Poker Analytics Blog

Welcome to Poker Analytics!

Every once in a while we’re asked if there is a guide to the app. Unfortunately we don’t have a proper guide at the moment but we’ve started to write some posts that you’ll find in the how-to category of the blog.

Alternately, we have some starting advices to set up the app.

Settings

When launching the app, we recommend you to go in the More tab > Settings to setup a couple of things.

Currency

Check if the currency symbol indicated fits you. The currency selected will be used as your main currency and all your statistics will be computed in that currency.

Pin code

You can lock the app from strangers by setting a PIN code. The code will be asked each time you open the app. Please note that the code is stored locally so we have no way to retrieve it for you. If you’re on iOS, you can use Touch ID or Face ID in addition to unlock the app.

Bankrolls

By default, we’re creating your Live bankroll for your live games. Bankrolls must be set either for live or online games. This will change a couple of fields when editing your session.

Typically, you’ll want to create a live bankroll for each currency, and an online bankroll for each room you’re playing on. There is a field to indicate the original value of your bankroll so you can start wherever you want.

Bankrolls have a currency field, and a specific rate. It means that you can have different bankrolls with the same currency but with a different rate, which can make your accounting easier for each trip abroad.

Sessions

Configuration

Most users will spend a lot of time creating sessions. When editing a session, we display fields that are relevant to the type of game you play. Poker Analytics selects your favorite game configuration based on the location you’re playing at. Make sure to enable geolocation in the app, this way you’ll be located every time you start playing and your favorite configuration will be set automatically.

Duplicates

To create your sessions faster, you can duplicate the parameters of an existing session. In the sessions list, you can do that by making a long tap on the row of the session you want to copy, which will make appear the Duplicate button.

iCloud (for iOS)

You can use iCloud to backup your Poker Analytics data automatically and keep your iPhone and iPad synchronized. We strongly recommend you to make frequent backups, whether it is your device or your data. Nobody wants to lose his data if something bad happens.

Theme (for iOS)

Poker Analytics 4 introduced a new light graphical theme, test the diamond theme right now to see if it suits your taste better!

Poker Analytics 4.1

Hello,

The new Poker Analytics 4.1 is available on the App Store! Here are the new features:

Hand history keyboard (beta)
In the players list, players now have their picture next to their name
It’s finally possible to specify the year for your past sessions.
Already unofficially added, the 200 threshold of displayed sessions has been raised to 500.
We’ve added the hourly rate for sessions with multiple records.
The duration is added in the cell of sessions with multiple records.

A couple of details on the hand history keyboard:

We’re releasing a new custom keyboard. What does it mean?

Now, in any textfield throughout iOS, whether it’s in the Messages, Mail, Twitter app, or simply Poker Analytics, you’ll be able to access the hand history keyboard to write hand histories as fast as possible.

In order to use it, you’ll need to install it first. Go in the Settings of your iPhone. Tap on General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Add New Keyboard… and select Analytics 4.

To access it, you just pass through the different keyboard the same way you access the emoticon keyboard.

So why beta? We’re releasing the keyboard only in english for the moment, and we want to gather your feedback before making it evolve if necessary. Contact us if you have anything to say!

That’s it, we hope you’ll love it! Have fun at the tables!

Game selection control and bankroll variation

Today we want to show you more about a couple of new features in Poker Analytics 4, two additions to the session screen.

Game selection control

You might have already noticed, but when you create a session, Poker Analytics shows you a micro report at the top of the screen.

The app shows you two statistics:

On the left, you’ll see the hourly rate for the type of session you are about to start. We’re taking into account:

the stakes
the game
the format
whether you’re playing live or online

On the right, you’ll see the hourly rate of all your cash games sessions if you’re about to start a cash game, or the hourly rate of all your tournaments if you’re about to start a tournament.

It’s a great tool to familiarize yourself with the hourly rates of the different kind of games you’re playing, thus making you better at selecting the best games for you.

You’ll also be able to see if you’re taking good decisions when starting a game. If you’re starting to take shots at a higher limit, you’ll quickly be able to see if these games are more profitable than your previous games.

Bankroll variation

In the same fashion, at the end of each of your sessions, you can see your bankroll variation in the first section of the table. Please note that this is only displayed for the last session.

This is a great indicator to make yourself aware of how you manage your bankroll.

Heavy variations are an indicator that you might play above reasonable and that your chances of going broke are high. It can also be the results of a great performance in a tournaments, congratulations!

If the line is not showing up, it means your bankroll is in the red. You’ll probably want to learn more about bankroll management as it might be the most important poker skill you need to be a successful poker player.

If you feel some of the numbers you see in these statistics are unusually high, it might be time to take a step back and make some adjustment. Playing one level below might be better both for your hourly rate and your bankroll health!

Tips on conditioning reports

We have a couple of tips explaining how the new reports works and what you can do to use them as best as you can.

Health

First of all, three of the new reports are connected to the Health app of your iOS device:

Sleep
Calories
Workouts

To be able to launch one of these reports, you’ll need to input some data into the Health app.

