Poker Datamining

Another Look at HH Smithy

Matt — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:44:58 +0000

We've done a few posts over the last couple of months about how HH Smithy has been improving their services, especially since our initial review of them. In our blog posts we mentioned how they've added new sites (Merge and OnGame) to their lineup. We noticed that they've extended their coverage and added a bulk hand history option too.

In fact, HH Smithy has made so many improvements over the last 6-9 months that we wanted to re-review their site and what they have to offer. So that's what we did. We wrote a new review and recorded another video of their site. Overall, we think HH Smithy did a great job and they're worth using now. Check out our new review -- we're sure you'll agree with us.

Weekly Update 7/1/2011

Matt — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:00:52 +0000

Hey Guys,

Here we are with another weekly update. Let's take a look at what's been added over the last week.

The first thing that we added was a blog post on hhSmithy offering OnGame hand histories, as well as hands on lower stakes games. It's great to see a site trying so hard to improve their service for players. It's only going to get better too, as hhSmithy is adding more rooms to their lineup. You can expect to see Bodog and iPoker hands being offered towards the end of summer/ early fall.

Our other addition is our new hand history page for SNGs. In this post we discuss why buying hand histories for SNGs is a good idea. We also mention the only site that you can buy SNG hand histories from, as well as what they have to offer. You can read more about it here.

And that's it. Be sure to check back with us next week for another update. Have a great weekend and safe 4th of July.

Buy SNG & Tournament Hand Histories

Matt — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 02:32:53 +0000

Some poker rooms consider buying hand histories to be an unfair advantage. I don't have the time to stay up to date with the changes the poker rooms make to their T&Cs, so be sure to check them yourself.

List of sites where you can buy Poker Table Ratings hand histories.

If you're ready to buy sit and go hand histories, we suggest buying from Poker Table Ratings. They have competitive prices and PTR delivers your hands quickly. Let's not forget that they're the only site that offers SNG hands -- so you don't have much of a choice anyway.

Buy SNG hands from Poker Table Ratings.

Sit and go's and multi table tournaments are popular games. In fact, it's how many players got their start playing poker (it was for me). They started by building a bankroll grinding sit and go's or by making a nice score in mtts, and then they move to cash games since there is a higher and more consistent ceiling for profit.

Despite the popularity of these games, datamining sites didn't mine and offer hand histories for them. This comes as a shock to me, especially since there is plenty of useful info SNG players can use.

What kind of info is helpful? Well, what isn't helpful? Having data in a SNG is huge; no different than having data in a cash game. Data will give you an idea right away who's a reg, so that you can adjust your pushing and calling ranges. If a reg or good player shoves, you know you can call wider than normal. If there are good players left to act after you, then you know they'll call your shoves wider, which should cause you to tighten your shoving range. Table selecting is important to do in SNGs too.

Although data mining sites didn't use to mine for SNG or MTT hands, I'm happy to say that things have changed some. There is a site out there that mines and sells hands for single table tournaments. While there are improvements that can be made, it's just nice to see that someone has decided to take the initiative. I talk more about this datamining site in detail below

SNG & MTT Datamining Sites: Poker Table Ratings

Poker Table Ratings is the only site to offer SNG hand histories. And as of 6/29/2011, the only site PTR mines SNG hand histories from is PokerStars.

This makes some sense since PokerStars is still the largest online site in the world with 75k+ players at any time, even after Black Friday. Hardly any other site can compete, especially when it comes to the number of sit and go's being played. It'd still be nice to see other sites being offered though.

At the moment the majority of hands are going to be no limit. I did notice some pot limit and fixed limit hands available, but you'll have fewer packages available, as well as fewer hands mined overall.

The games covered include anything that is a single table -- heads up, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10-max, knockouts, double or nothing and turbo. Stakes will range from $1 to $114. The one thing that you will notice is that there are no multi table hand histories available, either for sit and go's or tournaments. I hope that this will change in the near future as these games are played just as much as the single table games, if not more.

Prices for SNG hand histories will start at around $15 dollars for the smallest package of 200k hands. It'll climb from there to where you can be spending $200+ for hands, but this of course is for 3-5 million hands or more.

Summary: Where to Buy SNG Hand Histories

Well, as I mentioned above, you don't have an option as to where you buy your SNG hand histories. You either buy them from Poker Table Ratings, or you don't buy them at all. And if it's the latter, you'll have to mine them yourself, which is a painfully slow process, or go without.

Thankfully, Poker Table Ratings is one of the best sites to buy hand histories from, so there isn't much of a reason not to buy from them. They have good prices, support, hand coverage and quick delivery of purchased hand histories. You can't ask for much more than that.

Buy SNG hands from Poker Table Ratings.

hhSmithy Now Offering Ongame & Low Limit Hand Histories

Matt — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:55:30 +0000

hhSmithy has been improving their service since we did our review of them back in March. They added Merge hand histories back in May, and now we've just been informed that they have added OnGame and low limit hand histories. The details of each are below.

OnGame Hand Histories at hhSmithy

The hands mined from OnGame include no limit holdem and pot limit omaha. The limits that are covered include $.05/$.10 to $200/$400. No hands are mined for fixed limit games.

Since hhSmithy hasn't been mining OnGame very long, it's hard to say how consistent the hands will be. As of now, roughly 750,000 hands are mined daily. I couldn't see what stakes the majority of hands are coming from.

Micro Limit Stakes at hhSmithy

hhSmithy has also added $.05/$.10 microstakes for PokerStars, Party Poker and the Merge Network. This gives players the ability to have plenty of info, so that they can mass table to try to build a bankroll and move up in stakes quickly.

If you already have an account at hhSmithy, you can add a microstakes subscription for only $5 a month. This is a great deal considering that over 800k hands (according to hhSmithy) are being mined regularly.

Check Out hhSmithy

If you haven't checked hhSmithy yet, this might be enough to persuade you. It's nice to see a room step up and improve their service. And hhSmithy isn't done yet -- they should be offering iPoker and Bodog hand histories soon; approximately in August.

Visit hhSmithy now for OnGame hand histories.

Weekly Update 6/25/2011

Matt — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 23:15:26 +0000

Hey Guys,

I'm back with another weekly update. I missed last week due to having computer problems, so maybe this is more of a bi-monthly update?

Anyway, not a lot has changed on the site itself; we've updated only two pages. The first page we updated was our Bodog hand history article. This definitely needed to be revamped since you were only able to get Bodog hand histories from Hand HQ, but now are only able to buy them from Poker Table Ratings. So give this article a look if you play at Bodog and need some fresh hands.

The second page that was updated was our Entraction hand history article. We updated this to reflect that Hand-Histories.com also sells hands for the 24hr Poker network, giving you two options overall for fresh hands.

And that's it for this week. Check back next week as we're still updating the site and adding new content.

Weekly Update 6/10/2011

Matt — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 03:08:53 +0000

Hey Everyone --

Hope everyone is doing well and making some good money at the tables.

I'm back with another weekly update, so let's get right into it.

2 pages were updated this week. The first page is our iPoker hand history page. The second is our Ongame hand history page. On both pages we added new suppliers of hand histories for each room, as well as highlight the best options for your money. So if you play at either of these sites, be sure to check those pages out.

Another thing we added was our new table on our homepage. We made this table with our users in mind. It should be simpler to use, as well as much easier to tell what site provides hands for a specific room. So go check that out too.

Well, that's it for now. We'll see you in another week.

Good luck at the tables.

Weekly Update 6/3/2011

Matt — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 01:34:18 +0000

Hey Everyone --

It's time for another weekly updated. We're posting every Friday to let you know about the changes taking place here at www.pokerdataming.net.

So let's get right into it.

1) We've updated a couple of our buy hand history pages. The two that were updated include Full Tilt Poker and Party Poker. We mentioned what datamining sites we felt were best to buy from in 2011 and why.

2) A new post was added. We just found out that Merge hands are now available at HHDealer. They've apparently been available for almost a month now, but no one let us know. It's a good thing we had to do some research for the reviews above.

So that's it for this week. Hopefully these new additions are helping you with your hand history needs. We have more in store too, so stay tuned.

Merge Hand Histories Now Available at HHDealer

Matt — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 00:52:02 +0000

Slowly but surely sites are starting to add the Merge Network to the list of sites they mine and sell hands for. First it was hhSmith and then it was Hand HQ. The third and most newest site to add Merge to their lineup is HHDealer.

HHDealer covers limit holdem, no limit holdem and pot limit omaha, stakes ranging from $.10/$.20 to $500/$1000. Heads up, 6 and 9 max games are covered.

If you haven't checked out HHDealer yet, you should check them out now. Their hands are reasonably priced, and you can buy as little as 250k or as much as 7 million hands at any given time.

Merge Hand Histories Now Available at Hand HQ

Matt — Tue, 31 May 2011 20:17:36 +0000

We just got word that Hand HQ is starting to offer Merge hand histories. This is a couple days after hearing that hhSmithy added Merge hand histories to their site.

Hand HQ doesn't say exactly where all the hands are coming from. The few sites that we know are mined are the most popular ones including Carbon, Lock and Poker Nordica. Carbon and Lock Poker is still taking US players.

I checked Hand HQ out real quick for details. It looks like No Limit, Limit and PLO is available. Stakes range from 25nl to 5000nl. This of course depends on the game type. Number of players include heads up to six man to full ring.

If you've moved to the Merge Network lately due to an increase in Black Friday traffic, you should get on the ball and get some hand histories. The games are soft as is -- you can make them even softer by having some info on your opponents before you sit down.

So head over to Hand HQ and get yourself some hands before your opponents catch wind that they're available. 10k starter packs start at only $.99.

test page

Jake — Fri, 27 May 2011 20:07:21 +0000

hand history table test page

Hand HQ Fast Delivery
Poker Table Ratings Popular Choice
HH Dealer Good for Repeat Buyers
Poker Hand Scout Best for Repeat Buyers
Hand-Histories Best for Europeans
HH Smithy New Site

Going Through Growth Spurts at www.PokerDatamining.net

Matt — Fri, 27 May 2011 17:13:06 +0000

This will be a quick post to let our regular and soon-to-be regular visitors know what's been going on at www.PokerDatamining.net.

As the title suggests, we're going through some growth spurts. We've been on the web for just a little over 2 years and our site has remained pretty much the same during this time. So now it's time for some changes.

What kind of changes?

Well, we have a few things in store for the site. Here are a few items on our to-do list:

New & improved hand history comparison chart. This chart will make finding the ideal hand history provider a snap. New charts will be added to our individual poker site hh pages too.

Updated and improved content. Our content is good now, but it's been awhile since it's been added to or updated. New providers have been launched, coverages have been expanded & in many cases our opinions have changed as to where we recommend you buy your hand histories from. We've changed our content to reflect this.

Newsletter. We haven't decided exactly when, but we do intend on offering a newsletter service to keep our visitors up to date on the latest hand history news and deals.

These are just a few things on our (full) plate in attempt to make this site even a better resource than it was before.

We will also be blogging once a week to keep you informed on all the updates we make to the site. And to get that ball rolling, here are the most recent changes made to www.PokerDatamining.net:

Introduction to Fifth Street Trading. Fifth Street Trading is an educational resource primarily aimed at poker players. Their goal is to teach poker players how to diversify their income by learning how to invest. If you've been wanting to add another income stream in addition to your poker earnings, then this article is for you.

PokerStars Hand Histories. We've rewritten this article to reflect new and/or better providers of hand histories from PokerStars.

Well, that should cover it. Be sure to check back with us in a week or so to keep updated on the changes we're making to the site.

Merge Hand Histories Now Available at hhSmithy

Matt — Thu, 19 May 2011 20:28:14 +0000

hhSmithy has just let us know that they are offering hand histories for sites on the Merge Network. This is great news, seeing as how these sites are now exploding in popularity due to being one of the few still servicing US players.

After hearing the news, I checked hhSmithy out to see exactly what they're offering. And here is what I found.

The sites (skins) that hands have been mined from include Carbon Poker, Poker Nordica and Overbet. Hand histories are available for no limit and limit holdem, as well as pot limit omaha. Stakes available include 25nl up to 5000nl for NLHE, 50nl up to 1000nl for FLHE and 10nl up to 5000nl for PLO. Game variations include 6-max, full ring and heads up.

