Even though they are well worth their modest cost (roughly $70), it is possible to get these online poker tools for free ! All you have to do is to sign up to a new poker room, deposit some money, possibly play a few hands, and the poker tool is yours for free!
Do not make the mistake of getting the wrong poker tools. I have paid hundreds of dollars trying out every poker tool available. Read my reviews to make the best decision.
My Recommendations:
I recommend running at least three tools when you play poker. I run Poker Edge and Poker Office always in the background, they provide immensely useful information on your play and your opponent's play. I always have a poker calculator working, Holdem Indicator is my favorite for general use, but when I can I also use Holdem Hawk (when the poker room allows me!
Poker Office is a sophisticated online poker tool that I use instead of Poker Tracker. Used in conjunction with Poker Edge, I have a very powerful online poker statistics set up. It allows you to view the other player's betting patterns and their statistics, as well as analyze your own play (like in Poker Tracker) so you can find weaknesses in your game. There are win rates, statistics reports and graphs and the ability to replay any hand, tournament or session. As far as I am concerned it is absolutely essential for online poker playing.
Poker Edge: There are a number of different tools which do a broadly similar job, but this is my favorite. The others are too difficult to set up and not reliable enough. Poker Edge tracks the play of a huge number of players so you can see statistics of everyone on their enormous database. This can tell you which players you want to avoid and who you want to play against - very important factors in making money at the table. I run this software every time I play poker and it has been very very helpful. Almost every poker professional has software like this set up! You are giving away a huge advantage if you do not have it. Like the others its free if you sign up for a new poker room!
Holdem Indicator: This is one of the very best tools out there. I recommend this completely. The free license is available when you sign up to many poker rooms listed below. The HUGE benefit of this program is that it enables you to see your opponent's mucked cards at showdown! This is not illegal and you are entitled to see you opponents mucked cards at showdown, but some rooms choose not to allow this. This is very useful information as it can tell you what your opponents are willing to call you down with. It has made me a lot of money! Holdem Indicator also has a basic players tracking guide for classifying player that you are playing with. All in all this is probably the best poker odds calculator on the market.
At the very least I recommend that you get Poker Edge, Poker Office and Holdem Indicator. When I can, instead of running Holdem Genius, I run Holdem Hawk which is a more powerful tool, but unfortunately it is so good that Poker Stars ban people from using it. It works with many other rooms though! If you play at rooms which allow it
Remember these are all free so you obviously have nothing to lose in getting them all.
A Word on Other "Tools":
You may have heard about many other tools that you can buy. Be warned that most of these are scams.
Poker Bots: As well as being illegal in poker rooms, these are very easily detected. Once the poker rooms find out that you have been using a poker bot, they will ban you for life!
Hole Card Predictors: These are just plain scams. They do not work. Whatever the makers claim, there is no way to beat the random number generators that the poker rooms set up as the billion pound poker rooms hire the best mathematicians in the world to set them up and they are constantly changing!
View Your Opponent's Hole Cards: In this scam, they send you software (for a large fee!) that you have to install on your opponent's computer without them knowing, and have running whilst you both play. Then you have to dodge the poker room as they have tracking software and this tool is VERY illegal!
These "systems" are not worth your money. You are much better off getting the tools below for free!
Good luck at the tables!
Andrew
