blonde poker forum

Is poker software really helping your game?

Each week it seems a new piece of software is been brought out or updated to assist players in improving their game.

The question is does this software actually help or will it in the long run damage your game.

Unless you’re Einstein or some other genius – your brain actually works better when it is free from clutter and has a few simple decisions to make.

On the whole you are more likely to learn a foreign language by speaking to someone who speaks that language rather than through books – audio – computer software.

Actually doing is better than imagining doing, as you get the real experience.

Poker on the whole is a game of variance, you cannot control the cards, and you can only control how you play them.

Some people will say that using the myriad of software is basically a form of cheating; some will say it gives them an edge that is available to all if they can afford it.
IMO the software on the whole does neither.

A HUD can tell you all sorts of things but it cannot tell you what actual cards the opposition hold. So as a player gets drawn into thinking that the HUD is giving them accurate information – BANG – variance kicks in – the information they are reading now seems to be unreliable so they start to question it – the brain starts to fill up with information it cannot handle and goes into overload. Their game which has been over reliant on the HUD suddenly evaporates.

Variance software is great it can tell you the percentage outcome of x factor against y factor with a flop yet to come – expectation on the flop – turn and river, but again trying to learn and retain this information will on the whole damage your thinking. The only real thing you know is the 2 cards in your hand the rest is variance.

Playing poker is or should be the same as life the more you do something the easier it should become, so that in the end your brain simply does that move automatically.

When you learn to drive you make mistakes as you become a seasoned driver you do not think how to drive the brain knows automatically what to do. Though you still make mistakes – hence accidents – which in truth is just variance.

Look at the last 20 years of the history of winners at the WSOP – look at the very top cash players these tend to be all live events where software cannot be used. The players though all have one thing and one thing only in common.

They know that they cannot control the cards. They can only control how they play them.

The ramblings of an old man – do not be over reliant on technology. Let your brain do the work and overtime it will learn from experience and doing what the right move is.

You can't argue with maths! Maths always wins! You can't compare it to learning a language.

The very top players in the world run many hours of sims and do many hours of study every week. They use this software to make them better players and constantly improve and refine their game.

You can't look at the last twenty years of the WSOP. Poker has changed so much in the last 2-3 years and has developed at lightspeed. I'm curious as to who you think the top cash players are if you don't think any of them use software of run lots of sims. I can assure you that all the top cash players have to do that or they would be chewed up and spat out super quick - unless of course, they can play the game and get invited to private cash games with whales and get the action that way - but that's a whole other kind of skill.

Ivey - Durr - Galfond - all say they dont use software online - we can only take them at their word.

That's why they'd be the spot in the game at nosebleeds these days.

I beg to differ

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycU53FGWTyM

watched the video - alex - again as you state in the commentary its your reads and interpretation of what the software is telling it is not actually telling you the hole cards it might be giving you an edge but in all the hands you went with your gut instinct - hence KK v AA

My point is that sometimes to much info causes the wrong decisions. 

The bolded bit is true  :P

Haha, I'm not sure if I enjoy your insights here more than the excellent intro to Piesolver

Yo, I hear this kind of rhetoric a lot. These good players put in many hours of study every week. That having software packages mean these good players have a further edge, even seemingly being able to peg your exact hand. We also see these good players being sullen & silent in the live game with lots of headphones and staring. We also see these good players flaming new players and saying that they is shizz at poker.

Let us consider for a moment that the less good players see poker as a leisure pastime, don't want to study for many hours, hate maths, don't want to have and learn all different software packages, want to be entertained/have fun in the live game and want to feel like they are great at poker.

Then we must consider how smart these good players actually are.

Cos I mean I have contemplated it a lot and it appears to me that good poker players are pretty terrible at the pokers.

Hi Abo,

No, absolutely not.

They never will, either. The site is aimed squarely at recreational players, & we know with absolute certainty that the vast majority of the player-base there are dead against third party software.

Thought so Tikay and good to know  - think a few of Sky Cash players use Alex's pie wheel tho ;-)

Yeah, I heard that Alex turned down a 5 figure sum for the rights to his value-pie wheel.

softwares are basically bullshit if the ranges youre inserting are incorrect

this is what i know...

When i started online, i just had a bit of research, discussion with friends and a load of learn by doing i was crushing. Then all this software stuff came along, and the games got a bit saturated with more pros, but fairly decent players misapplied basic theory to such an extent there whereas winrates did drop a little, because of extra action and still with decent edge was winning more. Then all the 19-yr old latvian and polish kids started to really figure it out, and in 12 months on ipoker I went from being open sat on 25/50euro tables with no-one sitting to getting bumhunted at 2/4.

Like pleno says, it's a layered thing, once you know one layer you add another and you get stronger and stronger, if you don't understand the bottom layers and try apply complicated theory on top of that then you will be throwing money at the wall. Problem is today, people are largely very good at it, and those that aren't get eaten up pretty quick, online anyway.

Also FYI, games genuinely run around Ivey on the internet these days :D i know it's mad, but that's how competitive it is.

I was watching Doug Polk the other day and he said JNandez (of upswing's PLO Lab) was of the view that there are no longer loose aggressive and tight nitty players;  just players whose mistake was playing too many hands and others whose mistake is folding too many hands. 

online poker is boring basically, if you're insanely talented and socially disinterested play online, if you want to have fun ever play live

I would agree with this. There are a bunch of people using software really badly at the moment. Then again there are a lot of very smart young guys who have used software to improve at a exponential rate. Online and even live I don't think you can be a top player without having used software to learn and develop your game. There are exceptions to this but they are kind of rare.

Even live if you look at the high rollers they are dominated by German guys who are live a walking PIO solver. The only exception to this might be someone like Brynn Kenny but he is a outlier.

The bad ones tend to be the low and mid stake players who don't really understand what's going on, and misapply concepts, use bad ranges etc