After sitting at the online poker table for a while, have you sometimes felt like the other players knew the strength of your hands? If you bet your strong hands, everyone else would fold. Or if you had a medium-strength hand in a heads-up situation, your opponent would bet aggressively, forcing you to a fold.
This is a
feeling that many online poker players experience regularly, making them feel predictable and vulnerable. The reason is that their opponents might be using poker software aids to profile them, aids that give them a distinct advantage. There are many such online poker tools to choose from and it is not easy to know which ones can help you build your confidence.
If you play online poker, the most useful type of poker aid that you can possibly use is the head up display, or
HUD in short. These programs create overlays over the online poker tables where you sit with your opponents. These
transparent overlays show your opponents' betting patterns and playing style, using players’ stats such as aggression or tightness.
There are two kinds of
HUDs. The first one relies on a local hand histories database while the second kind uses a massive remote database. Local
HUDs can be standalone
programs or parts of so-called poker tracker programs such as Hold'em Manager. These software collect the hands that you have played online, analyze and massage them so that they can display a neat summary of the playing style of all players that you encountered in the past. The
HUD calculates and displays looseness, aggression and other relevant statistics next to each player at the table.
Many online poker players already use these software. The first secret is that if you wish to build up your online poker confidence, you have to acquire an informational edge over your opponents. One way to gain such an edge is by getting data mined observed hand histories. Thus you will obtain new information about players that you never met before. So that the next time you sit down and your neighbor is Gambling-Donkey-K4 for instance, the HUD will immediately inform you that he is a dangerous player with
whom you should avoid most confrontations.
Otherwise if you had no information at all about Gambling-Donkey-K4 when you first sit down next to him at the virtual table, it could have cost you a lot of money just to find out his high skill level. Acquiring this type of special knowledge can only boost your confidence. Getting additional data mined hands is particularly
helpful when you start at a new poker room or when you try to move up to a new stake level, as in such case any HUD can only be blank and useless at the beginning.
Some vendors sell such observed hand histories from pokerstars and full tilt poker, even though these two poker sites forbid the practice. The good news is that it is not legal for online poker rooms to scan your private computer
information for detection of files such as hand histories. Hence it is perfectly safe for you to get as many as you want. Some
players have bought millions of them.
The first secret is a unique method for enhancing your local poker tracker database by buying
additional bulk observed hand histories, if you already use a poker tracker
software or if you are planning to start using one. In the same range of poker tools, and this is the second secret, there is another software tool that is a powerful universal HUD. This online poker product brings online poker to the next level.
This tool is called
pokeredge. Poker-edge uses a large network of computers working 24/7 to
collect millions of online poker hands. This army of computers has only one task, to connect to online poker rooms for recording observed hand histories. This massive data mining operation is then used to feed into pokeredge's HUD. The benefit for you is that you neither need to have played poker hands beforehand, neither maintain a local poker tracker nor buy hand histories. All background work is done automatically.
The advantage of either using
pokeredge or purchasing bulk hand histories is the same, that is to say gain extra knowledge about future poker opponents that you should not normally have. Having more
knowledge can only increase your confidence. The
difference between the two secrets is that poker-edge players' stats are huge and universal as they include information about millions of online
poker players playing at over one hundred sites. If you use it, you will know instantly the hidden playing patterns of your opponents whenever you sit at nearly any online poker table.
It is your choice to get either an enhanced local poker database or a powerful remote
HUD. But if you fail to act after gaining the knowledge of the two
secrets for building online poker confidence, then you are sure to wonder at times “Why am I under the impression that my opponents know the strength of my hands. But I do not know anything about theirs?
One interesting point is that the urge to gamble may be heightened by stress. When gambling addicts feel stress it sometimes leads them to want to gamble to relieve the stress even though the stress wasn't caused by gambling. It is an associated response, meaning that they know that gambling will take their mind off the stress temporarily, so they associate gambling with the reduction of tension, stress, uncomfortable physical feelings.
But looking closer at the stress and response, we find an interesting situation. The problems caused by uncontrollable gambling, such as financial problems, relationship problems, work related problems, all cause stress. So even though the temporary solution seems to be to gamble to relieve the stress, the root causes of the stress are, you guessed it, gambling.
In order to cure the problem, to get rid of the stress, stopping gambling is the best solution. Does that mean we can cure problem gambling? Unfortunately, there is no real cure, but there are solutions to control it. Gambling addiction, like other addictions such as alcoholism, and drug addiction, is a lifelong condition, but don't despair, because millions of problem gamblers have controlled their addiction and returned to a happier life.
One of the keys to controlling gambling addiction is relaxation. We all have problems and stress in life and we all develop coping skills and reactions to stress. For people with gambling problems, finding a safe and easy way to relax, such as meditation, or progressive relaxation techniques, can be a life saving and life changing experience. If you or someone you know is dealing with a gambling problem, finding a good relaxation CD or MP3 that is especially tailored for problem gambling can make life a lot more enjoyable and pain free.