Prices are going to be the same as they are for other hand histories. You'll spend at least $7.50 at the lowest stakes and as much as $75 for the highest stakes. 50% discounts are given on multiple orders when one hand history package is paid for in full. hhSmithy is also giving 50% discounts to players who sign up to Merge. If you're going to do that though, I suggest you do so before June 1st, as Merge will be removing their rakeback program at that time.

And that's basically it. If you already have an account at hhSmithy, getting your hands on Merge hand histories is simple. Just go to the 'my account' page and modify your subscription.

If you don't already have an account at hhSmithy, you can visit them now to get started. Alternatively, you can read our review to learn more about them. Be sure to watch our video guide to learn how to set up an account and buy your first batch of hand histories.

An Introduction to Fifth Street Trading

Jake — Mon, 09 May 2011 23:21:39 +0000

Since several of my friends have been thinking about leaving poker after the DOJ seized the domains of several poker rooms I have asked Brian Wideman of Fifth Street Trading to write a guest post about their investment coaching program for professional poker players.

Video Walkthrough of Fifth Street Trading

Visit Fifth Street Trading

Fifth Street Trading is an educational resource created for fiscally responsible Poker Professionals, by a Poker Professional. Our goal at Fifth Street Trading is to educate Poker Professionals who are interested in the management, preservation, and growth of their own wealth. By creating a small, highly motivated, tight-knit community of like minded individuals, we hope to greatly lessen the learning curve associated with the trading and management of one's own savings.

By providing our clients with the knowledge and skills necessary to generate small, consistent monthly returns in the FX market, we hope to create a new breed of poker player, one that is both in control of their own financial well-being and prepared for the uncertain future of poker. A competent Poker Professional will be able to diversify their income and in a short amount of time become less financially reliant on poker in general.

The Fifth Street team is currently comprised of Brian Wideman and Sam Patterson. Brian is a long time professional poker player that for the past two years is transitioning into trading and small business development. His goal is provide poker players who are serious about diversifying their income a community of like minded individuals. He created http://fifthstreettrading.com/ to fill the current needs of those poker players struggling to keep up with the ever toughening games. The current legal development in U.S. online poker is a major wake up call to thousands of professionals out there that relying on one source of income is not only risky, but possibly just flawed in general. By providing members with a community of hungry, highly skilled poker players all interested in trading, he foresees more well rounded players emerging from the community with new income streams.

Sam Patterson is the lead instructor at Fifth Street Trading. He has over 20 years of trading experience and has traded everything from stocks and currencies to commodities and options. Sam is an active part of the community and provides members with coaching lessons, mentoring, chart analysis, trade feedback, and our cornerstone service, a live video stream of his actual charts and trades.

A lot of poker players approach us and ask, "Why should I learn to trade when I make money playing poker?" First off, we do not recommend anyone quitting poker, or any job for that matter. We do recommend possibly looking into trading as a way to add an additional stream of income though. I highlight some of the main reasons below:

Learning to trade is a lifelong skill. The market will ALWAYS be there. Online poker....we are not so sure, and this recent Department of Justice indictment of Full Tilt, Poker Stars, and Absolute is a perfect example of why having only one income stream is risky.
The income ceiling for a professional poker player is pretty low, and it is getting harder and harder to make a living online. There are only so many Phil Ivey's and Tom Dwan's. Unless poker is legalized, taxed, and regulated in the United States sparking a second "poker boom" the games will continue to get tougher, and players will watch their incomes plateau, or even decline.
The income ceiling for a trader is MUCH higher than poker, and it takes the same skills to make 3% a month on 10k as it does to make 3% a month on a million dollar account, at least that is the way it is in the Forex Market.
Learning to trade can lead to great opportunities in the financial industry. Whether it's a job on Wall Street, or a job in Venture Capital, learning how the markets work can be a major plus for your resume.
A diversified income is MUCH better than one variance filled one!

The next question most people ask us is "Why Forex? I like the stock market!" And like before the answer can be quite lengthy, but the main points are below:

The Forex Market trades 24/7 from Sunday night to Friday night, allowing someone with a 9-5 job or someone who puts in a lot of volume at the tables the opportunity to trade and learn around the clock.
Liquidity. The foreign exchange market's average daily turnover is estimated at nearly four trillion U.S. Dollars. Just the spot currency market alone absolutely dwarfs even the largest stock markets in the world. This allows large traders to get in and out of big positions quickly and cheaply.
The Forex Market's size and turnover is increasing every year meaning more opportunities, and no real restriction on account size and liquidity anytime in the near future.

If you want to trade stocks instead, that is not a big deal at all. We just trade currencies and use currency charts in the training and analysis. The skills you will learn and develop are applicable to any market though, so don't feel like a membership is limited to those who want to trade Forex. A membership with Fifth Street Trading comes with a number of services, but the one I want to highlight for everyone is our live video stream of Sam's desktop and charts. Picture being able to watch a professional poker player grind the tables all day and talk about why he is making the plays he is making. This is impossible because those with the live feed would sit with the unsuspecting pro, see his hole cards in the live feed, and take his money. With trading though it is possible, and we are providing this to our members. Sam will be streaming live, trading a real money account for everyone to see with complete transparency for 20-30 hours a week! Our membership gives you access to this live stream for four months. This allows you to pick the brain of a professional trader for over 400 hours during your membership. He is there to coach and mentor you for anywhere from 4-8 hours a day! Try getting that sort of access to a professional trader anywhere else without paying 100-400 dollars an hour for it.

We provide a free consultation AND a 2 week free trial to anyone and everyone that is interested. If you have interest in learning to trade, but you are in need of advice, direction, and coaching, please contact us today and we would be happy to discuss your personal situation and goals for free. We would then let you try everything for 2 weeks, and if it's a fit, you can purchase a membership and training package.

You may email us (look under "join") to set up your free consultation and trial. We look forward to hearing from some of you and adding you to our growing community.

Sincerely,
Brian Wideman
CEO, Fifth Street Trading LLC

HH Smithy Review

Jake — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:10:09 +0000

This is my second review of HH Smithy in the last 6 months. The first time I reviewed them they were still in beta, dealing with changing their domain and upgrading features - so their software was a little buggy. Even ignoring this, however, I felt that HH Smithy had a ways to go before I could recommend them as a go-to supplier of hand histories.

Fast forward a few months and I'm happy to report that HH Smithy has improved tenfold. They support more sites, cover more games and added bulk hand histories. For the exact details, be sure to watch/read my review below.

Buy hands from HH Smithy

Video Walkthrough of HH Smithy

Supported Sites

HH Smithy has a solid lineup, supporting sites that are getting the most traffic nowadays post Black Friday. Speaking of which, Full Tilt Poker is obviously gone from the lineup, as well as Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.

The sites that HH Smithy does support include:

PokerStars - The French and Italian sites are covered too.
OnGame - The Italian site is covered too.
Merge - This includes sites like Carbon, Lock and Aced.
Party Poker
iPoker - This includes sites such as Titan, bet365 and Mansion Poker.

Once again, definitely not a bad lineup. HH Smithy takes feedback (well) too, so if there is a room that you want to see covered, be sure to contact them and let them know.

Game Coverage

HH Smithy's game coverage has improved some since the last time I reviewed them. They cover pot limit omaha and fixed limit hold'em much more than they did before. So you can get hands for these games, as well as no limit hold'em, for heads up, six max and full ring games.

The one thing that I'm still missing is SNG and MTT hand histories. HH Smithy has mentioned on their site that they are considering offering them in the future -- maybe 2012. I hope so, since I'm sure there are players who'd buy them. If I still played SNGs as much as I did post Black Friday, I would.

In regards to the number of hands, or freshness of hands, I found that HH Smithy is competitive with other sites. It's difficult to say much more than that since every game type and stake is so different. HH Smithy mines nearly 1 million hands daily though, so that should give you some idea.

Delivery of Hand Histories

There are a couple of options for how to get your hand histories from HH Smithy.

The first option is to use the download page on HH Smithy. This option worked well for me. I only had to wait about 5 minutes (they quote 5-10) for my hands to be available. Download times will vary, of course.

The other option is to use HH Smithy's downloader. This is a neat option that takes care of downloading, unzipping and syncing to your heads up display for you. I think this is a great way to go if you're receiving hand histories regularly. You can set it up to download your hands at certain times, or you can 'force' download them whenever you want. Definitely check it out.

Package Options

There are two different ways to buy your hand histories -- subscription or bulk. This is an improvement over the last review, as HH Smithy didn't offer a bulk hand history option before. They've also improved their pricing model and how it's structured. I really like it.

Hand History Subscriptions

For the subscriptions, you have 5 different options -- micro, small, mid and high stakes and an unlimited plan. Each of these options have a price, what limits that price covers, how many sites you can get hand histories for and what it will cost if you want to add sites and games types. Prices vary from $16 to $100 and you can subscribe at 1, 3 and 12 month intervals. The prices will be cheaper the longer you buy in advance.

Bulk Hand Histories

I'm glad that HH Smithy added the bulk hand history option. It's what I would see myself using if I still played online (I'm in the USA), and it's what I used to test their services. I found the process real simple -- just choose your site, game type, stakes and the number of hands you want, and then you can add more hands or checkout.

I did notice that the prices for some of the hand history bulk packages were higher compared to other sites. The package I bought was twice that of Poker Table Ratings. That said, HH Smithy has a price match promise that if you find the same hand history package for less somewhere else, they'll match it, plus give you 25% off. Seeing this I contacted HH Smithy and they honored it -- quickly, too.

I should mention that not all of their prices are high. In a couple of instances PTR had packages there were nearly 25% more. So keep this in mind and shop around before buying.

Note: I suggest comparison shopping before you buy your hands from HH Smithy. It's much easier for them to give you a discount on your hands (if you find a better deal) than it is for them to give you a partial refund.

Payment Options

The following payment options are available at HH Smithy:

Amazon Payments
PayPal
Google Checkout

I used PayPal when I bought my bulk hand history package. As always, the transaction was quick and painless.

Support

The support at HH Smithy is excellent. When I first reviewed their site I had issues with their software (due to them being in beta). They answered my emails quickly, all within less than 4-5 hours.

The 2nd time was no different. Not only were they fast (every response I got was in less than 2 hours from my email), but they were friendly too.

Overall Impression

What I experienced today was a night and day difference from my first review a few months ago. That's a good thing. Not only did HH Smithy listen to their customers, but they acted on the feedback. And as a result, they offer a killer service, much better than what it was before. Based on what I've seen, I have no problem recommending them as a go-to source for your hand history needs.

Buy hands from HH Smithy

Hand-Histories.com Review

Jake — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 16:53:00 +0000

Hand-histories.com is a site that mines and sells hand histories, either in bulk or as a subscription service. According to the info in their footer, they've been around for the last couple of years.

My first impression when visiting their site was that buying hand histories was going to be a very straight forward process. It's easy to see how to get started -- choose what room you want to buy hands for, whether you want hands in bulk or as a subscription service or you can choose the room along with the game you want hands for. Simple.

The only things that I would've liked to see when first visiting the site is maybe an About and FAQs page. The About page is more of a formality and a way of making a visitor feel at ease, especially when asking him or her to pull out their wallet. The FAQs page would've been ideal so that I can check for things like subscription details, prices, etc.

Other than that, I thought hand-histories.com was a very solid site overall. I had a good experience with them and will definitely buy from them again in the future. I've outlined the details of their service for you below.

Buy hands from Hand-Histories.com

Video Guide

Visit Hand-Histories.com

Supported Poker Rooms

Hand-histories.com collects and sell hand histories from the following sites:

PokerStars
Full Tilt Poker
Party Poker
iPoker / Titan Poker
Cereus / Absolute Poker / Ultimate Bet Poker
OnGame / bwin
B2B Entraction

Screenshot showing the poker rooms that Hand-Histories.com sell datamined hands from.

Game Coverage

The games that are mined by hand-histories.com include no limit holdem, fixed limit holdem and pot limit omaha. Only cash games are covered -- SNG and MTT hand histories are not available.

Similar to other datamining sites, hand-histories.com provides a graph outlining when the hands you bought were mined. This is helpful so that you know how old the hands are. It's also helpful in gauging how many hands you can expect to receive if you choose to sign up for hand-histories.com subscription service.

Something I liked was that on page(s) where you choose your bulk package, you're told how old the hands can be. The bigger the package, the older the hand histories can potentially be (up to 50 days and as much as 90 days in some cases). So if age is of importance to you, you can choose the package that better suits your needs in that regard.

