PokerTracker 4 Review (Get My Free Custom HUD)

PokerTracker 4 Review
As an online poker pro people ask me all the time what poker tracking software and HUD (heads up display) I use.

And as I have stated before, I have been using PokerTracker 4 for over 10 years now, essentially since it was first released.

But I have never done a full PokerTracker 4 review before in order to explain exactly why it is that I and so many other pros use this program.

Also, I have never before revealed the secret strategies that I use on the PokerTracker backend (database) to not only find my own leaks and fix them, but to discover the strategies used by the best players.

Don't know why you aren't winning at online poker?

Well, you can essentially use PokerTracker to copy the strategies of the top players in your games (who are already winning big), and just use them for yourself.

This is kind of a game-changer :)

So in this article I am going to give you my complete PokerTracker 4 review and walkthrough for serious poker players looking to get that extra edge when playing online poker.

*Free Custom HUD*

By the way, make sure you read until the end because I am going to give you free access to the custom HUDs that I personally created and rely on as a 10+ year poker pro.


PokerTracker 4 Review 2020 - What is a Poker Tracking Program and HUD?


Before I even begin though it is important that I explain exactly what a poker tracking program and HUD is. Many newcomers to poker in particular are confused as to what PokerTracker actually does.


Basically here's the deal:

When you play a hand of online poker most online poker sites will generate something called a "hand history." This is a small .txt file that contains every piece of important information about that hand:
  • Date and time the hand was played
  • Name of the online poker table
  • Name and stack size of each player who was dealt into the poker hand
  • Who bet, raised and folded at each stage of the hand
  • What the flop, turn and river was
  • Who the winner of the hand was

So essentially a hand history file is a complete snapshot of absolutely everything that occurred in a single hand of online poker.

Now on most online poker sites there is also an option to simply download the hand history files while you play poker right to your computer, tablet or smart phone.


Now here's where PokerTracker comes in...

Within PokerTracker you can choose to simply start importing these hand history files directly into the program.


This is how you do it:

PokerTracker 4 Review

PokerTracker then takes the information from these hand history files and processes it into tons of useful data such us:
  • What percentage of hands does a specific player play?
  • What percentage of hands does that player raise with?
  • What percentage of the time does that player bluff/raise on the flop?
  • What percentage of hands do YOU play?
  • What percentage of hands do YOU raise with?
  • What percentage of the time do YOU bluff/raise on the flop?


And when you run the "HUD" it then puts this information on your screen right beside all of your opponents whether you are playing a cash game or a tournament.

There are literally thousands of different stats to choose from and you can pick and choose which ones you want to see.

By the way, I just created an entire video with my best poker HUD stats that you should be using which might help you more.


Anyways, this information, or "reads" as you could call it, is absolutely crucial at the poker table because it allows me to know what type of player I am up against and therefore make better poker decisions.


For Example:

You have: AK on the button in a 6-max Zoom game

A player raises from early position

What should you do?


Well, if PokerTracker tells me that it is a tight player who only plays 15% of his hands, and only raises with 10% of his hands, then I will just call.

This is because he probably has a strong hand. He is a very tight player. So I would rather just call and see a flop.

However, if PokerTracker tells me that it is a loose and aggressive player who is playing 50% of his hands and raises with 40% of his hands, then I will react very differently.

I will definitely be re-raising versus this player because I am way, way ahead of his range. Do you see how important it is to have this information when making decisions at the poker table?

This is why PokerTracker has helped me win tens of thousands of dollars more at the poker tables over the years. This is also why I rely on PokerTracker as a professional poker player.

If you want to get information like this on your opponents next time you play online poker, you can download the free trial of PokerTracker right here.


PokerTracker HUD Review - What is It? How Will it Help You?


Now as mentioned, the PokerTracker 4 HUD actually put this information directly on your online poker table right beside each of your opponents (with statistics updating in real-time).

So here for example is my custom PokerTracker 4 HUD in action while I play online poker:

PokerTracker 4 Review

By the way for a complete breakdown of exactly what Poker HUD stats I use, click here.

The ability to have all this information directly relayed onto your screen while you play online poker is absolutely crucial if you are a serious poker player.

This is especially important if you play at the lower stakes like I do.

And the reason why is because these stakes (blinds of 1cent/2cent, 2cent/5cent, 5cent/10cent etc.) are well known for having thousands of players on some of the popular poker sites.

In fact, if you play Zoom poker on PokerStars it is very normal to have 500+ people in the player pool especially during prime-time hours.

There is just absolutely no way on earth that you are going to keep track of all of these players especially if you multi-table.

Most major online poker sites allow you to use a HUD these days. So for me personally, this is just a no-brainer to have my PokerTracker HUD running even if I only glance at it occasionally.


