Using Pokertracker for the hand reviews

[Jim C]

Hi everyone,

For those of you participating in the session exchanges, one really easy way to do the reviews is in the Pokertracker playback machine.

Advantages:

- You do not need to do any formatting or complicated conversion of the hand history into another format like Excel.

- The graphical playback machine is a much faster way to review the hands than digging through text files.

- Position and betting behaviors are more obvious and easier to interpret.

- You can write your comments in the "Game Notes" area of the playback machine.

- You can email your review partner 2 small files that contain all of the hands, with your comments associated with each game.


Disadvantages:

- You will need to create another pokertracker database for this purpose. This isn't difficult, but some of you may not have done it.

While you *could* review the hands by simply importing the hand history into your own Pokertracker database, we want to use a new database so you can email your partner the new database when you've finished the review.


Background:

By default, Pokertracker uses Microsoft Access as its databse. Even if you have converted to a postgresql database for your own play (which I highly recommend), you can still create a second Access databse for the hand review.

Pokertracker uses two databse files. These files are called:

ptrack*.mdb
hhdb.mdb

where the "*" is a number making the database unique. The first database you create is ptrack1.mdb, the second is ptrack2.mdb and so on.

When you create a new database, Pokertracker will automatically create the new ptrack*.mdb file for you, but it DOES NOT create a new hhdb.mdb file! We will need to do this manually, but it's pretty simple.


Procedure:

NOTE: Pokertracker must be closed for the first part of this procedure.

1. Rename your existing hhdb.mdb file:
<ul type="square"> [*]Open the Pokertracker directory on your computer, which is C:\Program Files\Poker Tracker V2[*]Locate the hhdb.mdb file, and rename it to "hhdb.mdb.old"[/list]
2. Download the new, empty hhdb.mdb file, because Pokertracker does not create one automatically. You can get this from the Pokertracker site using the link below.
<ul type="square">[*]Download the hhdb.mdb file and save it somewhere you'll remember.[/list]
3. Copy the hhdb.mdb file you just downloaded into the Pokertracker directory (C:\Program Files\Poker Tracker V2).

4. Open Pokertracker. The remaining steps will happen inside Pokertracker, except for the last two steps.

5. Select File -&gt; Maintain Database Names...

6. Click "Add" to add the new database.

7. Enter a descriptive name for the database, like "Jim Review".

8. In the "DB File/DB Name/DSN" column, select "Create A New, Empty Access Database" from the dropdown menu. Click OK.

9. In the popup window, check the bottom box "Do not copy any of these things to the new database". Click OK.

10. Select File-&gt;Open A Database... To open the database you've created, check the box next to it, then click OK. Note the database name for sending to your partner when you've finished.

11. Select File-&gt;Close A Database... Close any other open databases by checking the box(es) next to them and clicking OK. (Do not close the database you've just created.)

12. Import the hand history file that your review partner sent you:
<ul type="square">[*]Select File-&gt;Import Hand Histories/Tournament Summaries[*]Click "Select File(s) To Import..."[*]Navigate to and select the hand history file your review buddy sent you.[/list]
13. Select File-&gt;Ring Game Player Statistics.

14. Select the Preferences tab. Choose your partner's player id from the "Automatically display my stats, my player id is:" drop-down menu.

15. Select the "Game Notes" tab.

16. Select your partner from the player list on the left side of the window.

17. Click the "Get All" button in the Game Notes tab.

18. Scroll to the bottom of the list of hands, then click the blue game number of the bottom-most hand. Click "Playback This Hand..." when the hand history opens.

19. When the Playback window opens, check the "Auto-save" box in the lower-right corner of the window.

20. Use the VCR-style controls in the lower-left to review the hand. Write your comments in the "Game Notes:" area in the lower right hand corner.

21. Click the left arrow immediately to the left of the game number in the top-left corner of the window to advance to the next hand. Continue to review hands until you're done.

22. Close all the windows and exit pokertracker.

23. Email the ptrack*.mdb file (you made a note of the name of this file in step 10) and hhdb.mdb file to your review partner. You can move these files to another location, or delete them after you have emailed them to your partner.

24. Rename your original hhdb.mdb.old file back to hhdb.mdb.

Finished!

It seems like a lot of steps, but this is all really easy to do and it is the simplest way to do the session reviews that I have found.

Hope this is of use to somebody.

Best,

Jim

[BabyJesus]

This deserves a bump. I'm not sure if doing it this way is overall easier than just looking through the hands because i've never done one of these reviews before.