Delivery of Hand Histories

You can obtain your hand histories one of a couple of ways from hand-histories.com. Hand histories can be downloaded through the "My Hands" tab when you're logged into hand-histories.com. Alternatively, you are emailed a download link after your purchase has been processed.

I bought a small package of 200,000 PokerStars 6-max hand histories and it took maybe 15 minutes for my order to be processed so I could download them. It took only a minute or so for the hand histories to download to my computer. This will likely vary depending on where you live, the type of internet you have and the hand history package you purchased.

A neat feature that hand-histories.com has is that they remember the hands you buy. So if you buy a package one day and then a couple of days later you go to buy a larger package, they'll remember the hands you already have so you won't be sent duplicates.

On their website, hand-histories.com has mentioned that an application is in development so that you can have hand histories automatically sent and unzipped for you. This would be a nice feature to have for sure.

Subscription Option

In addition to their bulk hand histories, hand-histories.com does offer a subscription service. You'll receive hand histories daily (assuming the games you need run enough) with this service.

When doing the math, signing up for a subscription seems to make more sense than buying in bulk -- although this may depend on your needs. I paid around $12 USD for 200,000 hands from PokerStars. However, when I look at the graph for the same stakes, over 2.3 million hands were mined within the last 4 weeks. So for double the price, I could get over 10x the number of hands. Even if you were to do this for only a month, it just makes more sense to go with the subscription.

Payment Options

The following payment options are available at hand-histories.com:

PayPal
MoneyBookers
WebMoney
NETeller
Visa
MasterCard

I used PayPal when buying my hand histories and had no issues. It was as simple as confirming my purchase and hitting submit.

Support

I didn't need to contact support at hand-histories.com. However, in the event that you do, they have a contact form on their site.

Note from Jake: I have talked to the support at hand-histories.com a few of times, and they have always been very fast to get back to me with an answers to my questions.

Overall Impression

I found hand-histories.com to be a solid site to buy hands from. Their prices are competitive (from my experience) and they cover the major poker sites, games and stakes. And they deliver your hands quickly. The bottom line -- I'd have no problem buying hands from them again.

Buy hands from Hand-Histories.com

Como Comprar Historiales de Manos

Jake — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:20:23 +0000

En esta página he reunido una lista de los mejores sitios para comprar historiales de manos.


Hand HQ Entrega Rápida
Hand-Histories.com Español
Poker Table Ratings Elección popular
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Tabla que muestra los vendedores de historiales de manos y que sitios de poker ofrecen.

Acerca de la Lista

Todas los servicios mencionados en esta página los he probado personalmente, y volvería a comprarles de nuevo.

Algunos de los sitios llevan años en el mercado, otros son relativamente nuevos. Lo que todos tienen en común es que es muy fácil comprar manos de ellos y que el tiempo de entrega es muy rápido.

Adicionalmente es fácil ponerse en contacto con el servicio al cliente, y puedo asegurar que se tomaran el tiempo de responder (He hecho la prueba de hacer preguntas "estúpidas" desde una nueva cuenta de Gmail).

Básicamente estas personas saben lo que hacen, y darán un muy buen servicio por tu dinero.

Como Comprar Historiales de Manos

En los últimos doce meses se ha vuelto muy fácil comprar historiales de manos. Todo lo que debes hacer es seleccionar el sitio del que quieres comprar, escoger la sala de poker, el nivel y la cantidad de manos que deseas.

Una vez hecho esto, todo lo que tienes que hacer es elegir un método de pago y proporcionar la dirección de correo electrónico al que quieras sean enviadas las manos. Luego solo debes confirmar tu orden y pagar.

1-2 horas después del pago, recibirás un correo electrónico con un link para descargar las manos solicitadas.

Por favor ten en cuenta que en algunas ocasiones puede tomar más de 2 horas para recibir el link de descarga. A diferencia de un libro o una suscripción a un sitio de entrenamiento, las manos que recibes son únicas, pues los sitios continuamente están recolectando manos. Esto quiere decir que hay un límite en la velocidad en que las manos pueden recolectarse y enviarse.

Beneficios

Comprar historiales de manos te da los beneficios del datamining (Inglés), sin necesidad de utilizar un "handgrabber" durante mucho tiempo, cuidando que si este recolectando manos.

Adicionalmente, puedes comprar más manos de las que podrías conseguir si hicieras datamining por ti mismo todo el día todos los días.

Desventajas

Cuando compras historiales de manos, es lógico que estos se limitan a las mesas y niveles que has escogido. Esto no es una desventaja para la mayoría de la gente, pero si necesitas manos de un juego poco común como HU Omaha, tal vez sea mejor hacer datamining por ti mismo.

Si tienes dudas sobre si debes comprar historiales de manos o hacer datamining tu mismo, lee la siguiente sección que puede ayudarte a tomar una decisión.

Antes de Comprar

Es buena idea revisar que tan viejos son los historiales de manos que vas a comprar.

Comprar historiales de manos viejos no te causara ningún problema, pues PokerTracker 3 y Holdem Manager tienen filtros que excluyen los historiales de manos antiguos, entonces no verás estadísticas desactualizadas de tus oponentes.

Aunque, teniendo en cuenta que las manos viejas no te harán ningún daño, tampoco recibirás mucha ayuda de ellas por lo que en general son una perdida de dinero.

Como regla general, yo no compro historiales de manos de más de 3 meses.

Los historiales viejos usualmente no son un problema cuando compras manos de un juego popular, por ejemplo NL200 en Full Tilt Poker, pero si estás comprando manos de HU u otros juegos "raros", es crucial saber cuando fueron minadas las manos.

Afortunadamente, casi todos los sitios que venden historiales de manos te dicen cuando fueron minadas estos antes de comprar. Puedes leer una guía de como determinar cuando fueron minadas las manos a continuación.

Como Determinar Cuando Fueron Minadas las Manos

Hand HQ y HHDealer te permiten ver cuando fueron obtenidos los historiales de manos que estas comprando.

Hand HQ muestra la edad de las manos como parte del proceso de compra. Abajo podrás ver una pequeña descripción de como ver esto (no es necesario realizar ninguna compra para esto).

Ir a esta página.
Seleccionar el sitio, tipo de juego, nivel, número de jugadores y número de manos.
Click en "Continue".

HHDealer hace las cosas un poco diferente, tienen una página dedicada que permite ver cuantos historiales de manos han minado durante el último mes. Dado que siempre envían las manos más nuevas cuando haces un pedido, puedes ver cuantas manos han conseguido en el mes y cuantas estas comprando. He escrito una pequeña guía a continuación.

Ir a esta página.
Seleccionar el sitio, tipo de juego, nivel, número de jugadores y marco de tiempo.
Click en "Show".

¿Estás listo para empezar? Compra historiales de manos ahora.

Este artículo es una traducción al español de la Guía en Inglés para comprar Historiales de Manos.

KeePass – Password Manager

Jake — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 15:26:09 +0000

I'm not sure about you, but I use many different applications, subscribe to several sites, have many email accounts to check and do things like bank online. Needless to say, that's a lot of passwords to remember.

Because of all the passwords I needed to remember, I was in fear of forgetting one and not being able to access my account(s). So I tried to remedy this by making many of my passwords the same or I would keep them saved somewhere such as in a document on my computer or on a piece of paper by my desk.

Obviously, this isn't safe. You can even call it dumb. Here I am making it easier for hackers and thieves to gain access to my most important information.

Does this sound like you too? If so, don't worry. I have found a solution. Better yet, it's a free solution and its name is KeePass.

What is KeePass?

KeePass is essentially two programs in one.

First, and most importantly, it's a program that saves your passwords for you. It relieves you from ever having to remember a password again.

Secondly, it's a password generator. While you can definitely use your own passwords, you can also let KeePass come up with passwords for you. It can generate a new password for every application, program and site that you use. The passwords that it generates are extremely unique consisting of a combination of numbers and letters.

KeePass database with a stored password.

All of these passwords are kept in a database which is kept under lock and key. You will be the only one to have access to it using one master password (unless you share the master password of course).

How to Use KeePass

KeePass is relatively easy to use. I wouldn't call it "intuitive" though (I couldn't figure it out and I'm decent with figuring out programs). But after reading the set-up tutorial, I had KeePass up and running within a couple of minutes.

All you have to do (the bare minimum) is create and name a database, add an entry and fill out the details from within the entry. Details would include the title of the entry, user name, password, URL and any notes you'd like to add. If any of these fields are inapplicable, you don't need to fill them out. You can also have the password "expire" on a specific date and time.

The feature I like the most is the password generator. Say you input your own created password, KeePass has a quality bar that tells you how good, or how bad it might be. If it's not up to par, you can generate a new password choosing from a 40, 128 or 256-bit hex key. 40 bit is roughly 10 letters/number password while 256 bit is 64. Or instead, you can use the generator and choose from several different options (brackets, spaces, digits, letters, length, etc) and a password will be generated for you. Keep in mind that if you go this route that you will need to replace the password in the backend of the program you're using with the password KeePass gives you (they need to match so you can log in).

Once you have the details set up, you can then forget your password. Visit the site or screen where you need to input your information, right click on the entry and "copy to clipboard" your user name and/or password. Then just paste it in the correct fields and hit enter.

You're now logged in!

A Few KeePass Features

KeePass has a few neat features that might interest some of you.

Passwords and Key Files: Aside from using a password to gain access to your database (the master), you can instead use a key file - or both.

Key File from KeePass.

TAN Entry: A TAN entry is a one-time password commonly used by outfits that need extra security such as banks and credit unions. Once you use the password, it expires.

Auto-Type: The auto-type feature was the only one that really interested me. What this does for you is automatically input your information (from your entry form) into the log in fields of the site or application you're trying to enter.

Note: This feature does not work with keylogger software such as KeyScrambler. If you want to use keylogger software, you will not be able to use the auto-type feature.

URL: KeePass also saves the URLs of the sites that you're saving passwords for. I found this to be pretty convenient as I all I had to do was click on the link on the entry form and then click "auto-type" for my user-name/password to be entered for me. Other protocols such as cmd://, ftp:// and mailto:. Anything that Internet Explorer supports (protocols), KeePass will too.

Summary of KeePass

KeePass is definitely a useful tool and one that I would recommend to anyone that needs to access and remember passwords for more than a few sites or programs.

The only real downside I noticed during my small trial run was the clash between using the auto-type feature and my keylogger software. But the auto-type is more of a convenience - it's not necessary. You can still use the copy/paste method or a drag n drop method which is also available.

KeePass also continues to improve regularly, as the software has been translated into almost 50 different languages. It also supports plug-ins for increased functionality. Download KeePass.

KeyScrambler – Protection against Keyloggers

Jake — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 15:17:48 +0000

As a poker player, it is imperative that you protect your site account(s) online. As technology advances, so does the ability for hackers, thieves and just general no good people to get a hold of your information.

One of the common ways that this is done is through a process referred to as keylogging. Keylogging is the act of keylogger software being placed in the path between your keyboard and the poker site youíre trying to log into. As you type, the keylogger software records the keys you use, gaining access to important log in information including your user name(s) and password(s). Using this info, thieves can then access your accounts where your bankroll is kept. And then before you know it, itís gone.

To help counter this, a company by the name of QFX Software has developed software that goes by the name of KeyScrambler. KeyScrambler is a program that does just what the name suggests - it scramblers your information by encrypting your keystrokes as you type. If anyone, or anything, is waiting in the operating path to pick up your information, they won't be able to. All of the encrypted information will be scrambled. It is then decrypted so the user can see what he or she is typing.

Keyscrambler encrypts your keystrokes so keyloggers can't record what you are actually typing.

Using KeyScrambler

Keyscrambler is only available for the Windows operating system. It only takes maybe 5 minutes to install from start to finish (for the personal edition) and there is no set up needed. It's ready to go out of the box so to speak.

Keyscrambler can be located to one of the 4 corners of your computer screen for easy viewing. This is easily changed through the options tab or through the arrows found in the overlay window. The overlay window can also be removed entirely in which case you'd then see the encryptions through the icon in your tray.

Keyscrambler encrypting a search on Google.

The 3 Different Versions

At the time of writing (12/8/2010), there are 3 different "editions" that are available for download.

Personal. The personal edition is KeyScrambler's free version of the program. This has very limited use, only protecting users in browser based applications. Only 3 browsers are supported (IE, Firefox and flock) and supported applications would include emails (yahoo, hotmail, gmail, etc), Java/Flash based programs and games. This is the version I used for the purpose of this article. I highly recommend that at the very least you pick this up.

