Poker Analytics Blog

Stop Notifications

Poker Analytics 4.2 introduced cash game notifications. Now is the time to tell you a little bit more about it!

In version 4, we added the duration report showing you how you performed over time. We wanted to go one step further with this and bring you the information when you most needed it. So we’ve refined the engine behind the report to estimate your optimal game duration. Now when you’ll start a session, the app will try to find that duration and will notify you when it judges that you’ve reached your peak performance point. It means that it’s the moment where your hourly rate starts to drop, so that’s a good moment to stop playing.

Stop notifications are enabled by default in the app, and you’ll automatically be notified if the app finds a fatigue point in your data. If not, it can still be a good idea to manually setup an alarm to end your session. See below why the app might not always setup the notification.

What you‘ll see if the stop notification is set

Continue to vary game durations

As variance is part of the game, your results are too. Sometimes it possible that chance makes the result a little bit biased, but the more you play, the more the result should be refined and close to reality. Turn off the notifications in the settings if you feel it doesn’t help you. You’ll be able to enable them later on.

Your ultimate goal should be to make the app unable to compute the fatigue point, meaning you’re managing your time perfectly. You should be able to stop your games early as soon as you feel tired, and maybe play a little longer when you feel the game is very profitable.

Time management is very important when you play regularly, so you should try to make breaks during your sessions and to quit early any time you feel you won’t play your best in order to maintain a healthy poker rhythm.

Why don’t I get stop notifications? 🙁

There are multiple reasons for this.

Negative results

If you’re losing in average, you probably have important leaks to fix in your game. It’s possible though that you’re a losing player because you play too long. You might want to start playing shorter sessions and set up an alarm with a reasonable game duration.

Lack of data

To get reliable results, it’s important to have a lot of sessions. The engine uses your sessions history to estimate the optimal duration, so it’s necessary to have a lot of data point on different time intervals. Also, if all your sessions last 4 hours, the app won’t be able to correctly guess if you’re getting tired. Consider an average of 50 sessions with various duration to start getting notifications.

You’re doing very well

Finally, it’s also a possibility that you’re already managing your time very well. If you maintain a consistent hourly rate whatever the duration, the app won’t judge necessary to setup a stop notification.

That’s it! Enjoy your games, manage your time well, and let us know about your experience with this new feature!

Poker Analytics 4.2

Hello!

We’re super excited with the release of this version as it might go down as having a huge impact for cash game players around the world.

Let’s jump into the new features:

Cash game stop notifications

In Poker Analytics 4, we’ve added the duration report, which showed you the impact of duration of your results.

Now, we’re using the engine to estimate the time where you start getting tired, and we’re sending you a notification telling you that.

This is very important for several reasons: the app gives you back time and keeps you away from higher risk of tilt when you’re tired. More on it in another detailed post later!

What you might see the next time you start a cash game

Players

Also introduced in version 4, the players notes are seeing a couple of improvements:

We are adding the ability to set a color to players, in order to classify them. You’ll have 8 colors to choose from.
You’ll now be able to search for players in the players list, using their name or a part of a note you’ve taken.

Shortcuts

Users having 3d Touch on their device have access to shortcuts on the app icon:

new cash game session
new tournament
new hand
new player note

Data indexing

Your data starts to be locally indexed on your device. What it means is that you’ll be able to search for sessions, players or hands using Spotlight search.

That’s it for 4.2! We hope you’ll love it. As always, don’t hesitate to tell us what you think, and please crush the tables!

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!