Using Poker Calculator Tools to Exchange Hand Histories

Your poker calculator may be collecting more information than you know, or even make use of. Other than the normal odds calculations, hand group rankings, and even bet or fold recommendations, hand history is something that a lot of users value most with poker assist software. This is especially true for cash game players.

Hand history research can be a valuable analysis session for you – but of course – learning how to use it and taking that extra time to delve into your collection of hands is somewhat of a measurement of how much you really want to improve.

You can analyze hand histories in two ways. The first is using a program like poker-spy that collects all the bets, opponents, pots, position and results of every hand you play. It then saves them for you to analyze later in a myriad of grids and graphics that shows you in some quick easy steps your playing style and some weaknesses you may have in your game. This isn’t that new but poker-spy also keeps a running tally of the last 17 hands in a grid that also puts out alerts about you and your opponents.

If you use one of the more hard-core hand history analyzers like poker tracker, poker sharpener, or poker prospector, then hand history analysis takes on even deeper implications whereby you start to get a better look at your opponents play as well.

There is also the more difficult issue as identified by some of the major poker sites and their security protocols of hand history exchanging. This is particularly problematic with Poker Tracker where a network of cash game players have built up a database of opponent playing profiles through their own table monitoring, then tabulate that data and make an exchange with another player. Suddenly someone’s hand history file can go from 20,000 hands to 50,000 entrapping that many more players while doing so.

Notwithstanding the fact that this type of activity is completely not allowed by Poker Stars and many other sites, it’s extremely difficult to police, so there is a huge policy challenge there for them.

Among the higher end cash game players this is a common practice, and some forums even have connection facilities to help with such exchanges. So if you are looking to exchange hand histories (files) with another player (computer), let it be known that you are surely entering the dark side, and may find yourself in murky circumstances. So be sure you can trust the source of a file exchange.