Professional. The professional version is much more elaborate. In addition to the protected applications included in the Personal edition, it also protects users that utilize all the other popular browsers including Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, MSN and many others, The Pro edition will also protect users in other applications such as instant messaging, zip programs, text editors, music and online games like WOW and EverQuest. Poker players will be happy to know that the Pro version also protects your information when logging into platforms from operators such as PokerStars, Full Tilt and Party Poker. The cost for this Professional version is $29.99.

Premium. The premium version will do everything the other two will do as well as protect your information while using finance, tax/accounting, encrypting and networking applications. The cost for the premium version is only $44.99.

QFX Software offers discounts for purchasing multiple licenses. There is also a 60-day money back guarantee. There are no annual renewal fees.

Summary

After using this software, I'm definitely hooked. It's just a simple, yet really cool piece of software. I intend on upgrading to the premium version right away.

And for the price, it's a really cheap piece of mind if you play poker online (or conduct any business online). After all, without your bankroll, you canít play. So it makes sense to protect it any which way you can. KeySrambler is definitely a ìmust haveî piece of software for poker players. Get KeyScrambler

Online Security for Poker Players

Jake — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:47:21 +0000

Most of the poker players I know do almost nothing to protect their money from being stolen. In order to play well, you can't be thinking about the fact that you are throwing around hundreds or even thousands of dollars, and most players don't think of their bankroll as "real money" - It is just a tool, and your winnings aren't real before you have withdrawn them to your bank account.

This mindset is essential if you want to become a good player, but unfortunately it tends to make people forget that it is in fact real money that can be stolen. The poker rooms don't have as good security as banks, and it can be incredibly difficult to recover the money from a poker room account if there are stolen. To make matters worse, it is also difficult to get the police to investigate theft of money from a poker room account (I have first hand knowledge of that).

Why You Don't Want Your Money Stolen!

Since it is really, REALLY hard to recover your money if they get stolen, and suing the thief is going to be even harder, you have to make sure that your computer and poker accounts are secure.

How to Not Have Your Money Stolen

I have got a couple of tips on how to make your money really secure. Some of it may sound a bit technical, but it is really easy, and will actually make your life easier in the long run.

If you "haven't done much" about security, I recommend that you read Nat Arem's guide to online security right now!

I also have a couple of security related articles on PokerDatamining.net, but they aren't as beginner friendly as Nat's guide, and are more useful if you have a good grasp of how to secure yourself, and are looking for ways to beef up the security even more.

Should Hand History Collection (Datamining) Be Banned?

Matt — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 10:00:08 +0000

The argument for datamining is an ongoing one and has been for the last couple of years. There are people for it and people against it. This is despite the fact that players are losing the ability to datamine themselves simply because the option to buy hand histories from sites such as PTR or Hand HQ is still available.

There are definitely legit arguments for both sides, for datamining and against it. In this post, we'll explore a few of the most popular debates for both sides.

Arguments against Datamining

One of the biggest arguments against players who collect hand histories is that they receive all of this information without even having to play the hands themselves. In other words, when they sit down to play, they have all of this information on their opponents at their disposal right from the get go. Players against datamining feel as if this information should be collected or "earned" by playing the hands themselves.

Another really good argument is the fact that most sites prohibit players from using datamining software, buying hand histories from a 3rd party or sharing personal databases with fellow players. Sites such as Full Tilt Poker state clearly that any hand histories with hands that a player did not participate in gives that player an unfair advantage over their opponents.

In short, the "theme" for the argument against datamining is that it creates an unlevel playing field for those who do not use hand history collection software or services, let alone invest in tracking software.

Arguments for Datamining

From someone who is on the fence, but does sway towards the "for datamining" side, I have come up with a few arguments of my own as to why datamining should be ok.

For one thing, tracking programs and datamining is available to anyone willing to pay for it - it's not exclusive. So, it's hard for me to understand how players feel that datamining is so unfair when everyone can take advantage of it. These players can simply take the unlevel playing field and level it again.

Another thought I have is in regards to the comparisons made between online and live poker. Players against datamining state that you can't "track" or "collect" information on the players at your table. This is true to an extent. But from my very limited experience playing live, there isn't anything stopping your buddy from telling you that the "guy in seat 4 only plays aces" or the "girl in seat 5 check-raises all draws." This is information that you didn't collect on your own and is no different then what all the poker sites state as an unfair advantage.

What Do You Think - Should Hand History Collection Be Banned?

Although I'm more for datamining than against it, I can definitely understand the reasoning or thoughts for those against it. It's not hard to argue at all either - for both sides.

I think the real question is where do we draw the line? After all, tracking programs are still ok at most sites. This in itself can be viewed as a disadvantage, especially if you compare it to live play where all your reads are purely from memory. So should we ban tracking programs and HUDs too? You can even go as far as to say the same thing about making hand histories available to players period.

So, what do you think? Should we ban datamining or keep it around? Let us know in the comments below.

Free Hand Histories from Poker Table Ratings (PTR)

Jake — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:54:26 +0000

See how to get free poker hands from Poker Table Ratings.

Poker Table Ratings has just released a new promotion giving users a free sample batch of hand histories. Depending on the game, variation and stakes you choose, you could find yourself the proud owner of up to 10,000 hands.

I visited PTR today and had a look at their offer. I checked out how many hands a user can get if they're playing 6-max no limit hold'em and pot limit omaha.

For NLHE cash game players, you'll be able receive around 2,000 hands for most stakes up to the 100nl ($.50/$1) mark. From there it will fluctuate between 100 and 1,000 hands all the way up to 1,000nl ($50/$100).

If you're a PLO player, you'll be able to pick up about 3,000 hands for 10nl ($.05/$.10), 2,000 hands for 25nl to 100nl and about 1,000 hands for anything above 100nl. The exception would be 1,000nl where you'll only be able to pick up 140 hands.

Taking advantage of this offer is extremely easy to do. If you already have an account, you just go to PTR and go through the motions of choosing what hand histories you'd like to have. Once done, just checkout. If you don't have an account, you'll need to set one up. This is easy to do too and takes only a few minutes.

Once you have your hand histories, you can use them in the same fashion as the purchased ones. You can use them in your replayer to review games or you can import them into tools such HEM, PT3 or Poker Office and use them with your HUD.

If you have any questions at all, you're encouraged to contact the team at PTR using the email, info@pokertableratings.com. We also have several guides on our site on how to buy and use hand histories including a review of Poker Table Ratings, a guide to buying hand histories and an explanation of how to benefit from buying hand histories.

Buy Cake Hand Histories

Jake — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 01:40:26 +0000

On this page you can see a list of sites that sell hand histories from Cake Poker.

Cake Poker is somewhat unique when it comes to buying hand histories and datamining, since they allow players to change their nick every 7 days.

This means that buying hands won't give you all the same benefits that you may be used to at a different poker room - Especially when it comes to keeping track of the other regulars at the room.

You can still use the hands to improve your table selection and get basic reads on the wast majority of players, but you will not be able to amass huge amounts of hands on the regulars, as you may have gotten used to.

The hands are still worth the price, but I would recommend that you buy smaller batches of hands than you are used to and add on a subscription to get fresh hands delivered each day. That way you will have the best information that is available under the circumstances, without having to break the bank.

Buy Cake Poker hand histories

Where to Buy Cake Hand Histories?

At the moment, there are only 1 website that sell hand histories from Cake: Poker Table Ratings.

Fortunately PTR has good coverage and are fast to deliver the hands you purchase, and everything went well when I reviewed them a little while ago.

I'm pretty sure that the other hand history resellers won't start gathering hands from Cake any time soon, since the network is relatively small, and the frequent changes of player names takes some of the benefits from buying the hands away.

Buy hands from Poker Table Ratings

Guide to Poker Datamining and Buying Hand Histories

Jake — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 00:52:12 +0000

This page gives you an easy way to find information about datamining and buying hand histories.

I have created it because a lot of people come to this site looking for things that are really hard to find - like a place where you can buy Fixed Limit Omaha hand histories or hands from PokerStars.fr.

When you click on a topic, you will be taken to a section about it and a link to where you can get more information.

Purchasing Hand Histories

Buying hand histories
- Cash games
  - Hold’Em
  - Omaha
  - Stud
- Tournaments
  - SNG
  - MTT
- Poker rooms

Poker Datamining

Datamining
- Cash games
- Tournaments
  - MTT
  - SNG
- Poker rooms

If you can’t find an answer to your question on this page, please send me a message so I can update the page and others won’t get disappointed.

Buy Hand Histories

If you are looking to buy hand histories, and want to know more about how and where to do it, I recommend that you start out by reading this guide: How and where to buy hand histories.

You can also read the reviews of hand history resellers:

Each review contains a video showing you how to buy hands from the site, and how they will be delivered to you.

Buy Cash Game Hand Histories

It is easy to find a place to buy cash game hand histories, since this is what most people are looking to

buy.

See a list of sites that are selling cash game hand histories

Buy Hold’Em Cash Game Hand Histories

Hold’Em cash games is by far the most popular type of poker played online. As a result of this the hand history resellers have a heavy focus on Hold’Em hands. The main focus of the sites is on No Limit hands, but they all have a pretty good selection of Fixed Limit hands too.

You can currently buy Hold’Em hand histories from:

If you are looking for hand histories for rarely played games like CAP No Limit or Pot Limit Hold’Em, you can currently buy them at >Poker Table Ratings.

You can read a guide here: Guide to buying hand histories

Buy Omaha Cash Game Hand Histories

Pot limit Omaha has become fairly popular online, and as a result many hand history resellers have begun selling PLO hands. You will find some large differences in poker rooms and stakes the different hand history databases cover, so depending on where you play, you may have to shop around to find the hands you are looking for – especially if you want Fixed Limit or PLO CAP hands.

You can buy Omaha cash game hands here:

If you are looking for Fixed Limit Omaha hand histories or PLO CAP hands, you can find them at >Poker Table Ratings.

Buy Stud Cash Game Hand Histories

I currently don’t know of any place where you can buy Stud hand histories.

The site most likely to start selling them is >Poker Table Ratings, since they are currently selling hands form a lot of the less popular games.

Buy Tournament Hand Histories

Most of the hand histories that are for sale today are from cash games. There are more people looking to buy cash game hands, and it is also easier to collect the hands, since cash games don’t start/end as often as tournaments.

If you are looking to buy tournament hand histories you best bet is >Poker Table Ratings, who has recently added hands from Hold’Em SNGs to their selection.

Buy SNG Hand Histories

There are not a lot of places where you can buy SNG hand histories, as a matter of fact, I only know of one: Poker Table Ratings.

You can read about Matt’s experience buying SNG hand histories from >Poker Table Ratings in this blog post.

Buy MTT Hand Histories

At the moment don’t know of any site that sell MTT hand histories, and I don’t think it is something we will see added anytime soon. The reason is that MTTs aren’t as easy to datamine as cash games.

The players don’t have to join the individual tables, so it can be tricky to find a list of MTT tables currently running. In addition you have to open a colossal amount of tables each time a new MTT is started and close them down as players gets knocked out.

If there were a large demand for MTT hands it would definitely be possible to figure out a way to get around these problems. Until then you will have to rely on your own hands and data from sites like www.officialpokerrankings.com and www.sharkscope.com that collect the tournament results.

If anybody is going to start selling MTT hands, it will probably be >Poker Table Ratings.

Buy PokerStars Hand Histories

Since PokerStars is the world’s biggest poker room, you can buy their hand histories from every self-respecting hand history reseller.

Buy PokerStars hand histories.

Buy PokerStars.fr Hand Histories

You can buy PokerStars.fr cash game hands from Poker Table Ratings. The amount of hands available is much smaller than for the main PokerStars site, which is to be expected, since there are fewer players on PokerStars.fr. I haven’t had a chance to try out PokerStars French site, but judging from their traffic numbers I think PTR has pretty good coverage of the site.

Buy PokerStars.fr Hand Histories at Poker Table Ratings

Buy Full Tilt Poker Hand Histories

Since Full Tilt Poker is the world’s 2nd largest poker room any self-respecting hand history reseller has a good selection of their hands.

Buy Full Tilt hand histories.

Buy Party Poker Hand Histories

Party Poker is nowhere near as big as PokerStars and Full Tilt poker, but it is still easy to find a place to buy hands, since they are sold by almost all the hand history sellers.

Buy Party Poker Hand Histories.

