Poker Office

Poker Office advertises itself as the most sophisticated tool on the market for Online Texas Hold'em Poker.

I was astounded by the amazing amount of data and features found in this software.

Before getting into the nuts and bolts of the review, I would like to say that you can download Poker Office for a free trial at their home page. Just click on one of the banners

Player Statistics

Poker Office compares favorably to other Poker software out there in terms of player statistics. Here is a listing of features that you receive.

1. You can examine overall sit and go performance by site with details of ROI and placing information.

2. You can view the hands played by round along with information regarding voluntarily entered hands, steals and folds to steals, showdown information, and pre-flop raise percentage.

3. You can input notes for each hand for future review.

4. You can play back hands with the built in hand history re player.

5. You can view hands played by position.

6. You can view what each player went to showdown with and how often they won with that hand.

7. You can view built in profit graphs (Profit/Tourney, Profit/Day, Profit/Week) and create your own custom graphs.

8. You can use the hand analysis tab to view your starting hands and your actions (every bet, check, fold, etc) for the complete hand.

In Game Play:

While other tools compare admirably to Poker Office in player statistics, I believe in-game play is where the software separates itself from the competition. The table overlay functionality is built-in for most of the supported sites and puts the following statistics on screen.

a) The number of hands played against an opponent

b) The number of times they saw the flop

c) The player's Turn/River%

d) The player's Pre-flop Raise percentage

e) The pot odds

In addition, the action each player has taken during the hand is provided on screen with a series of symbols. For example, a player who checked pre-flop, bet the flop, and bet the turn would have X I B I B under his name to indicate his actions. I found this extremely useful in figuring out what the player was doing. I didn't have to replay the hand in my head and my decision time was drastically reduced as a result.

There is also a pre-programmed auto rater which provides you a picture and color indicator of the player's type. For instance, a tight aggressive (pre-flop), neutral (post flop) player would be a symbolized using a red flag; whereas a loose aggressive (pre-flop), passive (post flop) player is represented by a green man.

I contacted support as to whether the criteria used to autorate the sit and go players is the same as the criteria for cash game player and they told me that it was. I agreed with the pre-set assessment for the cash games I played, but sit and go players will have to construct their own method of using the autorater. Personally, I used the autorater for about the first 30 hands, and I marked all of the tight players versus the loose players in the notes section. I then further refined my assessment as I watched their bubble play and I placed my final assessment in the notes section as the player exited the table.

As if the overlayed statistics weren't enough, the live window contains more valuable statistics. Pre-flop, it gives you the Sklansky hand rank for your hand. You immediately know the strength of your hand along with the odds of you hitting every imaginable hand. Post flop, it provides you with the "Nut" hand along with what you are holding (nothing, top pair, etc), so that you know where you stand in the hand. The most valuable feature, however, of the live tracker window is that it calculates playable odds, compares them to the pot odds and provides a color coded indication of whether or not you are getting the proper odds to call. It basically tells you what to do, and all you have to do is push the correct button.

The beautiful thing is that you get all of this data, and it supports multi-tabling. In my opinion, This is just a tremendous in-game application.

Usability of Software:

I found the software self explanatory and easy to use. The interface was easy to understand, and I was able to use it within a few minutes after minimal toying around. The speed of the post game analysis tools is good, but I did feel like the game was slower when I had the live tracker window open. My speculation is that the calculation process was slowing the response from the server, but I haven't been able to verify that.

The users manual for version 2 is complete and online. There is an online support forum. Plus, e-mail support responded to my questions about the software within a day. I don't think getting support for this product will be a problem.

One minor downside I noticed during my play is that I got fixated on all of the data. It is a lot of data to absorb and it may be too much. With all the information presented, you have to always keep in mind that the person you are playing is Human. That means that the right decision by the software is not always really the correct decision.

Conclusion:

After reading this review, I think it is pretty clear that I would recommend Poker Office for all but the most casual players.

With PokerOffice the in-game functionality is so well developed that it provides you with a serious advantage at the table without the use of add on programs and available in tournaments and cash games. I feel that the self analysis tools are excellent in PokerOffice.

sign up for Poker Office here