How to Setup Your PokerTracker HUD


Luckily it is also very easy to setup your PokerTracker 4 HUD and have it up and running at your poker table very quickly.

I actually created an entire video showing you step by step how to setup your PokerTracker HUD in and have it running in less than 5 minutes.


The bottom line is that the PokerTracker HUD takes all the guesswork out of online poker for you. Now you will always know what type of player you are up against and be able to make the right decisions.

This is why I rely on the PokerTracker 4 HUD day in and day out as a professional poker player. Because it gives me the crucial "reads" that I need to know on each player even if I am playing on many different tables at once.

You can download the PokerTracker 4 HUD and try it for yourself for free right here. 


The PokerTracker Database is Where Poker Pros Get Ahead


Alright here's the thing though.

What most people do not understand is that the HUD is actually only about 10% of why I and many other poker pros use a program like PokerTracker 4.

And this is because the real value of a poker software program like PokerTracker 4 is the database. This is the vast amount of information that you have collected on yourself and others.

This data is something that you use to study and improve when you are offline and not playing poker. If you want to know how poker pros continue to win and get ahead, this is exactly how!

So when I am not playing poker, I am often studying my PokerTracker database to find the strategies to beat my opponents:

PokerTracker 4 Review

Because once you build up a big enough sample of hands (100k+), you literally have all the information you need in order to find the best strategies to crush the games that you play in. 

So for example I find out what my opponents are doing wrong by studying their hands and then creating the best strategies to beat them.

But I also, (and this is crucial), study what they are doing better than me and then often incorporate that into my own game.

As I always say, who better is there to learn from than the actual people who are crushing the games that you play in? In PokerTracker you can study their game and see exactly how they are doing it.

I will explain how to do this step by step below. 

Lastly, and perhaps most crucially of all, I study my own hands (mostly the medium to large sized pots where I lose), in order to find out the mistakes that I am making and fix my leaks.

If you want to know why the poker pros always seem to keep winning it is because they are hard at work like me finding the strategies to beat you in their PokerTracker Database.


How to Use Your PokerTracker Database to Create Winning Poker Strategies


So how do you actually use your PokerTracker database to create winning poker strategies and beat your opponents?

Well it's actually very simple.

When I am studying my poker game inside PokerTracker I use a method I like to call "chunking." What I mean by this is that I take a very specific scenario and I will spend an entire afternoon ONLY studying this one situation.


For Example:

Say I am having trouble with pots where I double barrelled and I have nothing. This means I raised preflop, bet the flop, bet the turn and have nothing on the river.


Example Hand:

You raise preflop with AK


The flop comes: T53

You bet and your opponent calls.


The turn comes: 4

You bet and your opponent calls.


The river comes: Q

What should you do now???


This is a problem spot for a lot of people.
  • Should you keep bluffing?
  • Should you check and fold?
  • Should you check and call?

Well, this is where the PokerTracker hand filters come in (available for both cash games and tournaments).

In order to use them all you need to do is click on "More Filters"

PokerTracker 4 Review


And after that the Cash Filters box will come up (or tournament filters if you play tournaments).

From there go ahead and click on "Actions and Opportunities."

PokerTracker 4 Review

Within this filter box you can pull up hands for any scenario you want like the one I just mentioned above, double barrel hands where you have nothing on the river.


So for instance, I will filter for hands where: 
  • I continued bluffing on the river
  • I checked and gave up
  • I checked and called

And the great thing is that PokerTracker will actually tell you exactly how much you are winning or losing depending on which action you took.

So therefore, assuming I have a large enough sample size, I can immediately find out what is the most profitable course of action in these situations.

This kind of research away from the poker tables is how I and many other top poker pros are creating the best strategies to crush the poker games in 2020.

It really isn't that difficult to do this kind of poker study when you start doing it regularly. And the beautiful thing is that the cold hard data never lies.


How to Use PokerTracker to Copy the Strategies of the Best Players 


Alright, let's get to the other really "secret" way that top pros are using their PokerTracker 4 database to stay on top and continue crushing the games.

And this is, studying the best players in your games inside your PokerTracker database. From there you can simply "steal" their best strategies and use them for yourself.

There is absolutely no shame in this. In fact it just smart.

And I have never heard anyone ever even mention this strategy before and it still blows my mind because I have been using it with success for years and years.

Look, with your PokerTracker database (again, assuming you have built up a decent enough sample size), you literally have the keys to the vault sitting right there in front of you.

What better poker strategy could there possibly be than the ones actually used by the players who are crushing the games that you play in?

Makes sense right?

So once again, how do you actually do this in PokerTracker?

Again, it is super easy. All you need to do is go to the "My Reports" tab, search for their name and then study their poker hands in depth like I described above.

