Poker Office and Poker Manager are softwares which allow an online poker player to quickly and easily become a much better online poker player.
Different players have different preferences to specific software, but essentially they are a means of providing real-time feedback on both you and your opponent’s performance in a game.
From only a quick glance at the screen a player can look at a series of statistics including; how much they raise pre-flop, the percentage of flops they have seen and even statistics like the odds remaining on the current pot.
The latest versions of these softwares feature the ability to view an opponents mucked hands and for the more scientific-minded poker player there are features to display all of these statistics on custom-made graphs, providing an unprecedented level of analysis to the previously casual player.
So what can the purists among the online community do, when faced with softwares such as Poker Office or Poker Manager?
Well, there are a few things of varying effectiveness; firstly and perhaps the least popular of the available options…
>If you can’t beat them, join them.
It may seem like conceding defeat but one solid option is to join the masses and get some third-party help of your own.
>A more difficult and maybe more frustrating option is to try and develop a style of play which combats this analysis.
>The final option is to try and conceal your identity from your opponents. It is not unheard of for sponsored players to be allowed, by their sponsors, to change their on-screen identity every week. Doing so acts as a form of disguise and thus prevents opponents from taking notes on them for any meaningful length of time.
If you do decide to fold and join the multitude of players using third-party softwares in your playing sessions, you should always check which softwares the host site prohibits. These will almost certainly include softwares that share hole card data with other players, and those which work from a central database of player profiles or stored hands.
