekend and I was sufficiently impressed that I have taken up a license. If you would like to test drive the software for 48 hours then please click the link below:

alternatively you can check out my video site where I have posted a Tournament Indicator video so you can get a flavour as to what the software can do: http://toplvideo.blogspot.com.

Know your enemy and win the prize!

May 13, 2007 on 10:39 pm | In General, Poker, Tips | No Comments

“Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant of both the enemy and yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle”. The Art of War - Five Working Fundamentals by Sun Tzu circa 500 BC…

With this quote in mind there are a number of things that you can do to get that edge at the poker table when you do battle with your opponents.

1. Keep extensive notes on your opposition. - Ok this is a nice easy free one as almost all sites will let you keep notes on players and you should use this to make notes on how people are playing so that you can get an edge on them later in this game or in a totally different game in the future whereby you can draw on valuable information that you have kept on other players.

2. If you are planning on playing Sit N Goes then you need to make use of Sharkscope. SharkScope is the most complete database of online poker sit n’ go tournament results available for the PokerStars, FullTilt, CryptoLogic, Ongame, Pacific, Party Poker and Merge (Poker.com & Carbon Poker)networks. Support for iPoker, IPN and Cake is now in Beta test. Currently the database contains the results of 47,184,517 sit n’ go tournaments. You are allowed 5 free searches per day. For greater access please see their purchase options. This site is especially important as you can see players history and whether they are generally profitable players. Sharkscope does help in this regard with small icons for fish and sharks!

3. Tournament Players can also draw on online resource to help with ascertaining information on the players at their table. You can find out if players are used to playing at the level you are playing today and more importantly if you are deep in the tournament you can see if your opponents have been in this position before. The first resource to mention is The Poker DB which is run by Bluff Magazine. This site covers games from PokerStars, Full Tilt, Ultimatebet, Bodog and Absolute Poker. They currently have nearly 263,000 tournaments in their database and they have data on nearly 2,500,000 players. A basic subscription is free but if you would like more data then you can get full access for $100 per annum. This could prove to be an excellent investment.

4. The second resource for tournament players is Official Poker Rankings. This is a new database set up in 2006 and during the year more sites came onstream for data collection. Coverage is currently: Party Poker, Paradise Poker, Ongame Network, PokerStars and Full Tilt. Of the two I prefer this to Poker DB but with only 20% on the players on this one there is room to use both.

5. If you play SNG’s then contact Sharkscope to try and minimise the data that other users can see on you. You cannot be erased from the database but you can, to a certain, extent have your entries restricted. See their FAQ for details.

6. Consider investing in a poker tracker tool. One of the top tools is Poker Tracker which collates hand histories from most of the top sites puts them into one database. You can then with the aid of an addon overlay the playing statistics from your opponents onto the table as you are playing so you can easily see if your opponents are playing too many hands and if their hand selection is winning or losing for them. This software is really useful for cash game players where you will often play the same players night in night out. The database is often quite comprehensive so you can datamine the hand history and see what are the profitable plays for yourself and more importantly what plays lose you money eg if AQ suited is a loser then potentially you are overplaying the hand and maybe you should play it with a degree of caution in future.

7. Another Poker Tracker tool that you can try is Poker Office. PokerOffice is the most sophisticated tool on the market for Online Texas Holdem Poker. PokerOffice allows you to track all of your opponents actions as well as your own game, while you are playing, without any need for hand histories or user input. It stores all of the collected data and brings you summarized statistical reports, spreadsheets and graphs of your own and your opponents play. Major Features: - The PokerOffice Live Tracker! Get rid of tedious downloads of hand histories, PokerOffice brings you the opportunity to track your ring game and tournament play in real time without the need for hand histories. - The PokerOffice Statistics Section! Stores all collected data and brings you summarized statistical reports, spreadsheets and graphs of your own and your opponents play. Find out how many times you see the flop, raise, play middle pair on the flop, and much more.

I hope you find some of these sites of some use. The tournament selector on Sharkscope is a must for you to see and I will cover that in detail in future. But for now pop on over there and give it a go because its free if you are looking at Sit N Goes with buy ins of less than $10. This is an essential tool that ensures that you do not jump into a game full of sharks!! Don’t forget that you’re opponents are likely to be using these tools so make sure you are not at a disadvantage when you sit down at the tables.