A number of apps now are helping you doing this. For example, you can use Sleep Cycle to track your sleep, or Runkeeper for running. You may already have one without being aware, so if you’re using some tracking app, check out in your Health app if you have some data.

When launching one of these reports, Poker Analytics 4 searches for sessions with health data and compute the maths to show you the influence of sleep and physical activity on your results.

Poker Analytics 4 needs the access to the Health data to do this. You’ll be automatically asked for this within the app. However, if you refused to give the app access to these data, you’ll have to change that in the Settings of your iPhone.

Samples

We usually like to keep things open to give you maximum control over your data. However, the default reports might require some filtering.

Typically, the duration report is an amazing tool for cash games, as you’ll be able to learn when you start getting tired. The point here is that this report won’t tell you much with your tournament data. When you play a tournament, the longer you last, the more chance you have to win big. So there isn’t much to learn for tournaments with the duration report. Also, mixing tournaments and cash games obviously won’t give great results. So what you need to do is to filter your data on cash games to be able to exploit the results of the report.

The algorithm we use averages your results. In poker, you should know that a small sample size isn’t representative of the reality. This is the same for the conditioning reports. In your data set, you’ll probably find some ranges with only a few results like a couple of sessions with 4 hours of sleep. Make sure that you don’t take results too seriously when the sample size is limited.

In the same fashion, some sessions with unusually good or bad results may have an big impact on the report. For example, you played a long cash game with a whale for 12 hours – whereas you never play sessions longer than 6 hours – and made a huge profit. The duration graph will show a great average result from 6 to 12 hours of play, but it doesn’t mean you should play longer. The purpose of the report is to show you when to stop due to fatigue, so make sure to filter out the sessions that present an exceptional factor.

To summarize, whatever you’re looking out, make sure that the sample size is relevant and take the time to analyze what you see before drawing a quick conclusion. Sleep well!

Conditioning reports

We recently released Poker Analytics 4 and wanted to tell you more about its breakthrough conditioning reports.

In this major version, we’ve added a new set of reports so you can really rock how you prepare for the game. You probably already know that having a healthy lifestyle is important, but now we’re bringing you the tools to optimize how you roll.

We’ve developed four new reports around 3 themes:

Sleep
Session duration
Physical activity

Since iOS8, Apple has given apps a way to exchange various types of data in the Health app. Some apps can write data, like how long you train, and some can read that data for different uses. Poker Analytics can read your sleep and physical activity data that has been recorded by other trackers.

To exploit this data, we’ve built a new engine that correlates your results with these different sources. We’re now able to show your average results depending on the duration of your sleep, sessions and physical activities, as well as the calories you’ve burned.

Sleep

We all know how sleep is important, but what you might not know is that you have a significant win rate drop when you sleep less than 7 hours.

Some of those days, you’ll probably feel good enough to play, and nobody will stop you from doing that. However, while playing, if you’re aware that you perform less in average, you’ll have an easier time to stop your session as soon as the first signs of fatigue will appear, and you’ll be able to get away from a game that might quickly become unprofitable.

Session duration

When you play a tournament, you’re not in control of the duration of your session. Actually, the longer, the better. In cash games, most of the time, it’s the opposite: the longer, the worse, except when you find yourself in a very good game. We all get tired after a certain point and it’s very important to know when to stop. Just last week, Daniel Negreanu reminded us how important it is not to play tired.

Getting tired means thinking less, being less aware at what is going on at the table, and being more subject to tilt. We all want to avoid that. So learning when to stop is a key factor for success. You might think you can play consistently 8 hours at a table, whereas your win rate starts declining after 6 hours. Even if your average profit stays the same when you play 6 hours or 8, it means playing those two extra hours isn’t achieving anything for you. We all love to play, but getting off the table an hour early can get far more profitable than continue playing.

This extra time can be used in various ways that will make your future sessions more profitable. You can take it to study your game and review your hands, you can go out exercise, actually you can use it to do whatever you like outside poker.

Playing a little bit less can also have two positive impacts on you. On one side, you’ll be less tired therefore less subject to tilt. Tilt can have many sources, whether it’s a mistake, a bad beat, or losing to a weak player. The more you play, the more chances you have to get badly affected. And on the other side, it can simply keep your hunger for the game and avoid lassitude.

Physical activity

The goal of the conditioning reports is to make you avoid playing tired, which can be costly. However, having some physical activity before playing can either have a positive or negative impact.

On one hand, having a small workout, or simply having a walk can improve your well-being, clear your mind and in the end make you play better poker. On the other hand, playing soccer for two hours or having a long run can really tire you out and instantly make you a losing player.

It’s important to learn where you stand in order to avoid long term mistakes. To learn more about yourself, we’re bringing in two reports: duration and calories. With these, you’ll be able to know whether you should or should not play after exercising, and maybe help you plan you day differently: light activity before playing and more tiresome sports after playing.

We hope these new kinds of reports will really help you in your preparation and make a big difference on your long term results. We’re always eager to hear from you so please tell us what you’ve learned after using them!