Buy Bodog Hand Histories

Bodog is a relatively small poker room, so it can be a bit of a headache to get a good supply of hand histories. You can buy hand histories from Poker Table Ratings, but you may have to order fewer hands than you are used to with rooms like PokerStars – There just aren’t a lot of games running, so even though the coverage is quite good, the amount of hands available is limited compared to other rooms.

Buy Bodog hand histories.

Buy Ipoker Hand Histories

Despite most rooms on the Ipoker network being fairly small, the network itself is actually very big. This means that you won’t have any trouble finding a place to buy hands, even though the site you are playing at may not be that big.

Buy Ipoker hand histories.

Buy Everest Poker Hand Histories

Everest Poker is a bit of a strange fish compared to most other poker rooms. Historically they have had a very strong focus on international players translating their website and software to a large amount of different languages, but today many of the large rooms have now caught up and now have their websites available in even more languages than Everest Poker.

Due to the fact that Everest Poker is fairly small there currently aren’t any site that sell hand histories from the site.

Buy Cereus Hand Histories

The Cereus network consists of Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. Personally I would not touch any of those two sites with a 10 foot pole due to their history of cheating scandals, but I realize that you may not feel the same way.

Buy Cereus Hand Histories.

Buy Pacific Poker Hand Histories

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Pacific Poker. The games at the site tend to be soft, and after several years they have now upgraded their previously horrible software. Unfortunately this doesn’t the fact that they still tend to have minor screw-ups that just doesn’t inspire confidence. Recently I have had them send me 6 identical emails in one day and have their poker software show popups in a language I couldn’t read.

I suspect that this general screw-up-ness that haunt the room may have played a role in hand history resellers not selling hands from the site.

Buy Ongame Hand Histories

It used to be easy to buy hands from the Ongame network, but today you may have to do a bit of digging. The network is still quite big - almost the size of Ipoker, but recently they have taken a lot of flak from players about their software (I’m not a fan myself).

Buy Ongame hand histories.

Buy Entraction/B2B Hand Histories

The Entraction network, also known as "B2B", Is quite small compared to networks like Ipoker and Ongame. Despite this Hand HQ are collecting and selling hand histories from them. The selection of hands are limited compared to other networks and sites, since there just aren’t that many games running, so even with very good coverage you just can’t get a lot of hands.

Buy Entraction/B2B hand histories

Buy Cake Poker Hand Histories

Cake Poker is a relatively small network that allows their players to change their nick every 7 days. This means that you won’t benefit as much from buying hand histories as you would at other rooms and networks. You can compensate to some degree by buying a subscription where you get fresh hands daily, so you are always have a decent sample, but it still won’t get you the same level of insight as you get at other site.

Buy Cake Poker hand histories.

Poker Datamining

I originally created this site to help people get started datamining. Unfortunately Idleminer, the company that created pretty much all the software used for datamining, has sold their domain name to Poker Table Rating. You can read more here: The Day Poker Datamining Died

I’m confident that this means that datamining will slowly die out, and everybody will migrate to buying hand histories instead. I like Idleminer, but as a result of the sale I do not recommend that anybody buy their handgrabbers unless you "have to", since I basically expect them to slowly shut down the company and stop updating the handgrabbers.

I have kept many of the datamining guides I have written, since they are still helpful for a lot of people, including those who has already purchased a hangrabber. You can see a list of topics and poker rooms at the bottom of the page.

Cash Game Datamining

Cash games have always been the main focus of datamining, since it enables you to improve your table selection quite a bit. In addition cash games are much easier to datamining than tournaments (MTT), where tables are constantly shut down as players are eliminated.

As a result the developers of handgrabbers focus on cash game support, and have usually added on tournament support as a bit of an extra feature.

Hold’Em, Omaha and Stud Datamining

Datamining has always been focused on Hold’Em, since it is the most popular variant of the game. Part of the reason for the lack of Omaha and Stud handgrabbers is that it took some time before pokertracking software for Omaha and Stud were developed – Nobody would want to gather thousands of hands without any way to analyze them afterwards.

You can still buy some Hold’Em handgrabbers from Idleminer, but like I explained in this blog post I don’t recommend that you buy them.

Omaha and Stud datamining is definitely possible, but I have never seen any handgrabbers for those games being sold publicly.

I recommend that you buy the hand histories instead:

Hold’Em
Omaha
Stud

Tournament Datamining (MTT and SNG)

Datamining has always been focused on cash games. There aren’t any sites that sell handgrabbers for either MTTs at the moment, and I doubt that there ever will be.

I think the closest you can get is buying SNG hand histories.

Guides to Datamining Poker Rooms

I have made guides for datamining on most of the major poker rooms. Unfortunately the company that created the software you use (handgrabbers) has sold their domain name, and as a result I no longer recommend that you buy anything from them – It wouldn’t make sense to sell the domain name if the wanted to continue doing business. For what it is worth, I think the development of the market pretty much forced Idleminer to sell, since people are moving from datamining themselves to buying the hands.

I strongly recommend that you buy hand histories instead of datamining yourself.

I have left the guides online, since they are still useful for those, who have already purchased a handgrabber:

How to Benefit from Buying Hand Histories

Matt — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 10:00:23 +0000

Up until recently, when I started to do research and write about purchasing hand histories, I never considered buying hand histories for myself. I didn't have a reason to - or at least I didn't think I did. To me, buying hand histories seemed to be a waste of money and figured that if I wanted hand histories, I could just play and collect them myself using my heads up display (HUD).

However, as I've been doing all of these posts and video reviews, I have given more thought as to why I might buy them and more importantly, how I'd benefit from purchased hand histories.

And so that's what this article is about. Below, I give my thoughts as to why I might consider buying hand histories and the benefits of doing so.

Benefit #1: Find Regulars

A big benefit to buying hand histories is finding out whom all the regular players or "regs" are. This is a benefit because your strategy will (should) change significantly between a reg and a random player. For example, in a sit and go if a random player shoves like 7 big blinds, I'm only going to isolate with my mid aces or better and something like pocket 8s or better. However, if a regular player shoves, I'm able to isolate as wide as my mid kings, some queen-x hands and possibly all of my aces (this is simply because I'm aware of the "reg" whom I assume has a clue on how to play +EV).

In short, knowing if someone has a clue is a ton of knowledge in itself. And you can quickly reap this benefit by purchasing hand histories.

Benefit #2: Table Selection

A benefit to buying hand histories and finding out who all the regs are is being able to table select around them. You just pass money back and forth while paying the rake when you sit at a table full of regs. However, when you know who they are, you can focus on finding and sitting down with all the fishes.

Benefit #3: Review Winning Players' Games

A benefit that I'm sure most people haven't thought of is being able to review other winning players' games. While you cannot (always) see their hole cards, you can still get a feel for how tight/loose they are, how often they steal, their bet sizing and other things. Every so often you'll see these players show down a hand and then you can go back through the entire hand and dissect it street by street or play by play.

Benefit #4: Learn Basic Strategy

Something else I thought I could benefit from by buying and reviewing hand histories is learning basic strategy. Take sit and go's for instance. Many players when first starting out have no clue about the push/fold aspect when you're around 10 big blinds or less. They make the mistake of raising with <10bbs and then folding. However, by purchasing and reviewing hand histories you'll notice that a majority of winners are in push/fold mode when they're short stacked. You might also notice that a basic strategy amongst winning players is that most raise when they're first to enter a pot as opposed to limping in. These are just a few of the many basic strategies that you might pick up when reviewing purchased hand histories.

Benefit #5: Have Stats on Everyone

An obvious benefit of buying hand histories is having tons of stats on everyone. Instead of having to wait 10, 20 or 30 hands to have an idea of how tight/loose someone is or how often they raise verses limp, you'll know all of this from the get go with purchased hand histories. Having these stats right away will mean your decisions will have more defined reasoning or reads behind them as opposed to being vague, if not somewhat unsure.

Benefit #6: Stats Are More Relevant With Large Samples

Not only will you have more stats on everyone when you buy hand histories, many of the stats you have on players will be more relevant. What I mean by this is that if you have 100 hands on someone, their stats and ultimately your decisions can be skewed by such a small sample. However, if you have 1,000 hands on someone, then their stats will reflect closer to their actual tendencies. The more hand histories you buy, the more stats you'll have and the more accurate your stats and decisions are.

Benefit #7: Easier to Play Different and/or New Games with Small Samples

If you like to play multiple games or want to try a new game, you can buy hand histories so that you can review how the game is played, the basic strategies that is implemented and have the stats on your opponents when you sit down to play for the first time. So even though you'll technically be new and may not have a big edge in the games you're sitting down to play, with purchased hand histories you'll lessen your learning curve and increase your chances of being successful.

Final Thoughts on Benefits from Buying Hand Histories

Anyway, I guess the point is that even though I never considered purchasing hand histories in the past, you can bet that with all the benefits I listed above I would definitely consider buying them now. The cost is relatively small, especially when you compare it to the money that you'll either save or make by using purchased hand histories.

You may also want to read: The best places to buy hand histories

So, what do you think? Are there any benefits that you can think of that come from buying hand histories? Let us know in the comments below.

Contact

Jake — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:21:27 +0000

If you want to get in touch with me, just fill out the form below, and I will get back to you in two shakes of a lambs tail.

I love getting feedback about the site, so I can make it an even better resource.

Cheers,
Jake

P.S. I do not sell hand histories. If you are looking to buy hands, you need to talk to these guys.

[contact-form-7]

Please do not contact me about link exchange schemes, buying/selling links or "SEO" services.

What HUD Stats Should You Use?

Matt — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 10:00:37 +0000

When I first bought my HUD, got it installed and running, the biggest question that I had was, "what stats do I need?" I'm sure I'm not alone here. There are more than 200 different stats (Hold'em Manager) that players can choose from. This is a lot, especially since you need to narrow this down to a reasonable number and fit all of this information on your screen. With so many to choose from, my biggest concern was that I might leave a stat out - one that might prove to be useful in a middle of a session. In the end, setting up what is supposed to be a useful tool ended up being a slightly stressful task.

If this sounds like you, I might be able to help. Although it will really boil down to personal preference and while this is far from a complete list, I have come up with what I feel are the stats that all players should have in their heads up display and a few that will more or less do nothing but take up space.

Useful Heads Up Display Stats

VPIP: Voluntarily Put $ In Pot is going to prove to be one of the most useful stats you'll ever have on your heads up display, especially if you play more than a handful of tables. This stat tells you how often a player puts money in the pot (either by calling or raising). You'll get an idea real quick of how tight or loose someone (their range) is using the VPIP stat.

PFR: The preflop raise is another important stat. This stat will tell you how often someone limps in or raises preflop. This will give you an idea of how aggressive or how passive a player is.

Hands: This stat displays how many hands you have on a certain player. The more hands you have on someone, the more reliable and relevant the rest of the stats on this person is. Including this stat in your heads up display should be a no-brainer.

3-Bet: I find that the 3-bet stat is quite useful. With the games getting more aggressive, it's good to know if a certain player is capable of re-raising your raise with air or if they're doing it purely for value.

Fold to C-Bet/3-Bet/Steal: These stats are must haves! In fact, I color code all of these stats in a shade of green (for money, duh). The higher the percentage, the more often these players fold to a c-bet, 3-bet or steal. You should try to target these players and get involved in a pot with them whenever you have a chance.

Useless Heads Up Display Stats

Name: I feel that this stat takes up too much space - space that can be occupied by a more useful stat. Not only that, but virtually every poker site displays the player's name somewhere near the avatar and number of chips the player has.

Limp: The limp stat is pointless to use simply because you can get a decent idea of how much someone limps by using the PFR stat. If someone has a very lose PFR stat (especially in comparison to their VPIP stat), then you know this person hardly ever raises when they enter a pot aka they limp or over call.

Bet: The bet stat (bet flop, bet turn, bet/fold turn raise, etc) is another stat that I would avoid. Aside from the fact that I don't think you'll use it very often, I feel that there are better stats to use that won't be nearly as vague. For example, what would you need a stat like "bet flop" for? Most guys who bet the flop are c-betting (there is a stat for that) or are donking the flop (there is a stat for that as well). The bet turn/river can give you a good idea of how likely a player is fire a 2nd or 3rd barrel when bluffing, but most of your opponents don't play often enough for the stats to become accurate.

HUD Stats: Which Ones Do You Use and Which Do You Avoid?

Like I said above, these are the stats I found to be the most useful or useless for the games I play. But this is from my own trial and error and is far from being complete, much less right or wrong.

