Poker Analytics Blog

DC Players Stories : Chad Power

Chad Power, 30 years old, Washington DC.

You might remember him from his 26th place in the 2015 WSOP Main Event but Chad is primarily a live high stakes cash game poker player with more than $500k winnings in live tournaments!

Poker Analytics: Hello Chad! Thank you for doing this interview with us.

First thing I’d like to ask you (there’s no way around this one) is how you got started in poker? Were you playing live or online?

Chad Power: I started playing $5 home game tournaments after the Chris Moneymaker Boom.

Poker Analytics: How did you grind your way up to the top? Have you ever gone broke during this period?

Chad: I eventually started playing $1/$2 cash games in the casino. I had very little money and only a buy in or two as a roll. I built up a $10k roll a couple times but blew it playing blackjack. The second time I went broke I decided to start playing online. I played $0.01/$0.02 and grinded up to bigger stakes. This gave me the experience and skills I needed to start beating live poker for much more. Once I got to the high live stakes, like $10/$25, I realized that the value in live poker is much different than online, and I started studying less and trying to network more.

Poker Analytics: If you have any advice to give to people that want to follow your path up to the High Stakes, what would it be?

Chad: When you’re just getting started you should be studying more than you are playing. Once you’ve begun to move up in stakes, take a good look at where your skill set is. If you want to try to be the best in the world at game theory and you love to study, develop that part of your game. This will lead to you playing high stakes vs the best poker players in the world. If you are more suited to play, entertain, and have fun while making sure others have fun, start to network and set up fun games with players. This will lead to big games vs very wealthy people. For me, I was better suited for the latter path, and I’ve made a lot of really good friends and connections that would help me in life outside of poker more than poker ever could.

Poker Analytics: Do you like using Poker Analytics 5? What is the feature you like the most? How do you use the app? Do you use it more for bankroll tracking, results or the hand history replayer?

Chad: I enjoy Poker Analytics. I like the layout and interface better than my previous app. I don’t use nearly all the functions it has. I stick to results and stats. Results for tax purposes and stats for fun. I don’t track bankroll or location in the app, nor have I recorded a hand history, but if I had this when I was younger and putting more effort into learning then I would use all of those functions.

Poker Analytics: Thank you Chad ! Here is the last question, what can we wish you for 2019?

Chad: I’m setting up a big game in Scottsdale Arizona, and hoping that it plays as big as I’m expecting it to. Expecting it to be one of the biggest and best games in the country. No rake, and hoping I run good!

Thank you for this Interview @chadmfpower and GL for your future projects !

Android Plan

If you follow us on social media, you might have heard that we’re going to finally, after 7 years of presence on iOS, have an Android app!

We took our time, it is very true, but since the beginning we wanted to validate our business model before jumping in the multi-version-app pool, and maybe find ourselves unable to properly maintain multiples apps at the same time.

So we’ve already started developing Poker Analytics on Android as a native app from scratch, as we want to provide the same great user experience our iOS users have.

You might have seen a few screenshots as we’ve already started developments, and we’ll soon be ready to hit the Google Play Store.

Current state of the History screen, pretty close from the iOS version!

That being said, we want to tell you a little bit more about our approach: we’re definitely a little bit late to the Google Play party, so we want to put the app in your hands as soon as possible.

What that means is that we’re going to push features progressively. We’re hoping to ship a first version with a minimal set of features:

Session tracking: cash game & tournament
History
Stats

With this you’ll be able to start tracking your sessions and have basic stats along the way.

After this, we’ll focus our efforts on providing all screens related to the most important figures: bankroll, graphs, reports and of course the beautiful calendar!

Only when reaching that point will we start putting subscriptions in place. That means tracking will be unlimited for free until then!

After that, we’ll still have plenty to do as we’ll have to add hand histories and much, much more, so please be patient and see you soon on Android!

What do we do with your data?

“My data must be automatically saved somewhere right?”

The answer is no.

When designing Poker Analytics, we made the choice to build an offline first app. We want you to be able to access your data at any time, even if you have no network. For us, that means that the data is yours and that we cannot access it. It means that we don’t know how much you win or lose, what notes you have on other players, or how you play your hands.

It also means that you’re in charge of your data. You have to make sure to backup your data and that’s very important. You lose your device, you lose your data…unfortunately we cannot help you. However there are ways to fix this:

iCloud backups: You can activate your data being saved on Apple servers. You can do this under More > Settings.
XML backups: Manual data saving from the app. You should regularly send yourself backups.
Device backups: You can save the whole content of your device, including Poker Analytics, either on iCloud or directly on your computer.

