Poker Academy Blog

Poker Academy Blog




Posts RSS Comments RSS

Archive for September, 2007

Poker Academy Pro - Saving a Tournament


Click to see full size image

Sometimes finishing an offline tournament is not possible in one sitting. With the ability to start at 6000+ players, it could take a few days to get down to the final table.

Poker Academy Pro automatically saves your progress so you can take a break, practice some drills or play some online poker. From the main Poker Academy Lobby screen, select Tournament. You will see in the left hand window a new option called Unfinished. All tournaments that you have not busted out on or shut the program off while in progress will be listed there.

Prospector - The Moving Average

Moving Average Options The MA% smoothes out the change in hand statistics to show the longer term trend. The moving average is calculated by averaging the current hand over the previous hands to provide a value that is less susceptible to variance.

In Poker Academy Prospector, the moving average is a little different than is used in other places. We do not use a moving average over a period of time (ie: days, years, minutes), we use it in relation to number of hands.

If you have 10000 hands, and select a MA% of 20% for the Played% statistic, the first data point of Played% will be 2000 hands in. Each subsequent point on the Played % graph will then be an average of the last 2000 hands.

By setting the MA% to 0%, Prospector will put the value of your average over the entire selected session or applied filter.

Moving Average Examples:

5 Percent Moving Average
Click for full size image.

The first image is of a moving average of 5%. You can see the data is much more susceptible to small fluctuations in the way a game is played, since only the previous 5% of the total hands is used to calculate the data point.

20 Percent Moving Average
Click for full size image.

The second image has a moving average of 20%. The data points are much smoother and show a better long term outlook of playing style.

These graphs show that as a player tightens up (played percentage decreases), the total winnings are actually on the rise. With Poker Academy Prospector, we suggest a hands played percentage of roughly 35%. These statistics are easily displayed in the detailed player statistics window under the Actions tab.

Poker Academy Pro - Choosing A New Advisor


Click to view full image.

Poker can be all about changing gears by varying your playing style.  Poker Academy ships with a set of advisor profiles, all of which play different styles.  To change your advisor single-click on the rightward facing arrow in advisor box as shown in the image.  Your advisor box will now switch to a profile selector.  The two drop down boxes represent the selected advisor for Fixed Limit (FL) and No Limit (NL).  Use the drop down box(es) to choose a different advisor and start experimenting with different styles or select an advisor that matches up best with your desired style.

Additionally, you can use the "Edit" buttons to view the advisor profile in the opponent manager to get a better feel for how the advisor is designed.

Prospector - Backing Up the Hand History Database

Importing hands into Poker Academy Prospector is quick and painless. But as you start to approach millions of hands, the time needed to parse and import all the information keeps growing. It is a good idea to start backing up your hand history databases. This can save many headaches down the road.

 

Backing Up


Prospector Application Directory

All Prospector hand history databases can be accessed quickly by doing the following:

  • Go To Start Menu
  • Select Run
  • Windows XP Type:%AppDir%\PA-Prospector and hit enter.
  • Windows Vista Type:%AppData%\PA-Prospector and hit enter.
  • This will launch windows explorer, and the Prospector data directory
It is very important to backup your databases regularly in the event they become corrupted or you lose the original hand histories. If this happens your data will still be available.
All folders in the Prospector data directory are database folders. They will either be named HHDB-1 or if you named them something different they will have that name.
Back these folders up to another drive, a flash drive, a cd-rw or a network share. I recommend compressing these folders first to save storage space.
Always remember to also back up your hand histories from your favorite poker sites. This is the original hard data and remains very valuable in the case of a database corruption.

Poker Academy Online - Friends List

The friends list feature in Poker Academy Online is a great way to keep track of favorite players or most hated opponent. You can easily see if they are online and where they are playing.

 


Right Clicking a Player

Adding from a Table

  • Right click on the players name
  • Select ‘Show in Players Tab’
  • The lobby screen will now change to the players tab
  • The drop down menu ‘Select Action’ allows you to add as friend

A matching player is found.

Adding from the Players Tab

  • Search for the player by name (Partial searches work)
  • Select the player from the search results.
  • The drop down menu ‘Select Action’ allows you to add as friend
  • Note: Searching for as much of the username as you know. This will ensure you are getting the correct player.

Friends Lists

Players are now available in the bottom of the Players Tab screen. You can add different groups and manage your friends list.

 

Pro users have the ability to create as many groups as they want. Standard users are limited to 1 group of friends.

Welcome to the Poker Academy Blog

We receive countless number of requests for tutorials and guidance on how to best use our software and so we bring you the Poker Academy Blog!  Various members of the Poker Academy team will publish tips for Pro, Prospector and Poker Academy Online while mixing in news items and general poker interest stories along the way.  

Please drop us a line if there are any aspects of the software you would really like to see explained.