Yeah... I'm getting the distinct impression the PT4 rotation is concrete.

When can I get my hands on this?

The public beta is scheduled to begin before the end of the third quarter (which would be September 30th), with the commercial version on sale before the end of the year.

As the lead developer for PT4, I can clearly state that nothing is set in stone at this point. In fact, since announcing PT4 and getting suggestions, we've implemented or plan on implementing a fair amount of them.

Yes, there are going to be some suggestions and ideas we disagree with, or aren't able to implement for some reason or another. However, that doesn't mean we aren't open to suggestions and ideas.

We appreciate all the feedback we're getting and we are very closely and very seriously looking at each and every idea we're getting from you guys.

I think you misunderstand, of course there are positional stats - they already exist in PT3, and in PT4 we are advancing our positional stats options as shown below (development image, this feature is not finalized yet - more to come). We include these positional stats in our default HUD popups, but you have the freedom to include them in the on-table HUD groups if you chose to.



For example you might want to add a row that is "3BE 3BM 3BC 3BB 3BSB 3BBB 3BT" for Early, Mid, Cutoff, Button, Small Blind & Big Blind 3Bet stats along with Total 3Bet stats. The downside to placing the positional stats on the table is that you may find it takes up too much screen real-estate - hence using the popup is better.

What I was addressing in the prior post was the idea of creating stats that change on the fly to the opponents position on the table, its an interesting idea but it is not something we will be including at this time, our default HUDs are designed for totals only (totals are shown both as global or table-session stats - more on this shorty). The pluses are obvious, but the downsides outweigh the benefits.

1. The positional stat is not as valuable unless you can correlate the position with the total value, which means you need both the total and the positional stat on the table at the same time.
   
2. Positional stats require a larger sample size than the total requires for the same stat
3. We already include this data in the popups where it is easier to view without risk of causing a big mistake. As a general rule, we do not add stats that change mid-hand because it can create player mistakes - as we all know in-game mistakes can be very costly. PokerTracker has to develop for a very wide range of computer specifications, what might work fine on a high end i7 over 5 tables may not work for a user who is using a core duo while playing 12 tables. Our users have overwhelmingly told us that they do not want stats display to be delayed (and we agree with them!), adding such a feature may cause a delay in some computer specifications which could in turn create a costly error for the player. That is too great a risk for us to take....
4. The development time needed to add such a feature would probably push back the release date of PT4, if it was a feature that all of our users would want and could use without risk then the pro argument would be stronger, but it just doesnt make sense for us to develop a feature that a minority of our users want or need, that could cause errors in the player decision process, that would cause a delay in shipping.

I hope this answer helps to clarify, let me know if you have further questions.


We are listening, our policy to to have as honest and open dialog as possible with all of you. Many 2+2 posters have complained that software companies ignore their requests, we heard this complaint and have made sure that we listen and consider everything while keeping a open dialog with our users about their ideas. We will do our best to keep expectations realistic, we won't make promises we cannot keep. The downside to this open and honest communication is that occasionally we will explain why an idea is great in concept but has flaws in the execution, this is inevitable but we will strive to consult with the brightest minds in poker before communicating these decisions with you all - you deserve the truth, we will try to give it to you. We try really hard to be one of the good guys, we just want to do the right thing by our users and create killer software that helps our users profit!

No i understood perfectly

Many players these days have played millions of poker, have 40+ stats in their HUDS and are well aware of how much significance they want to give to stats with low sample size or which *may* not be reliable.

Using pop ups is often inconvenient. That's why we'd LIKE the OPTION of having these in the HUD.

You asked us, we told you//


fine the truth. it's too difficult or will take you too long. just admit that then. but please stop telling me that it's IN MY BEST INTERESTS for you not to provide this feature...


Personally i already use NoteCaddy to get alot of teh data that PT4 isn't willing to trust us with (like stats on how villain responds specifically to hero), and using too many pop ups alongside this is a non starter for me.

If you really want killer software then you need to address this sort of thing, ie start ACTUALLY listening and stop repeating how much you SAY you are listening.

When you (our customers) come to us with suggestions, two things happen:

1. We take the idea to our very well respected online pros that are working with us and get their feedback.

2. We approach our development team to learn of any potential technological issues and how long the idea would take to implement.

After weighing the feedback from our pro's and dev team, I ultimately end up making the final decision whether the feature/idea will get implemented. On this specific issue of positional based stats in the HUD (not popup), we received skepticism from our pros and the development team was concerned of some issues along with a long implementation time. This made the decision of not immediately implementing this idea fairly easy for me since both the pro's and devs were on the same side of the coin.

TT did a good job of laying out the concerns/issues from our pro's/dev team but he did not classify which were which. One of the major causes of concern of the pro's was the lack of sample size and reliance on regular, non-positional based stats. That was the pro's response and not PokerTracker.

To accuse of us not "trusting" our customers or not implementing something simply because the customer cannot handle it cannot be further from the truth. The entire reason that we built our custom stats/reports engine was to provide you with whatever tools/information that you want available. We realize that we cannot always provide everyone with exactly what they need which is why we made PokerTracker so powerful so that you can do it on your own.