So, do you agree with my list? Is there any stat that you find useful that I left out? Or would you muck any of my favorite stats? Let us know in the comments below.

The Day Poker Datamining Died

Jake — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:12:29 +0000

Idleminer - The company that has created the handgrabber software that let poker players datamine, has sold their domain name to Poker Table Ratings.

This is my take on what has happened and what it means to us poker players. I don't have any inside information, but running this site has given me a pretty good understanding of how companies like Idleminer and Poker Table Ratings work and do their business.

Why Idleminer.com were Sold

The number of people who datamine has been on the decline since 2008 since it has become so cheap to buy hands that for most people, it just isn’t worth the hassle to collect the hands themselves.

As a result of this, it's likely that Idleminer hasn't been earning as much money as they used to. This also explains why their Everest handgrabber never got out of beta, as well as why they have removed the Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker handgrabbers from their site.

What this Means to Us Poker Players

While some of us will definitely miss the old Idleminer, I think that the sale to Poker Table Ratings is one of the best outcomes that we could have hoped for. There is no way that a company like Idleminer could have survived by selling handgrabbers, so they would eventually have had to start doing something else or go out of business. Either way, we would have been left without updates to our handgrabbers.

Since Poker Table Ratings are using Idleminer’s domain as a way to advertise their hand history service, it is in their own best interest that they don’t piss off Idleminer’s old customers. If Idleminer had disappeared over night and been replaced with a PTR banner, we would all have seen them as "the big evil company that killed Idleminer".

I’m guessing that part of the sales agreement between PTR and Idleminer is that Idleminer has to keep creating “minor updates” to their products for a number of months, and I think the excerpt below supports this:

They agreed to leave our products on the site and forward us customer inquiries. We'll continue to do some basic maintenance for the foreseeable future, until we feel we have done right by our loyal customers.
http://idleminer.com/node/156

Conclusion

Idleminer’s handgrabbers will keep working until the poker rooms make a big upgrade to their software, in which datamining as we know it will effectively be dead. Then the only way to get datamined hand histories will be to buy them.

HUD Stats – Defining Common Stats and Their Purpose

Matt — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:00:44 +0000

Poker HUD software is one of the most useful tools that an online poker player can invest in. It provides the information you need without having to keep tabs on each opponent on every table that you have up. This is great for you since you can then have more tables open at once, thus earning a higher hourly rate.

However, despite their usefulness, I feel that HUDs can also be the cause of some confusion for many players - especially when they get their hands on the software for the first time. Personally, I had a hard time knowing one stat from another much less knowing how to interpret the data and use it to my advantage. This was my biggest issue when I first purchased my HUD and something I still struggle with to this day (with stats I don't use regularly).

If this sounds like you, then you're in luck. I have created a guide below that outlines the most common HUD stats, what they mean and how to use them while playing. You'll become a HUD master before you know it.

10 Most Common Poker Heads Up Display Stats and What They Mean

VPIP: VPIP is an abbreviation for "voluntarily put money in pot." This is the most common stat used by online poker players today. To use this stat, the higher the number (percentage), the more often this player puts money in the pot to see a flop aka he's loose. The lower the number, the less frequently someone puts money in the pot to see a flop. These players are generally tight.

PFR: PFR is an abbreviation for "pre flop raise." It's the second most common stat used and is often used in addition to VPIP. This stat tells you how often someone comes in for a raise when they first enter the pot. Generally the lower the number, the more passive or calling station-y a player is and the higher the number, the more aggressive a player generally is.

TIP! When used together, you can learn quite a bit from a player based on their VPIP/PFR stats. For example, if an opponent has stats of 8 VPIP/4 PFR, you know that this player is tight aggressive and has a very small hand range. When this player opens, you will only want to continue with monsters. On the other hand, if a player has stats of 25/8, you know that this player is loose and will limp with a lot of trash and only raise his good hands.

In short, combining more than one stat together will tell you a lot about a player's tendencies as opposed to only using one stat.

AF: AF stands for aggression factor. This stat tells you how aggressive someone is overall, or can be filtered on a street by street basis. I don't use this stat much myself, but from the little experience I do have with it at lower stakes, a 0 or 1 aggression factor is fairly passive while 2-3 is a bit closer to normal. Anything higher than a 3 is starting to get overly aggressive.

3-Bet: The 3-bet stat simply tells you how often someone is prone to 3-betting. The higher the stat, the more often they 3-bet, thus the more bluffs they have in their range. From my experience, anything higher than a 9% 3bet (in a full ring sit n go or MTT) approximately will start to include bluffs instead of just value hands.

Fold to C-Bet: The fold to c-bet stat will tell you how often someone folds to a flop c-bet. The higher the number, the more your opponent plays a fit or fold style. The higher the number, the more you should c-bet. A lower percentage will tell you that your opponent likes to float a lot which means you should c-bet less and/or plan on double barreling more often.

Steal from Button: The steal from button stat is very useful. The higher the stat, the more air a player is likely to have in their button range. This means that you should start to widen up your 3-bet value range or defend wider from the blinds.

Flop C-Bet: The flop c-bet stat is the opposite of the fold to a c-bet stat. This will tell you how often someone c-bets the flop. If someone c-bets with a high frequency, they likely have many bluffs in their range. You can counter this by bluff-raising the flop or by floating the flop more often (might depend on how often they double barrel) to try to either take the pot away on the turn/river or to get to showdown with a wider range of value hands.

Check Raise Flop: The check raise flop stat gives you an idea of how often someone might check raise the flop. The higher the number, the more air a player has in their range. This means you can call with a wider value range or 4bet with a wider value range.

Fold Turn/River: I don't use the fold turn or fold river stat myself, but I can see how it would be useful. This stat will give you an idea of how often someone floats the flop and then folds to a turn or river bet. The higher the percentage, the more often you can double barrel these players with success.

Squeeze: The squeeze stat tells you how often someone will try to raise/shove in attempt to pick up dead money. The higher the number, the wider their squeezing range. If they have a wide squeezing range, the wider you can 4 or 5bet raise/shove for value.

Summary of Common HUD Stats

Hopefully this list of common HUD stats cleared up any questions that you may have had. As you can see, most of these stats are straightforward and easy to understand. They are even easier to use after some practice and you'll surely find that they help you to make better decisions which leads to making more money once you learn how to use several stats together to make a read on an individual opponent.

Should You Buy Hand Histories?

Matt — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:00:39 +0000

Buying hand histories is an investment like any other poker tool, book, software or resource that helps your game improve. And while reasonably priced, especially when compared to other means, buying hand histories can still add up over time with prices ranging from $10 to $200 per batch.

So the question is - should you buy hand histories? And to answer that question, I have listed some of the variables you should consider before doing so.

6 Things You Must Consider Before Buying Hand Histories

How often do you play
How many tables do you run at once?
What games do you play?
Do you play only one kind of game?
Do you need to table select?
Is buying hand histories acceptable at the room you play at?

Note: After writing the article I realized that I had forgotten about the most important thing:

Where to buy the hands?!

How often do you play?

This is pretty simple. If you are more of a part time player or someone who only plays on the weekends, then buying hand histories may not be in your best interest. Sure, you will still benefit from buying hand histories and more often than not recoup your money, but if you don't play other than to have fun, you probably won't get the most out of having purchased hand histories.

If, on the other hand, you play regularly and/or seriously, then buying hand histories might definitely be an option worth doing.

How many tables do you run at once?

The reason why the number of tables you run at once is important to consider is simply that the more tables you run, the more you're likely to rely on your poker heads up display (HUD). And if you're going to rely heavily on your HUD, then it's a good idea to purchase hand histories so you can have as much information at your disposal as possible. The fewer tables you play at once, the less likely you'll need your HUD, therefore the less useful buying hand histories become.

What games do you play?

While there is definitely merit to buying hand histories if you're a sit n go player, I think there's more merit to buying them as a cash game player. The reason being is that sit n go's are pretty much cut and dry. You are really only concerned with a player's vpip/pfr and maybe 3-bet stats. So, mostly preflop stats. This is different from a cash game where you're playing much more and need stats for post flop. You might want stats for how often someone squeezes, folds to c-bets or check raises the turn whereas those stats aren't nearly as useful in a sit n go.

Do you play only one kind of game?

If you're the type of player who plays sit n go's, cash games and MTTs and then all the different poker variations, you might not have spent ample time in any one game. For this reason, you might want to consider buying hand histories so you can have the same amount of information in each game that a player would have if he or she spent all of their time playing that one game.

Do you need to table select?

Some of the micro stakes games are so soft that you don't need to table select around the regulars.

However, once you start moving up to higher stakes and/or tougher games, you will want to table select so you can sit at the fishiest tables possible. Buying hand histories will make this task much easier to accomplish since you'll be able to see who all the regulars are before you ever sit down to play with them.

Is buying hand histories acceptable at the room you play at?

This is one of the most important variables to consider since this variable carries the biggest consequence. It's a good idea to check out your site's terms and conditions or FAQs page to see if they're ok with you buying data-mined hand histories. If they don't have the answer listed anywhere, then you definitely will want to contact their support.

Where to Buy the Hands?

There are several good sites that sell hand histories, but none of them cover all of the different poker rooms and networks. Below you can see a list of good reliable hand history resellers and which networks they each sell hands from.

The links will open in a new window when you click them, so can easily return this article.

Hand HQ Fast Delivery
Poker Table Ratings Popular Choice
HH Dealer Good for Repeat Buyers
Poker Hand Scout Best for Repeat Buyers
Hand-Histories Best for Europeans
HH Smithy Great cheap service

You can read more about the list here

Whether to Buy Hand Histories or Not?

Again, the cost of buying hand histories is minimal, especially when you consider the benefits you'll reap from having them. However, they still are an expense (and sometimes a big one if the poker room you play at doesn't approve) and one that affects your bottom line as a poker player. So, the best thing to do is figure out how much you need them and how likely you are to benefit from them and go from there.

HHDealer Video Walkthrough

Matt — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 00:53:38 +0000

We have added a new addition to our HHDealer Review page. The new addition is a video review which is much like our written review of HHDealer except only in video form. We walk you through HHDealer's site, show you what sites are supported, how to go about purchasing hand histories (including your payment options and what emails to expect) and last, but not least, we tested our hand histories by importing them into Hold'em Manager.

Hopefully this video was just as helpful as our written review of HHDealer. Any questions, concerns and comments are welcomed and very much appreciated. Did you enjoy the video? Were you able to buy hand histories with no issues once you watched the video? Please let us know in the comments below.

Poker Table Ratings Video Guide

Matt — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:23:05 +0000

We have added a new section to our Poker Table Ratings Review. The section we have added is a video review which is similar to our written review of Poker Table Ratings. It covers how to set up an account, how to find the buy hand histories page, the steps you go through to purchase hand histories and lastly, how to download your hand histories to your computer and upload them to Hold'em Manager.

Questions, concerns and most importantly comments are welcomed and very much appreciated. Did you enjoy the video? Were you able to buy hand histories with no problems after watching the video? Please let us know in the comments below.

SNG Hand Histories from Poker Table Ratings (Review)

Matt — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:29:23 +0000

This guest post about the new SNG hand histories from PTR has been written by my good friend Matt.

Hey guys. My name is Matt. Jake asked me to review the new SNG hand histories from Poker Table Ratings since I play more sit n go's and MTTs than he does. With that said, my experience with PTR is minimal at best, as I've not purchased hand histories in the past. So, this review will cover a little bit of my overall experience with them as well.

Buy SNG Hand histories
(from Poker Table Ratings)

My Experience at PTR Buying SNG Hand Histories

My overall experience at PTR was definitely a positive one. From a first timer's perspective, I found it extremely easy to navigate their site. This made finding the hand histories page a breeze.

In order to buy a batch of hand histories, I needed to go through a real simple 3-step process. The first step is choosing which room you wanted hand histories from, the second is choosing your game (in our case it's sit n go's) and the third step is choosing how many hand histories you wanted to purchase.

For the first step, I actually checked each of the 7 rooms to make sure SNG hand histories were available - and they're not. The only rooms that SNG hand histories are currently provided for is PokerStars and Full Tilt. This makes some sense to me seeing as how they see 2-3 times the sit n go traffic than any other site, but I do hope that they start to offer these hand histories for other sites in the near future.