Also, we don’t own any servers. If your data is stored on iCloud, please note that we still have no access to it.

That said, we want to be fully transparent and say that we do collect some data, but more precisely anonymous data only. We use Google Analytics to learn about the general app usage. With this service, we can learn the number of users we have each day, or how much time is spent in Poker Analytics on average, and more useful information like crashes. (Side note: When setting up your device or installing a new iOS version, Apple asks you whether you’d like to give developers crash data, please say yes, we like crash data!)

Additionally, on some occasions, we log events to learn more about specific usages. For example, we wanted to learn the ratio of live & online use, or how often sessions are logged in the app. Please understand that this is all anonymous and grouped data so it’s really impossible to track anything back to specific users.

Your data is in your hands.

Currencies

In Poker Analytics, since a long time ago, you have the ability to use multiple currencies.

Here is how it works:

You have a default display currency. When we calculate results from multiple bankrolls with different currencies, we use your default currency. For example, when looking at your Stats screen, we use that one. To change it, go in More > Settings > Currency. (see first screenshot)
When you create a session, you specify its bankroll. Each bankroll has its own currency, so the session will use your bankroll currency. If you want to change it, when looking at a specific bankroll, tap on Edit to change its currency. If the currency used is different from your main, you’ll be able to specificy the conversion rate with the main currency. (see second screenshot)

That’s it! You can contact us if you have more questions on the subject!

First screenshot shows how to edit your default currency. The second one where to edit your bankroll currency.

Poker Analytics 5

It’s finally here, freshly released on the App Store!

First of all, we’d like to thank all beta testers! We’ve fixed a lot of bugs thanks to you, and all your comments has been very helpful.

This version is the result of all the feedback accumulated through the years. We know some features has been asked since a long time and we’re very happy to finally bring them to you. We’ve tried to bring you a fastest, clearest, more comprehensive and more complete app to show you the most meaningful poker statistics we can. There are changes on all sides: user experience, graphics, and of course lots of features.

Poker Analytics 5 is a free update. If you use automatic updates, maybe the app has already been downloaded on your device! Otherwise, rush the App Store and update the app now!

Feed

We’ve completely redesigned the History tab for a better user experience. In this brand new tab, you can add your sessions, hands and transactions in one tap, bringing you a much faster experience for your most frequent needs.

You’ll now see not only a list of sessions as before, but we’re also showing your hands and transactions. And if by any chance you just want to see sessions, you can filter by data type, and have a view similar the previous version.

All your sessions, hands and transactions in one place

Calendar

We’re introducing a brand new tab, the amazing Calendar. In this new view, you’ll be able to quickly compare different stats by month and by year.

Select a month, a year and the stat of your choice!

After spending a lot of time playing with stats, like us, you will want to tap on any row to have a detailed report of the time period you’ve selected. Lots of new stats and graphs just for you!

Select one row and get access to this georgeous report!

New stats like longest win & lose streaks, days played, number of locations played, the beautiful new distribution graphs, you’ll get a detailed view of each of month and year you played! Tap on the graphs to get a full screen view!

Stats trends

We’ve made a great addition to the Stats tab. You’ll now be able to see how you perform on the short and long term with new dynamic filters which will show you the variation of your stats!

Bankroll

We’ve added the heavily requested bankroll graph: check the evolution of your bankroll using your sessions and transactions. Tap on it to get it full screen.

Graphs

We’ve improved the look and behavior of graphs, most graphs to be more precise.

You can now zoom inside a graph using the pinch gesture
You can rotate your screen when looking at a full screen graph
Line graphs are getting an X-axis for your readability comfort

Player

The player view has been refactored for better ease of use. Comments, hands and sessions are now put in separate tabs so you can better search for what you’re looking for.

Top 10

The cells have been redesigned to beautifully display your best performances.

Graphic changes

More change on the graphical side. Colors, fonts, background, everything has been fine tuned to make your data look great!

You’ll find a few more changes here and there, but that’s it for the main changes! Now it’s your job to tell us what you think, please take the time to write us a word on the channel of your choice to give us your feeling about this version. We also want you to know that seeing screenshots of the app on the various social networks we follow make us very pleased and very proud each time we have the chance to find them!

Thanks again for being part of the community!