[tyler_cracker]

This method rocks my world, and i used it for the last session review.

Its weakness, however, is that it's difficult to continue the discussion. When i had questions about my reviewer's comments, i had to copy the HH into the converter and paste that into an email, then copy the actualy comments out of PT and paste *that* into an email, and go from there.

This seems like a lot of work. Does someone have a better system?

[tinhat]

[ QUOTE ]
This method rocks my world, and i used it for the last session review.

Its weakness, however, is that it's difficult to continue the discussion. When i had questions about my reviewer's comments, i had to copy the HH into the converter and paste that into an email, then copy the actualy comments out of PT and paste *that* into an email, and go from there.

This seems like a lot of work. Does someone have a better system?

[/ QUOTE ]

When I was trading hands w/a swap partner I always imported into a tmp access db and used replayer and in a separate text file put the game #/hole cards on a line by itself then "flop/turn", etc., comments below (and the text file got mailed back and forth, commenting on each other's comments, i.e., "continuing the discusson"):

#123456789 (K9o)
flop: ...
turn: ...

-reply: he said this about my comments
--reply: I replied w/this about his comments on my comments


This way each side uses pt's recently-added "find..." on games tab by plugging in the hand # to locate the hh we're discussing (or replay it) so there's no need to send hhs back/forth...

Mike

edit: I put the hh date(s) at the top of the comments file since you need a date/date range to use pt's "find..."

[tyler_cracker]

[ QUOTE ]
When I was trading hands w/a swap partner I always imported into a tmp access db and used replayer and in a separate text file put the game #/hole cards on a line by itself then "flop/turn", etc., comments below (and the text file got mailed back and forth, commenting on each other's comments, i.e., "continuing the discusson"):


[/ QUOTE ]

This removes almost all of the value of this method because the comments don't appear as "game notes" right there in the replayer. If i wanted to keep notes separately, i wouldn't need to jump through all the hoops of creating a separate db and everything.

[tyler_cracker]

I'm apparently the only one who cares about this, but just in case there are any interested lurkers:

What i've settled on is if i want to comment on comments, i add my comments below my reviewer's comments. Simple enough.

The key part is to DELETE anything i *don't* comment on. Thus, the reviewer can import a new copy of the DBs and only look at hands that still have comments.

That's the best i've figured out. It works okay. It's worth it, though, to have everything else together (hand replayer, stats, etc.).

[sharpie]

I just spent a couple hours reviewing my partner using this method except I forgot to create a new hhdb.mdb. I notice that my hhdb.mdb is almost 200MB so I couldn't send that. Is there anyway to export specific game notes?

[yellowbluebus]

I used the same method and also didn't create the hhdb.mdb file. In fact, I was able to get by without it. I just emailed the new access database file that I created to the person I reviewed. I suggested adding an existing access database (the one I sent him) by going through the File-&gt;Maintain Database Names. Once that's done, he can just open that database and review comments in Game Notes.

[TomBrooks]

[ QUOTE ]
I forgot to create a new hhdb.mdb. I notice that my hhdb.mdb is almost 200MB so I couldn't send that. Is there anyway to export specific game notes?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes.

Highlight the session by double clicking it under Session Notes tab. Note the date and table name. Go to Game Notes tab and click "Get All" if the session has more than 100 hands. Export this. Easiest place is usually to your desktop. Close the database and any other windows. On the main menu, Click Utilities/Database Maintenance and Options.../Purge Session(s). Find and highlight the session. Purge it. Create a new database. I suggest naming it with the name of the person you are reviewing. That way if you are reviewing more than one person you can keep track of each seperately. Import the file you exported into the new database. Voila'.

[TomBrooks]

[ QUOTE ]
For those of you participating in the session exchanges, one really easy way to do the reviews is in the Pokertracker playback machine.

Advantages:

... - You can write your comments in the "Game Notes" area of the playback machine.

... - You can email your review partner 2 small files that contain all of the hands, with your comments associated with each game.


[/ QUOTE ]
Hi Jim,
This is definately the way to go. I thought everyone did it this way, but I guess not. I was writing my review notes in Excel though by entering the hand i.e. ATs in one cell and the notes in the cell to the right.

A problem I see if the reviewer puts his notes right in the replayer though is that the reviewee already has this session loaded in his database. How is he to see the notes unless he purges his session and reimports it from the reviewer or he creates a new database for the sessions he has had reviewed. I suppose the latter might work well. Is that what your suggesting?