The second step is where I check out their new SNG hand history options. While they're definitely on the right track, sadly, there are several options that I felt were missing. I'm a multi-table tournament (MTT) SNG player, so I would've liked to see options for 18, 45, 90 and 180-man SNGs. The options that are available are 2, 4, 6, 9 and 10 max SNGs with variations including turbo, knockout, double or nothing and of course, standard. All betting structures and buy-ins up to $100+ are covered.

I decided to purchase the $6.50 9-max SNG hand histories from PokerStars. In step 3, I purchased 200,000 hands for $18 which I paid via PayPal. The transaction was smooth and without problems. Once purchased, I was immediately given a link to download my hand histories which took all of maybe 2-3 minutes to download. After I downloaded them to my computer, I imported them in Hold'em Manager so they can be used with the HUD, and there were no issues there either. I was able to look at my opponent's stats and replay/review each game.

PTR SNG Hand History Conclusion

I feel that the SNG hand histories from Poker Table Ratings would be a reasonable purchase for those who are looking to get up to speed as to who the regulars are in the games they wish to play or for players who spend lots of time studying their opponents away from the tables. The price is reasonable too, especially if you consider that once you buy a batch of hands you're offered a monthly subscription deal which when I looked was $9 for 6k hands (180k/month) delivered daily. This is actually a much better deal than my initial purchase of $18/200k hands. New subscribers are also given a 14-day free trial when they sign up for a monthly subscription.

If you want to buy SNG hand histories, just follow this link directly to the order page.

Note: If you not sure who the heck Poker Table Ratings are, and would like to know more about them before you buy, just have a look at Jake's Poker Table Ratings review.

Poker HUDs and the Dangers of Addiction

Jake — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:25:38 +0000

A poker HUD is a poker player’s greatest weapon in the online poker world. It provides instant, up-to-date stats that help you make the best decision possible in every situation – or so it would seem. The problem with poker HUDs is that they can just as easily turn into a crutch and stunt your growth as a poker player.

As great as poker HUDs are, it’s important to make it a point not to become too reliant on them. It is all too easy to get into a rhythm of opening up eight tables, turning on your HUD and then zoning out while you play a tight, ABC game and clear your next poker bonus. That’s actually not a bad way to make money. But in the long term, this can stunt your growth and lead you to developing expensive habits.

Learn to Play First

Before you turn on your HUD, make sure you know how to play solid poker. I’m not just talking about knowing how to fold 72o from under the button. I mean, you should know how to deal with light 3-bettors, how to extract the most from fish, how to beat the rocks and so on. Sure, you can turn a profit without being a particularly adept player, but that just puts a cap on your future earnings.

The same thing goes for all you experienced players as well. Every once in a while, it’s not a bad idea to get a little practice without your HUD. Join a shorthanded or heads-up game and polish your skills. It may not pay immediate dividends, but it will help you immensely in the long run. Plus, knowing how to play without a HUD always helps in live poker situations.

Simply using a HUD won’t make you a bad player, by the way. I’m sure that if we picked any random, winning HUD-user and dropped him in the middle of a live game, he would fend for himself just fine. The thing is, you want to make sure you don’t let your HUD make all your decisions for you. It might sound old-fashioned, but there’s still a case to be made for making reads that aren’t based on math.

Consider HUDs a Tool

I don’t want it to sound like I’m bashing HUDs here. I think they are a must-have tool for every serious poker player. The only problem with HUDs is that it’s too easy to use them to think for you. I know that I’ve fallen into routines where I make decisions based entirely on the stats – not on the flow of the game, betting patterns or the opponent’s recent history.

The best way to think about HUDs is to consider them a tool. Use HUDs to provide you with extra information that you otherwise wouldn’t have. When you make a decision, make a conscious effort to consult every source of information you have. Not only will you make more well-rounded decisions, but you will also become better at thinking your way through difficult hands.

This article were written by my friend Wes. If you liked the article, and would like to see more of his writing on the blog, please leave a comment below.

Poker Datamining Blog

Jake — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:35:29 +0000

Thank You!

Jake — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:09:31 +0000

Thank You! is a post from: www.pokerdatamining.net. Copyright 2009 - No duplication without written permission. Hi there... Thanks a lot for subscribing to my newsletter. It may be a little while before you hear anything from me, since I only send out an email when I have something important that I want to share. Cheers, [...]

Poker Table Ratings Review

Jake — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:59:48 +0000

Review of Poker Table Ratings' hand history selling service.

Most people know PokerTableRatings.com from their tracking of cash game winnings on the major poker networks accompanied by pretty graphs showing the players tendencies and wins/losses. Although that stuff is interesting, it is not what this review is about

In order to keep their player database up to date, PTR gathers a mindbogglingly large amount of hand histories each day. They sell these hands, so people like you and me can get extra information on your opponents by importing them into our Pokertracker or Holdem Manager database.

I haven't been using PTR for very long, but so far I'm a happy customer. I got access to my hand histories shortly after purchasing them, but the download took a little longer than what I'm used to. They also gave me a free 2 week trial of a hand history subscription service, which is a very nice bonus (more about that to come later).

Buy Hand histories
(Poker Table Ratings)

Video Guide

Matt has made a delicious video walkthrough showing you PTR works, and how to use the hands after you buy them.

Supported Poker Rooms

PTR cover the 4 biggest poker networks as well as the Cereus network and Bodog. At the moment they are the only site that sell hand histories from Bodog, so if that is where you are playing, you should definitely try their service..

Full Tilt Poker
PokerStars
Party Poker
Ipoker
Cereus (Absolute Poker/UltimateBet
Bodog

Game Coverage

PTR cover NL and FL Hold'Em on all the sites they support. In addition they have quite a lot of Omaha hands from Fullt Tilt Poker, Cereus and PokerStars, both FL and PL.

In addition they track the CAP NL Hold'Em and CAP PLO games on Full Tilt Poker separately.

If you want to see how old the hands you are buying are, all you have to do is to go through the order process and stop at step 3, right before you add the hands to your cart and are asked for your payment details. This lets you see exactly when the hands you are buying were gathered.

Poker Table Ratings let you see the age of the hands before you buy.

Since PTR has to keep the player statistics on their site up to date they collect more hand histories than their competitors. While this is a nice feature, it don't have that big of an impact for most people, since the difference between getting 1.000.000 hands that were gathered the past week compared to during the past 2 weeks isn't significant when using the hands for HUD stats.

There are, however, groups of people, who will benefit immensely from all the extra hands. Most noticeably those who buy more than 2.000.000 hands at a time, and those who want hands from NL10$ or lower, since the other hand history sites tend to have bad coverage at those stakes.

Subscription Option

While PTR don't sell a subscription where fresh hand histories are sent to your daily each day, it is available as an "upgrade" after you have bought a batch of hand histories from them.

When I signed up, I got a 2 week free trial, but I think that may have been a limited time offer, so you may want to ask support if it is still available if the absence of the free trial would be a deal-breaker for you.

Delivery of Hand Histories

When you buy hand histories from PTR you will be sent an email with a link to where you can download them. This usually happens within an hour, but if you are buying several million hands at a busy time of the day, you may have to wait a little while longer.

Your old purchases will be available for download on their website under My PTR, which is very handy if you accidentally delete your local copy.

Payment Options

PTR has a pretty good selection of payment options, which I have listed below.

PayPal
VISA
Mastercard
American Express

I used my VISA card to buy from them, and everything were straightforward and without any issues, and while I can't speak for the other payment options, the whole process were very polished, so I would be very surprised if you had any issues with your payment.

If you can't use any of their payment options, you could deposit to your PayPal account and use that to pay. If that isn't an option you may want to have a look at Hand HQ, who has a couple of different payment options.

Support

I haven't tested PTR's support yet - I will be sending a couple of anonymous emails to them with weird questions one of the coming weeks to see how fast they respond.

Overall Impression

Poker Table Ratings runs a pretty tight ship, and from what I have seen so far, they are a very good option (maybe even the best) if you are looking to buy a lot of hand histories at one time.

Their daily hand feed subscription is attractive, but at the moment Poker Hand Scout's subscription is slightly better for many stakes and much cheaper.

I will definitely come back to PTR to buy hands, not only because of their coverage but also the fast delivery.

See Poker Table Ratings' hand history selection.

Get Crazy Amounts of Hand Histories from PokerHandScout.com

Jake — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:41:21 +0000

I'v just had a look at PokerHandScout.com and noticed a little trick that let you get an insane amount of hand histories for almost no money.

Truth be told, you aren't really "tricking" them, since you are just taking advantage of the way they have set their prices, so don't feel bad for them when you run off with 5.500.000 hand histories for 20$

Before I get into how you can get the hands , I need to explain a bit about how the site works.

Buy Hand histories
(Poker Hand Scout)

How it Works

PokerHandScout.com sell hand histories in 2 different ways:

Bulk - This is the "normal" way of buying poker hands. You choose how many hands you want and send them some money, and after a few hours you get all the hands.
Retail - This is basically a 4 week subscription, where you will get access to all the hands they gather at the stakes you choose.

This is all explained on the website, but what they don't tell you is that you will be getting many more hand histories by choosing the retail option.

When you are ordering, they actually show you how many hand histories they have gathered during the past month, so it is easy enough for you to do the math.

Example

Lets take a look at the coverage they have at NL100$ 6-max at PokerStars - I got this overview by going through the order process and stopping right before the checkout (where you pay them money).

Poker Hand Scout coverage of PokerStars NL100$ 6-max.

As you can see they gather roughly 70.000 hand histories each day.

This means that if you buy retail (4 week subscription) you will be getting 2.000.000 hand histories!

Right now the retail price for PokerStars NL100$ is 20$, which is the cheapest you will ever see anybody see anybody selling 2 million hands for, and they will probably start charging more soon, so be sure to check their current prices.

The craziness doesn't stop here tough. You can include HU and full ring hands in your retail package at no extra charge, so at PokerStars NL100$ you would actually be getting 5.5 million hands!

In addition you would be getting the hands daily, which gives you the advantage of always having fresh hands and up to date stats on your opponents.

I know this may sounds crazy, but if you spend 2 minutes on their site you can see that I'm not lying.

Hand-Histories.com: Hand History Site for Europeans

Jake — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:07:23 +0000

While I were away on a short hiatus a couple of new hand history sellers have popped up, one of the more interesting ones is Hand-Histories.com.

When I first heard about Hand-Histories.com the first thing that came to mind was "Why the heck do we need another hand history site?".

Buy Hand histories
(Hand-Histories.com)

What Makes Hand-Histories.com Different?

Hand-Histories.com sets itself apart from the pack of hand history databases by taking payment in euro instead of dollars.

This is extremely good news for those of us who live in Europe, since we no longer has to pay outrageous exchange fees each time we want to buy a couple of hand histories.

This alone makes Hand-Histories.com the number 1 choice for hands histories for anyone living in Europe.

I hope to write a more in depth review soon, but just wanted to give you all a little heads up about the exiting news.

Until then, go check out the euro price signs

Buy Entraction (B2B) Hand Histories

Jake — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:04:22 +0000

List of sites that sell hand histories from the Entraction network (formerly known as B2B).

Entraction is a small poker network, and it has only recently become possible to buy hand histories from there. Many people also call the network for the 24H Poker network, since the company that own the network has their own site called 24H Poker.

The network were formerly known as B2B, but changed their name to Entraction in late 2007. Even though that was 4 years ago, many players still call the network B2B, which can be a bit confusing if you have just moved to the site.

Where to Buy Entraction Hands

At the moment there are only two sites selling hands from the Entraction network: Hand HQ and Hand-Histories.com. Both sites seem to have similar coverage, but Hand HQ has better prices. So I'd recommend shopping there first.

Buy Entraction Hand Histories from Hand HQ

If you want to know more about Hand HQ or Hand-Histories.com, I have written a bit about my experiences with them below.

Hand HQ

I'm not sure for how long I have been using Hand HQ, but it's got to be at least a couple years. First I used them when I was playing, then I used them so that I can write reviews and articles for this site.

When I have bought hand histories from Hand HQ, they have always delivered them very fast. I timed it when writing an article about their service and it took them 50 minutes from payment to delivery, which is quite impressive considering the logistics involved. Their prices are impressive too. From the small sample I've reviewed, they're +20% cheaper than Hand-Histories.com when buying in bulk.

I haven't spent much time with their support, since I have never had a problem with their service. I have, however, asked them a couple of questions about the hand histories they are selling, and have always gotten an answer back within 24 hours (usually much faster).

Buy hand histories from Hand HQ

Hand-Histories.com

Hand-Histories.com is my second recommendation for Entraction hand histories. In fact, they're the only other option you have in addition to Hand HQ.

