Poker Academy today announced its flagship product, Poker Academy Pro, will be featured in the second edition of The Poker Player's Software Guide, authored by Shay Addams. The poker software guide will be available later this year as a free downloadable ebook at http://www.onlinepokersoftwaretools.com/.
The first edition of The Poker Player's Software Guide appeared in 1996 and was hailed by Mike Caro as the definitive book on the subject. "After selling out quickly," said Addams, "I retired to Costa Rica to squander my life savings. After successfully doing so, I'm working on the second edition, which will review the new wave of Texas Holdem poker software. As such, Poker Academy Pro easily made the grade."
While The Poker Player's Software Guide is still a work in progress, what follows is a prelude of the review on Poker Academy Pro in his software guide, as written by Addams:
Funny what happened when I left the States to live in a third world country for a few years. Texas Holdem poker software evolved from the low-resolution efforts of early developers that I covered in the original The Poker Player's Software Guide into a full-featured, professional-level program like Poker Academy Pro.
In this review, I'll provide a look at what you can and can't do with Poker Academy. A more detailed review will be found in the upcoming release of the ebook version of The Poker Player's Software Guide.
Simple idea, but it works. Graphics are nothing fancy, but who needs 'em?
New poker players can save a bundle learning pot odds and a basic, proven strategy with a program such as this, rather than at the table, be it online or otherwise. Tutorials for Drill and Calculator modes make it a snap to start using the program right away.
First, it's the only Texas Holdem poker program to address ring games and tournaments - both limit and no limit - in such detail and scope. This means you can use it to learn and practice your own strategies or those from any of the plethora of books.
The Advisor feature will offer tips on how to play a hand, though there is no course or actual lessons, as might be expected from the title. (And the advice struck me, at least, as exceptionally tight. (I am referring to advice such as not to call with a suited Ace, which works out quite well as a loose, passive game.) But that's arguably the best way for beginners to play). Also, you can download your hand history from a site and import it into Poker Academy, then review your play with the pie charts, graphs and data of the program's statistics feature.
Other features include a showdown calculator, hand evaluator, and an online Texas Holdem poker game at the company's site.
Graphically, Poker Academy is unsurpassed, emulating the look and feel of a poker site. For example, options such as call, fold, and so on can be selected before it's your turn to act. The selection of money games or tournaments, number of players per table, blinds and other factors is done from the "lobby."
It's so much like playing Texas Holdem poker online, that at times I have momentarily forgotten whether I'm in the program or playing on one of the several sites I frequent every night that I'm not on the road. (This could be considered a testament to the artificial intelligence behind the computer foes; alternatively, it could be an indictment of the lack of intelligence of many online players.)
From a menu, you choose from 22 limit and no limit ring games, from a full table down to heads up. You may also create or import a custom game. The Texas Holdem poker tournament offerings will prove practical, as several prominent events in addition to the 2005 WSOP and 2005 Poker Circuit, are available. The Bay 101 Shooting Stars, for example, is available, as well as the tourney's super satellite.
Several structures from the increasingly popular Tex's TEARS format are also useful. As with the ring games, you can create custom formats based on tourneys like the fast action games in your local card rooms. (In this regard, the settings are far more flexible than Wilson's Tournament Texas Hold'em.)
If your unanswered poker questions require a poker calculator, this is the one to get.
Online players will find value in the inclusion of Sit and Go formats from Poker Stars and Ultimate Bet. (The custom tourney option enables you to do the same with tourneys from other sites.)
The computer players use artificial intelligence based on a variety of strategies, some of which are pointed out (David Sklansky's No-Limit Tournament System Strategy and Darse Billings' A Primer for Playing No-Limit Hold'em Tournaments). Others play an erratic strategy that makes them tougher to read.
Unlike many Texas Holdem poker programs, the bots of Poker Academy do pay attention to how you play and modify their actions accordingly. The way to get around this is simple. Play under a new name, for which the bots have not saved their hand histories against. It's like playing road games, where you move from town to town often enough that no one can get a handle on you. When I did this and used the same heads up strategy, my win rate increased to 90%.
Precisely how well the bots can recall your plays is difficult to judge. One test I employ is to play a heads up game, and Poker Academy's bots proved tougher to beat with my standard strategy versus bots. It's a simple one that will definitely not work against a human, who will quickly catch on to my method. I have consistently beaten the bots heads up in Wilson's tournament software with this trick. The bots in Poker Academy are not so easy to run over, and my win rate was 75% after a dozen heads up games. (Look for more details on this in the ebook review.)
The help section reveals each bot's strategy, which can be modified either before or even during a game. This allows you to edit a bot so it plays like a real person from one of your local games, which can be useful.
One good thing about bots that recall how you play is that, like human foes, you can "train" them to think you're playing one way, then shift gears and destroy them at a critical moment. When the blinds are low in a heads up tourney, fold on the button every time the bot raises â“ then call his huge bet with your big pocket pair (provided there's enough time left to wait for one!).
How often do you attempt a steal? How aggressively do you play preflop and after? These questions and others can be answered by viewing pie charts, graphs and raw data that will assist in analyzing your game.
If you play Texas Holdem poker online, you can download your hand histories and import them into the program for similar analysis, similar to what's possible with Poker Tracker. You'll also see how much you paid in tournament fees and rake.
You can't save a game or tournament in progress. End a game, and it is saved as an individual session whose stats can be analyzed individually or in combination with others.
Sizing bets with the mouse-controlled slider is a pain with the small mouse that notebook owners typically use. The Showdown Evaluator is nothing you can't get free from Poker Oven. Finally, I wasn't happy to see that a program using the word "Academy" doesn't really teach, but as long as you know that going in, you should not be disappointed.
But these are not true bad beats, more like minor shortcomings in an otherwise full-featured Texas Holdem poker simulator.
In the graphics and interface department, Poker Academy Pro is a hands-down winner. Best suited for learning and practicing limit hold'em and tournament play (due to the bias of the bots), it is the best such program I've seen since I got back from Central America.
Online players of Texas Holdem poker will also appreciate the ability to download and analyze their hand histories for poker sites. I would recommend it to any new player as well as experienced ones who want to practice new strategies with software before putting real money on the table. Look for more details, in particular using the stats and graphs to analyze your online play, in the upcoming review in my software guide.
"If this is a prelude to his final poker software guide review on Poker Academy Pro, we can't wait to see what Shay writes when his ebook is completed," said Kurt Lange, president & CEO of Poker Academy. "No doubt his new edition will follow in the footsteps of his past success, and we're pleased to be part of his latest work."
