Poker Tracker Compatible Sites

Not got a copy of Poker Tracker yet? Get your free trial from the PokerTracker.com website now

Poker Tracker compatible poker rooms.

Rank	Room	Rating	Network	Mac	PT	HEM	Bonus	Visit
1	Americas Cardroom	A	WPN				$1,000	Visit
2	888 Poker	D	Independent				$400	Visit
3	Betsafe Poker	E	iPoker				€2,000	Visit

About the table.

Some sites may not be 100% compatible with Poker Tracker. If there are any small issues or missing features, I've used a little to indicate this. Just hover over these icons for explanations.

What is Poker Tracker?

Poker Tracker is an incredibly powerful and infinitely useful piece of software that tracks your play when playing online poker. It does loads of cool stuff:

• Tracks and graphs your winnings/losses for each and every session you play.
• Tracks all your hands, so you can find and plug leaks in the way your are playing in specific situations and positions.
• Displays a HUD whilst you play with valuable stats on your opponents to help you make more profitable decisions. (watch HUD Ninja for an excellent introduction on how to use stats in poker)

…and that's just a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg. Honestly, check out the free trial at PokerTracker.com to experience just how impressive this software is for yourself.

Every serious poker player I know uses it. It's also natively Mac compatible too, which is super handy if you're a Mac poker player like me.

Why aren't all poker sites compatible with it?

Four main reasons that explain possible compatibility issues:

1. The poker room does not offer hand histories.
2. The poker room's hand histories are indecipherable.
3. The poker room is very new and Poker Tracker has not been configured to work with it.
4. The room/network has prohibited the use of tracking tools.

1 + 2) The basic idea is that to track all your play (and the play of your opponents), Poker Tracker has to grab the hand histories of the site you're playing at, extract all the important information and store it in a database.

If a poker site does not openly allow you to store hand histories on your computer (or if the hand histories it does offer are unreadable), Poker Tracker can't parse and store any data. So the chances are that if a poker room isn't supported by PT, it's the room's fault and not PT's.

3) There may be the odd occasion where a new site pops up or a poker room changes its hand history format, which results in a poker room being or becoming temporarily incompatible. However, one of the main jobs over at PT is to keep up with changes and additions, so these instances are less common and fixable.

4) A very small number of poker rooms prohibit the use of tools like Poker Tracker. This is usually because they deem the software to be "unfair", and so they will not support the use of it.

What is a hand history?

A hand history is a few lines of text that describes how a hand of poker played out.

Using hand histories it's possible to recreate all of the actions and the result of a hand of online poker. These histories contain information like; players, positions, game stakes, holecards (if revealed), betting, stack sizes – everything. They're mainly used as logs and to help resolve potential player issues.

Example of a hand history from PokerStars.

*********** # 1 **************
PokerStars Game #62137714924: Hold'em No Limit ($0.01/$0.02 USD) - 2011/05/15 15:05:52 ET
Table 'Verbaandert' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: ThePokerBank ($0.81 in chips) 
Seat 3: yannekk39 ($1.32 in chips) 
Seat 4: maurycy811 ($2.99 in chips) 
Seat 5: dickys123 ($2.40 in chips) 
yannekk39: posts small blind $0.01
maurycy811: posts big blind $0.02
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ThePokerBank [4c Ks]
dickys123: folds 
ThePokerBank: raises $0.04 to $0.06
yannekk39: calls $0.05
maurycy811: calls $0.04
*** FLOP *** [9d 3c 3s]
yannekk39: checks 
maurycy811: checks 
ThePokerBank: checks 
*** TURN *** [9d 3c 3s] [7d]
yannekk39: bets $0.02
maurycy811: calls $0.02
zebidee101 leaves the table
ThePokerBank: folds 
*** RIVER *** [9d 3c 3s 7d] [Ah]
yannekk39: checks 
maurycy811: checks 
*** SHOW DOWN ***
yannekk39: shows [Td Ts] (two pair, Tens and Threes)
maurycy811: mucks hand 
yannekk39 collected $0.21 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $0.22 | Rake $0.01 
Board [9d 3c 3s 7d Ah]
Seat 1: ThePokerBank (button) folded on the Turn
Seat 3: yannekk39 (small blind) showed [Td Ts] and won ($0.21) with two pair, Tens and Threes
Seat 4: maurycy811 (big blind) mucked [6d 8h]
Seat 5: dickys123 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Due to the fact that they're a computer-readable representation of each and every hand you play, they are perfect for tracking information about your sessions. Without them, tracking software wouldn't exist.

Hand histories are also widely used on strategy forums when players would like advice on a hand they have played. The raw hand histories are obviously a little tricky to decipher, which is why there a bunch of free hand history converters like this on the web.

Converted version of the above hand history.

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 4 players

Hero (BTN): $0.81
SB: $1.32
BB: $2.99
CO: $2.40

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is BTN with 4 K
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.06, SB calls $0.05, BB calls $0.04

Flop: ($0.18) 9 3 3 (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($0.18) 7 (3 players)
SB bets $0.02, BB calls $0.02, Hero folds

River: ($0.22) A (2 players)
SB checks, BB checks

Final Pot: $0.22
SB shows T T (two pair, Tens and Threes)
BB mucks 6 8
SB wins $0.21
(Rake: $0.01)

Tip: Your hand histories can usually be found in the system folders of the poker room software. Although at some sites like PokerStars, you can actually request hand histories from within the poker client and have them sent to your email.

Is Poker Tracker fair and legal?

Legal?

Yes.

Most poker rooms have no problem with tracking software like Poker Tracker. It's basically an elaborate note-taking and results storage tool. PokerStars for example actually acknowledges PT as a perfectly acceptable program on their site:

Note: The only thing that sites like PokerStars do not like is the act of buying hand histories from sites like HHSmithy.com and importing them in to your database. Aside from that though it's all good.

An example of a poker room, (well, network) that has prohibits the use of tracking software is the Cake Network. This is because they believe that the use of these sort of tools is unfair:

Cake Poker does not support the use of tracking software (software used by players to track the play of others). We are proud to lead the way in preventing the effectiveness of software that unfairly gives players an advantage over others at the table.

On the whole though, most rooms are cool with it. Cake is just an exception. Besides, it's not that using PT is illegal at Cake Poker, it's just that it's not supported.

Fair?

Good question.

After whether or not online poker is rigged, the fairness of tracking software is one of the most debated topics in poker.

I personally think that poker tracking software is fair. Sure, it certainly gives you an advantage, but I don't think it's an unfair advantage. After all, the software is available to everyone, so it's not as though some players can use it while others can't.

Of course, there any many players (and some rooms) out there that will strongly disagree with me on this one. The majority of these are poker purists that argue that it should just be player vs. player, and not player vs. player + software. I totally understand this position and it's a fantastic point.

However, most poker rooms are okay with these programs, and there is nothing wrong in doing what you need to do to gain an edge. I don't think it's unfair for bodybuilders to use protein shakes, and I don't think it's unfair for poker players to use perfectly above-board services like PT.

I'm going to stop right there before I end up having a 1,000+ word debate with myself. But at the end of the day, whether or not you think these kind of tools are ethical or not is entirely up to you. But if you intentionally decide against using them, you're intentionally giving up on the opportunity to gain an edge.

SitandGoPlanet.com has a nice article that summarizes whether or not poker software tools are fair.

Useful links.

• PokerTracker 3 list of supported sites

Go back to the Texas Hold'em rooms.