5 Tips for Improving Your Skills with PokerTracker
In this article, I’m going to share five ways you can use PokerTracker to improve your game.
I’ve been a PokerTracker user for almost a decade, and even though I’ve added other tools to my kit, I still use it daily. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Alright, here are the five ways I use PokerTracker 4 to work on my game:
#1 – Quick Session Review
I almost always do a quick session review after I’m done playing. The reason for this is based on science, specifically, the Zeigarnik Effect.
This psychological phenomenon suggests that people remember unfinished tasks or incomplete experiences better than completed ones. It often creates mental tension or discomfort, driving you to keep thinking about the task until it’s resolved.
It’s named after Bluma Zeigarnik, a Russian psychologist who first observed the tendency in the 1920s. The idea is that unfinished tasks create cognitive dissonance, motivating you to finish them.
By doing a review regularly, you can cool off after your session while examining the situations that caused any tension you’re feeling. This helps you keep a positive mindset throughout the day and enjoy other important things in your life.
To get started, go to “My Reports.”
Click on “New Report” and select “Hand Report.”
This will be the result:
Here, you can click on the column titles to sort the hands however you want. Most of the time, I sort them by biggest pots first, since those are usually the ones that stick out in my mind.
#2 – Checking How You Play Certain Hand Categories
The next useful thing you can do with PokerTracker is create filters for different hand categories and check how you’ve played them.
For example, maybe you feel like you’re losing too much with flopped second pairs. PokerTracker lets you create a filter and review those hands easily. Here’s how to do it:
- In the “My Reports” tab, click on “More Filters” on the bottom left.
- Then select “Hand Values” and “Made Hands.”
- Then click on “One Pair,” select the following boxes, and click “Add to Filter”:
There’s no better tool I’ve tested that lets you customize filters this easily. Have fun testing it out!
#3 – Checking Your Results in Different Preflop and Postflop Scenarios
Multi-handed No Limit Hold’em is really a collection of smaller sub-games. For example, you have single-raised pots in position as the preflop raiser, single-raised pots out of position as the preflop caller, 3-bet pots in position as the preflop raiser, and so on.
With PokerTracker’s filtering system, you can create and save Quick Filters to regularly check how you’ve been performing in these sub-games and review your hands.
For example, let’s say I want to check my performance in single-raised pots where I’m the preflop raiser in position. Here’s what that filter looks like:
You can save this filter by pressing “Save as Quick Filter” in the bottom left corner. That way, you’ll be able to easily access it in the future. I strongly recommend saving your filters!
#4 – Checking How Hot You’ve Run
A feature that’s unique to PokerTracker is the “Overall Luck Bell Curve.” It calculates how often you’ve hit your flush draw, straight draw, or set compared to the odds of hitting it.
For example, with a pocket pair, you should hit a set or quads on the flop about 12% of the time. Using mathematical formulas and a Gaussian distribution chart (also known as a normal distribution or bell curve), PokerTracker shows you how lucky or unlucky you’ve been. This can sometimes ease the pressure of a losing streak or help you cool off after running hot.
Looks like I need to work on my card-hitting skills this month!
You can find this feature under the “LeakTracker” tab by selecting “Report,” then “Overall Luck Bell Curve.”
It’s important to remember that this is just one tool for measuring variance—it’s not all-encompassing. Variance is multi-faceted and hard to pinpoint. Still, it’s another valuable tool to have in your toolkit.
#5 – Stat Analysis
The final way to use PokerTracker to improve your skills is by performing a stat analysis.
This is a powerful feature that lets you monitor stats like:
- How often you c-bet on the flop, turn, or river
- How often you folded against a probe bet, delayed c-bet, or float bet
- How much you’ve been 3-betting
- How much you’ve been folding against 3-bets
- How much you’ve been 4-betting
And much more. You can even use the filtering system to get more specific. For example, you can track your betting, folding, and raising frequencies in single-raised pots where you’re the preflop raiser in position.
To run this analysis, go to the “Statistics” tab, click on “Report,” and select “Overview.”
After that, you can create a new filter by clicking on “More Filters,” or use a quick one you’ve saved earlier. I recommend using the positional tab for studying, which you’ll find in the center-right part of the window:
Once you’re there, you can add just about any stat you can think of, and PokerTracker comes loaded with a lot of them by default. To add new stats to the report, just right-click and select “Configure Report”:
There, you can type in the stat you’re looking for, like “Probe Turn,” and add it to your list by double-clicking it.
You can rearrange your stats by clicking the up and down arrows.
Knowing which stats are in the optimal range (and which ones aren’t) takes a different set of knowledge. You can start learning by using solvers and creating aggregate reports, getting a coach to walk you through it, or checking the stats of very winning players and comparing yours to theirs.
Related reading: 10 Crucial Poker Stats To Include On Your HUD (And How to Use Them)
Wrapping Up
You now have five ways to use PokerTracker to accelerate your skill development in poker. The most important part is staying consistent with your studying. Even doing a little bit every day will go a long way.
That’s all for this article! I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new. I had a blast writing about one of my favorite tools!
If you’d like to learn more about playing tough, aggressive poker, read: 3 Tips to Make Your Opponents Regret Raising Your Big Blind.
Till next time, good luck, grinders!