At the end of the day, we are listening to you and have already implemented a lot of your suggestions; however, there are a lot of other factors that come into play and simply because we cannot implement a feature that you suggested, does not mean that we are not listening or that it was not a good idea -- which it was.

Best regards,

Derek

Some time ago I remember reading either on this forum, or the PT3 forum, about PT's implementation, or interpretation, of BB/100... or was it bb/100? Anyway, IIRC the discussion was that the PT understanding of this stat differed from both general consensus and the HEM implementation. There was a similar discussion about VPIP.

Previously, in this thread, TT told us how the PT and HEM crews are such good friends ("Contrary to common belief, the owners of HEM and PT get along, we are friendly.") so why don't you guys grab a couple of pizzas and a six pack and resolve issues like this... or has this already been resolved?

I'm on a roll.

so much so that I asked the same question twice...sry.

Looks good!

Can u have it auto adjust time to computer time. If it doesnt already.

For notes can we make our own default template instead of starting with blank page when writing new note? Also is it possible to make mini notes in the hud overlay that would show all the time?
Can you let us add a hotkey to swap between hud templates and customised settings like last 100hands etc.
Then hotkeys inside PT so that we can swap between filters templates, w/e faster/instantly.

Can you let us add goals/archivements, like 50k hands this month then have some nifty graphics showing pace etc.

Jeez man, be grateful they are even giving us an ear into development...You ever see the episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets to invent a car for the 'average' American and he incorporates every single idea...look it up.

double click on opponent stats show current day stats.

I read that I will be able to use PT4 and PT3 side by side. What about my PT3 data? Will there be a replication function to get my pt3 db data into PT4? Can I restore a PT3 backup into PT4? If not and I have to do a manual import of handhistories will there be a way to filter the import? All of my handhistory-files are in one directory (with subdirectories) and not sorted by limit. Will there be a way to "tell" PT4 to import files from directory X but only limits x, y and z (don't want all the old stuff in the db)?

There will be a PT3 -> PT4 conversion tool to help people convert their PT3 databases.

There aren't currently plans to be able to tell PT4 to not import hands from a certain limit - but you could always import all hands and purge the limit you want to get rid of, or create a PT3 database (using backup/restore) that only has the limits you want (via purge) and then convert that. Purging speed has been vastly improved in our recent PT3 releases.

Hm, that's what I first thought of trying. I attempted to purge all limits but one from my 57 GB PT3 DB. The purge did start but it said time remaining equals something like 9000 hours. That was a wee bit long for my taste so I canceled that process. How reliable is that time estimate?

It could be better - make sure you're using our very latest beta version though. There were purging improvements which should improve things considerably that are in the 3.11 beta line that are not in 3.10. In the 3.11s it should be something like 1/100 the time to purge that it is in 3.10.

if you click on the video page, this error appears

http://preview.pokertracker.com/pt4-videos

Not Found

The requested URL /pt4-videos was not found on this server.
Apache/2.2.15 (Red Hat) Server at preview.pokertracker.com Port 80



FYP

Any chance of a buddy list in PT4 that lets us know if they're online - kinda like table tracker but without the additional subs?

I see this as well and I will let the appropriate people know immediately.

There would be no way for PokerTracker to know who is online without hooking into TableTracker.

In PokerTracker 4 you can either show table session stats or global stats for each player on a case by case basis.

Its a good idea, but it falls outside of the scope of PokerTracker's development goals, this is the type of tool that is best left for third party developers. Besides... if your goal is to play 50,000 hands in a month, I think most people are going to know when they exceed that mark - I for one would be clicking refresh frequently to see when I hit the magic number ;-)

Developmental decisions for PokerTracker are influenced by our player advisers and our users - not our competitors. PokerTracker created the names for almost all of the commonly used poker stats many years ago, these stats were then copied and used by other companies - and eventually even TV shows! We cannot control how others will implement stats of similar names, they do things their way, we do things our way. Sometimes there are similarities, sometimes there are not similarities, but in the end separate companies must work on their own products.


We are at the mercy of the poker rooms on this issue, you need to contact the poker site you play at to address this. We determine the time that the hand history was played from the hand history saved on your computer, if the time is wrong then we have no way of knowing that this is an issue. We hope you have success - we agree that should be addressed by some poker rooms!


We were discussing hotkeys just yesterday with some of our player advisers, good timing for you to ask this question. We believe that a tracker should not interfere with the playing experience, if we added hotkeys then it might conflict with the keyboard shortcuts of your poker site or third party tool. That of course could create problems for you while playing, that is why we decided against including hotkeys. With that said, it might be fairly easy for a third party developer to incorporate your idea, it could be a good third party tool idea for a power user such as yourself.

How does PT4 stand upto HEM?

I have used HEM for ever and happy with the software and especially the support.
I mainly play cash games and faily low volume - 250k hands a year.

Is PT4 going to be that much better than HEM? if yes then why?

HEM2 is just around the corner as well.