My experience with Hand-Histories.com has been a positive one. I purchased hands from them for the purpose of writing an article and had my hands within 15 minutes. What I liked about Hand-Histories.com was that you could buy multiple packages and never receive the same hands twice.

Another benefit to buying from Hand-Histories.com is their subscription service. This is a better way to go if you're in need of fresh hands regularly. It's more cost effective too, as it can cost 1/4 to 1/2 as much than it does when buying in bulk. It'll be more cost effective than buying through Hand HQ too, seeing as how buying in bulk (from Hand-Histories.com) will cost you 20% more (than Hand HQ).

Buy Entraction hand histories from Hand-Histories.com

Summary: Where to Buy Entraction Hand Histories

Our choice for the best site to buy Entraction hand histories is Hand HQ -- but it's not by much. If you take the bulk hand history price out of the equation, the sites are then equals. They both have solid coverage, several payment options and quick delivery, making them both solid options for your hand history needs.

Datamining vs. Data Mining

Jake — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:39:08 +0000

Explanation of why some people call it "datamining" while others prefer "data mining".

Arguing over how to spell ~~data mining~~ datamining is nitpicking at its finest. But I seem to end up discussing it time and time again, so in this article I will once and for all why I spell it the way I do (without the space)

Data Mining

If you look up "data mining" in the dictionary, you will find something like this:

Data mining
"The technique of identifying patterns and relationships within large databases through the use of advanced statistical methods."
Dictionary.com

This is much closer to what you do when using Pokertracker or Holdem Manager to browse a database containing the hand histories you have gathered. Calling the process of collecting the hand histories for data mining isn't really fitting - regardless of how you spell it.

Datamining

I personally prefer using the term "datamining". I treat it as a different word and different meaning than "data mining".

So what is datamining you ask?

Well, it is the process of collecting hand histories from poker games that you aren't participating in yourself

The word may originally have come from a misspelling/misunderstanding of "data mining", but so has many of the other words that we use today.

The whole discussion can be summed up like this: When you are datamining, you are not "mining" the data(set)to extract pattern, you are mining online poker tables to extract data, which you can later use for data mining.

Advanced Datamining on Absolute Poker

Jake — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:00:43 +0000

Video showing how to use the table opener in Absolute Idleminer to have your computer datamine automatically.

It can be difficult for new dataminers to get started with some of the more advanced datamining techniques. Relatively few people datamine to begin with, and very few set take the time to automatize it.

In this video I show how to set up your computer, so it will automatically datamine Absolute Poker (Cereus network) using the handgrabber from Idleminer.

If you haven't used that handgrabber before, I recommend that you download the handgrabber want my introduction video first. Otherwise some parts of the video may not get the full benefit of the video.

In the video I show how to set up Absolute Idleminer to use its built-in table opener in combination with filters, so it will datamine exactly the kind of tables you want, without you having to stay to open/close them. I also show how you can set up your computer so it will start datamining whenever your screensaver goes on, effectively eliminating the need for you to spend time on datamining manually.

Advanced Datamining on Absolute Poker

Download Absolute Idleminer (the program I use in the video)

Absolute Poker Datamining Video

Jake — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:23:51 +0000

I have added a short video to the page about datamining Absolute Poker.

I have created a short video showing how to get started datamining on Absolute Poker on the Cereus network.The handgrabber I use is fairly advanced and offer a lot of extra features, so it can be hard to get started, especially if you have never datamined before.

In the video I show how to use the handgrabber, and later import the hand histories I have gathered into Holdem Manager, which I hope will make it easier for you to get started.

If you are new to datamining it may be a good idea to download the handgrabber before you watch the video, so you can follow along while watching.

Download Absolute Idleminer (the program I use in the video)

Datamining Confusion: Absolute Poker and Cereus

There has been a bit of confusion about the handgrabber and what it does. The root of this is that it were originally created for Absolute Poker before they merged with Ultimate Bet to form the "Cereus network".

While most handgrabbers will work with any site on a poker network, the handgrabber for Absolute Poker only works there and not on Ultimate Bet, even though it is on the same network.

This can cause a bit of confusion, since handgrabbers are often named after the network, so you will see a lot of people (including me) referring to Absolute Idleminer as a "Cereus handgrabber".

The reason is that it technically is a handgrabber for the Cereus network - It just doesn't support more than 1 skin.

Advanced Datamining on Party Poker

Jake — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:00:48 +0000

Video demonstration of the advanced features of Idleminer's Party handgrabber.

This is a follow up to the Party Poker datamining video, where I showed the basics of datamining on Party Poker. In this video I show how to use some of the more advanced features of Idleminer's Party Poker handgrabber to set up your computer to automatically datamine when you are not using it.

While it can take a little bit of time to set things up and make sure that everything works, you will be happy afterwards. You will be datamining more efficiently, and spend less time overall, since you won't have to worry about making sure that you are datamining "enough" tables.

When setting up the handgrabber to datamine automatically, be sure to spend some time fine tuning the filters so they are as similar tot the games you play as possible. If you usually don't play at tables with less than 4 players, just exclude them in the filters - You will be better off having the handgrabber avoid those tables and open full ones instead.

Download the Party Poker handgrabber (used in the video)

I do not recommend that you set up your computer to automatically log in with an account that has money in it.

Party Poker Datamining Video

Jake — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:24:27 +0000

I have added a short video to the page about Party Poker datamining.

The video will show you how to get started datamining on Party Poker using the handgrabber from Idleminer. If you would like to know more about Idleminer and their Party Poker handgrabber you can my thoughts on them in the Party Poker datamining guide.

In addition to datamining, the video also show how to import hand histories you collect into Holdem Manager, so you can use them to get stats on your opponents while playing. Please note that the hand histories also works with other pokertracking programs like Pokertracker 3 - I choose to use Holdem Manager in the video because that is what I use when I play myself.

Before watching the video you may want to download Idleminer Party (the handgrabber I use in the video). That way you can follow along on your own computer while watching the video.

Download Party Poker Idleminer (the handgrabber I use in the video)

Hand HQ Video

Jake — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:43:35 +0000

The Hand HQ review has been updated with a video showing how to buy hand histories and import them into Holdem Manager.

I have created a short video guide showing how to buy hand histories from Hand HQ. If you have never bought hand histories before, it should give you a really good idea of how the order process works and how to get your new hand histories from the web and into your Holdem Manager og Pokertracker database.

During the videos I buy 800.000 hand histories from NL50$ HU on PokerStars and import them into Holdem Manager. I also show you how you can check when the hand histories you are buying were datamined and discuss the benefits of signing up for a (free) account at Hand HQ.

If you have never used Hand HQ before, I recommend that you open the Hand HQ website (opens in a new window) and browse it while watching the videos below.

Go to Hand HQ

Buying Hand Histories from Hand HQ - Part 1

Buying Hand Histories from Hand HQ - Part 2

Go to Hand HQ

Everest Datamining Video

Jake — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:00:10 +0000

I have added a short video to the Everest Poker datamining guide.

Last month Idleminer released Everest Hand Grabber which made it possible to datamine on Everest Poker.

The video is fairly short and only cover the basics, but if you haven't datamined on Everest Poker before I think it is worth to watch. It will help you avoid some common pitfalls like not being able to datamine because you launched the programs in the wrong order.

You can watch the video below. If you find it difficult to make out the details, there are a bigger version on YouTube.

Download Everest Poker Hand Grabber (this is the handgrabber I use in the video)

iPoker Datamining Video Guide

Jake — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:00:32 +0000

The guide to datamining iPoker has been updated with a video.

Even though iPoker Hand Grabber is pretty easy to use, it can be a bit confusing if you haven't used it before. Therefore I have created a short video showing how to get started datamining on iPoker.

If you have a hard time seeing the details on the video below, there are a larger version on YouTube.

Download iPoker Hand Grabber (this is the program I use in the video)

You can see more videos like this one in the Poker Datamining YouTube channel

Bodog Datamining Video

Jake — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:42:59 +0000

I have added a short video to the Bodog datamining guide.

The video show you how to collect hand histories on Bodog Poker and import them into Holdem Manager.

If you aren't interested in datamining and only want to collect hand histories from the games you participate in you will still need Bodog Hand Grabber, since Bodog doesn't automatically save hand histories that can be imported into Holdem Manager or another pokertracker.

If you want to save your own hand histories, you should set up Bodog Hand Grabber as described in the video, and then "datamine" the tables while you are playing on them.

You can watch the video below.

Download Bodog Hand Grabber (this is the program I use in the video)

How to Datamine on Bodog Poker

Jake — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:19:54 +0000

Some poker rooms consider datamining to be an unfair advantage.
I don't have the time to stay up to date with the changes the poker rooms make to their T&Cs, so be sure to check them yourself.

Introduction do datamining on Bodog Poker. Please note that you use the same technique for saving your own hand histories.

Bodog doesn't save hand histories to you hard drive when you play. This means that even if you just want hand histories from your own play, you will have to datamine. While this may seen annoying at first, it also means that there are a lot of players who are datamining on Bodog, so the tools have been thoroughly tested and are very easy to use.

If you want to start datamining on Bodog, I recommend that you use "Bodog Hand Grabber" from Idleminer. It is easy to use, and has a free trial so you can make sure that it works on your computer before you buy it.

Bodog Hand Grabber

It can be debated whether or not you are datamining if you only save hand histories from games you participate in, but since you use the exact same technique to collect them regardless of whether or not you participate in the games, I will be referring to both kinds of hand history collection as "datamining".

Bodog Datamining Video Tutorial

The video below will show you how to use Bodog Hand Grabber to datamine on Bodog and import the hand histories in Holdem Manager.

Towards the ending of the video you will see that Holdem Manager is importing more hand histories than I datamined in the video. This is because I went though the datamining process right before recording the video, to make sure that I could remember how it worked, and I didn't realize that I had forgotten to delete the "old" hand histories before I had almost finished recording the video.

Bodog Hand Grabber
(mentioned in the video)

Datamining on Bodog Poker

In order to datamine on Bodog, you will need a handgrabber. I recommend Bodog Hand Grabber from Idleminer, since it is very easy to use.

In addition Idleminer has been making handgrabbers for a long time, and has always made sure that their handgrabbers still work when a poker room update their software. Some years ago the developers of a Bodog handgrabber called Dogwatch disappeared when Bodog made an update that caused the Dogwatch handgrabber to stop working. I don't mean to "scare" you into choosing my favorite handgrabber, but I think it is something worth considering.

When you first install Bodog Hand Grabber it will automatically start a free trial. This means that the handgrabber will work exactly as if you had purchased it, until you have datamined 1000 hands, after which it will stop working until you buy it.

After the Install all you need to do is start the handgrabber and make sure that it is "on" (see screenshot below).

Bodog Hand Grabber - As long as it is "on" it will save hand histories from any open Bodog table.

Then the handgrabber will save hand histories from any Bodog table that you open, both tables you play at and those where you only observe the action. It works both when you have the tables visible and when they are minimized, as long as you doesn't close them down.

If you are an experienced dataminer, you may be used to having a table opener that automatically open and close tables to make sure that you are always datamining the highest possible amount of active tables. Unfortunately Bodog Hand Grabber doesn't have a table opener built in (there are no other Bodog handgrabber with a built in table opener). There are currently no publicly available table opener for Bodog either, so you will either have to open/close the tables manually or buy hand histories.

If you would like to get started datamining on Bodog, I recommend that you download Bodog Hand Grabber and use my video tutorial to see how to use it.

Poker Software

Jake — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:16:02 +0000

List of (non-datamining) poker software that I think you should know about. Below are a list of poker software that I use, or have used and think you may enjoy. The list mainly focus on advanced software that will help you improve your game, but if I find a remarkably useful, but simple, tool, I'll probably list that too.

PokerStove

PokerStove is a poker odds calculator, which can calculate your chance of winning a hand down to the last digit. It is much better than online odds calculators, since it can base its calculations on a range of hands, instead of just a single hand. Visit PokerStove

Pokertracker

For several years Pokertracker were the pokertracking software. Today they have a lot of competition from Holdem Manager, and it is hard to say which program are best. Visit Pokertracker

Ultimate Poker Search

Ultimate Poker Search is a handy little site that will show you poker sites that fit certain criteria fx. offering 5 Card Stud and accepting Moneybookers deposits. Read what I think about Ultimate Poker Search. Visit Ultimate Poker Search