If you don't actually know who the best players in your games are you can filter the results by winrate or bb/100.

PokerTracker 4 Review

After this you choose New Report and then select All Players Report.

How to use PokerTracker to study

This will now give you a complete listing of every single poker player in your PokerTracker 4 database.

Now you can simply click the bb/100 or My C Won column to sort them by the biggest winners (or the biggest losers, but we aren't likely to learn anything good from them!)

For the next step, I will then pick one biggest winning players and switch over to the Statistics Tab. From there you can enter their player name and see a complete listing of all their hands.

Then you can use the hand filters (like I outlined above) to search for very specific scenarios such as how do they play Ace King when they miss the flop.


Then you can drill down even deep with the hand filters to show only hands where:
  • They missed the flop with Ace King and made a continuation bet
  • They missed the flop with Ace King and check/called a bet
  • They missed the flop with Ace King and check/folded to a bet
  • They missed the flop with Ace King and check/raised versus a bet

I will then check how profitable (or unprofitable they are) in each of these scenarios. And then I will study some individual hands that they played in the replayer in these very specific scenarios.

PokerTracker 4 Review my reports

Through this sort of research I am usually able to determine why it is that they are playing their Ace King when they miss the flop (for example) better than me.

And then I can incorporate those strategies into my own game.

Pretty simple stuff right?

Again, I can't possibly over-state the value of this. These are the players who are already crushing the games that you play in.

Just study them and copy their strategies!

There is no absolutely no shame in it believe me. It's just smart. They are clearly doing a lot of things right.

Study their hands in PokerTracker and find out exactly why they are winning so much.


Download My Custom PokerTracker HUD for Free


Alright, so as promised, I am going to give you free access to the two custom PokerTracker HUDs that I personally created and rely on every day as a 10+ year poker pro.

These are the custom PokerTracker HUDs that have allowed me to create some of the highest winnings in online poker history.

Thousands of other people have downloaded them and used them now to start creating consistent profits at the micro stakes poker tables.

All you need to do is download them below and then import them into PokerTracker. Please note that they are hosted on my personal Google Drive account.

And these are PokerTracker HUD files (i.e. they won't work with any other program).

Also please note that I believe you can only import my custom PokerTracker HUDs with the full paid version of PokerTracker (not the trial version).

Although I am not positive, somebody let me know in the comments below!

1) You can download the Lite version of my custom Pokertracker 4 HUD right here.
(recommended for NL2, NL4 and NL5 or $1-$10 buyin tournaments).

2) You can download the Full version of my custom Pokertracker 4 HUD right here.
(recommended for NL10 and higher or $10+ buyin tournaments).

Inside PokerTracker 4 just go HUD > Edit HUD Profiles > Options > Import Profile.

After you have done this you will be able to immediately start using my personal custom PokerTracker HUDs yourself at the poker tables.

If you play poker tournaments you can still use my HUDs, but they are meant for cash games so you will need to make a few adjustments.

For much more information on every single stat that I use on each of my custom HUDs, make sure you check out my massive article on how to setup your PokerTracker HUD.


Can You Use PokerTracker With a Mac?


One of the final questions that I get asked a lot is can you use PokerTracker with a Mac?

The answer is yes.

In fact a Macbook Air is my main go to laptop these days and I use PokerTracker on it all the time, as you can see in the pic below.

PokerTracker 4 Review Mac

As you can see, I am studying my hands and my opponents in PokerTracker even while I am on a beach on a tiny island in the Philippines :)

This is indeed one of the main benefits of PokerTracker over many other poker tracking programs out there is that it is both Windows and Mac compatible.

So if you are a Mac user like me, you will have no problem installing and using PokerTracker immediately at your online poker tables.


Final Thoughts


So I hope that this PokerTracker 4 review gave you a better understanding of why the majority of online poker pros like myself these days rely on this tracking program.

The PokerTracker HUD allows you to get those crucial "reads" on your opponents that you need when you are playing online poker.

This is especially important if you multi-table or play Zoom poker. There are just too many players to keep track of.

With the PokerTracker 4 HUD you always have a massive amount of statistical information displayed directly on your poker table to tell you exactly what type of player you are up against.

The PokerTracker database though is really the most important and game changing part of the program for me and many other poker pros.

This is where we study our hands and run filters in order to find our leaks and fix them. This is where I also study my opponents in order to find the best ways to beat them and also to find out what strategies they are using that my be better than my own.

Lastly, if you use PokerTracker than you can just download and install the custom HUDs that I created and personally use as a 10+ year poker pro for free (link posted above).

The bottom line is that if you are serious about online poker in 2020, then I would highly recommend that you use a tracking program like PokerTracker 4.

