Online Poker Tracker: What Is It and Which are Best?

Thanks to online gaming and some relatively sophisticated online poker tracker software, just about anyone can have a high intuitive poker success.

Intuition—or the ability to perceive truth and fact with only the slightest bit of available information—has long been the hallmark of great poker players. They were the steely-eyed, stone-faced card-smiths who seemed to know just when you're bluffing and just when you're strong. Chips roll in their direction.

Poker tracking software was originally billed as a training tool for online players. The idea was that you could record your own poker hands, track your winning percentage, and analyze your calling and betting strategies to improve the way you played. But online poker tracking has evolved. Today, players use tools like Poker Tracker 3, Poker-Edge, or Shark Mate to gain a competitive advantage. They arrive at virtual Hold'em tables with an exhaustive history of their opponents' play, including winning percentage, aggressiveness, calling percentage, or even their likelihood of trying to bluff on the flop.

Combined with an online poker calculator , online poker tracker tools allow online players to manage their hands to statistical perfection. Shark Mate even lets a player scout virtual tables, looking for weak or overly aggressive opponents before a player commits to an open table.

Essentially, online poker trackers come in two varieties, those trackers that provide you with player profiles and those that help you build your own player profiles. Poker Tracker 3 and Poker Office teach you how to capture playing information from digital tables at leading cyber poker parlors like Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars. This information or data is stored on your computer where you can access it as you play via the trackers interface or a compatible heads-up display tool. The next category of trackers actually maintain player data for you and simply give you access to profiles through their interface, Shark Mate is an example.

Exactly which poker tracking tool works best is really a matter of opinion with many a pundit arguing for their favorite and espousing its features and functions. Poker Tracker 3 claims to be the most used tool, while Poker Crusher claims to have one of the largest databases of player information, so ranking based on users or databases size can also be a matter of taste. Below are the most popular tools by rank of their web pages. I would tend to agree that the below are all really good and comparable.

1. Shark Mate (Shark Mate downloads has been having problems lately)

2. Poker Tracker 3

3. Poker Crusher

4. Poker Office

5. Poker Mate

But poker tracking is not without its shortfalls. Some in the industry believe that it is unethical to use the tools, and that some poker trackers—especially those that offer heads-up player information—might actually be in violation of site rules or some laws. Also, some worry that the extremely tight play, which online poker tracking tools can lead to, will eventually hurt players as so much information creates smaller and smaller pots or money is simply shuffles money back and forth between small cadres of nearly perfect players. There are other sources that can help you be successful at poker besides poker trackers, including an Online Poker Aide.

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