You can download the free trial of PokerTracker 4 right now by clicking here.

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Let me know what you think of PokerTracker 4 in the comments below. Do you use this program? Did it help you at the online poker tables?

Please note that the links above are affiliate links. This means that at no cost to you, if you choose to purchase the full version of PokerTracker 4, I may earn a small commission.

PokerTracker 4 Review





18 comments:

  1. I have been using PokerTracker for years, I agree it's definitely the best HUD out there. Do you have any suggestions for what HUD stats to use at NL25 and higher?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey TJ,

      I still use my own custom PokerTracker HUD for these games. I shared all the stats in my big poker HUD setup article.

      Optimal PokerTracker HUD Setup for Today's Games

      Delete
  2. How do you find info on top players? Under 'My reports' the only players available are me on various sites I play on, or you have to actually name a player?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Dave,

      Oops, I missed that step in the article. I am going to add it now.

      Basically what you do is go to My Reports > New Report and then choose All Players Report.

      This will give you a listing of all players in your PokerTracker database. You can then filter by bb/100 or My C Won or whatever you use to find the biggest winners.

      After this I go to the Statistics tab and enter their name. This gives me a listing of all their hands and then I can also run filters from there.

      I hope this helps. I am going to edit the article also to make this more clear.

      Delete
    2. Good stuff, although the best players seem to be Player 6 and Player 3.. Is that down to hands played on Party Poker..?

      Delete
  3. Hi Nathan!

    About "chunking", how many hands for a specific scenario is needed for the information to be somewhat reliable?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Mattias,

      There is no set number.

      Delete
  4. The example you listed about viewing other players that miss with AK, aren’t you only going to have their hole card data if they went to showdown?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Oliver,

      Yes. For someone like me who plays a ton of poker this is no problem. I have massive samples on them.

      Delete
  5. what sites do HUDS work with?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's best to check with the HUD's website. They will have a complete list. You can also just email, PokerTracker, for example and ask them directly.

      Delete
  6. Great article, as per usual. I will drill my pt4 database now in search for leaks and game development strategies for NL5. Leak tracker only helps you so much, your stats may be almost perfect but you may still be losing, I experienced this myself.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Ken,

      Thanks! I am glad this article helped you.

      I agree that the Leak Tracker is pretty limited.

      This is why I prefer to dig into the stats in PokerTracker myself, and actually just look at the stats and strategies of the biggest winners in my games (assuming I have a large enough sample size on them).

      Because those are clearly the stats and the strategies that are winning right now in these specific games, no matter what any program or poker coach/expert tells you.

      Delete
  7. Hi, Nathan I've been playing WSOP app for a long time now. And been wanting to get into online cash games and just found out my state (MA) is restricted still to online NL poker and other sites but do allow you to play on certain sites for cash games so I signed up to Ignitionpoker.com they had the best options and rake back, plus was the best one that was allowed to play in my state. So been reading your extensive articles signed up for your free guide to better my game play. Does the PT4 work with this type of site or limited to certain sites and what sites would you recommend for cash games that my not be state restricted?.
    Totally appreciate you putting out helpful information to novice, and non novice players to learn like a pro, looking to make side hustle.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi,

      I am glad my articles and my free poker guide are helping you! Some poker sites allow HUDs, some don't. It can be difficult to keep up with sometimes.

      Your best bet is to check the PokerTracker website where they have a complete listing of which poker sites are supported.

      Delete
  8. Nathan , I've just started using Hand Re-player on 888 which is helping straight away identifying obvious novice leaks and areas where i leave myself wide open for exploitation ! I also play Zoom but what i wanted to know is will i need to pay a licence for both 888 and Pokerstars ? common sense i would need 2 licences eh? also if you don't mind answering it is cheap for the Micro Stakes.....Is this a yearly amount ? because i can't seen to find an easy answer. I use 888 because i feel their is worse fish than me so since my first deposit I hold my own and even make a few quid. My reason for asking is I want to learn from the best so would love to import your HUD. Thanks in advance and keep up the good work m8 ! Your the reason i am still playing..... Thanks in advance J.P. Riley

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey J.P.,

      I am glad my poker advice is helping you!

      Access to the full version of PokerTracker is a one time fee. It also works on all poker sites that are supported. So you can use it on both 888 and Stars, there is no extra fee.

      Delete
  9. When trying to study the play of good players and trying to learn from them; can you only see hands that you were involved against them, even if you folded; or can you see their play against other opponents when you weren't playing in that game?

    If not, is there a way to obtain their hand histories?

    Lastly, if there were a few players you wanted to study, and can't obtain their hand histories without playing against them; is there a way to get seated in games with them, to be able to study their play in the future? Some kind of low cost online service that would show what tables they are playing, etc?

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete