This means that popups won't all be split up by position (EP,MP,LP,blinds) because that isn't so relevant postflop. It will still probably be used preflop but I don't have the details yet - the HUD profiles are still in design.
It doesn't refer to positioning of individual stats - the basic stats are likely to remain in similar positions (I suspect) although there may be some changes.
You will still be able to position your stats however you like, and this will be easier in PT4.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm using Kraada's advanced HUD which does not use EP/MP/LP/blinds in the post-flop popup so I never even thought of that.

{IP, OOP} x {HU, multi-way} are interesting though. E.g. a player could be in the hijack (LP) yet first to act on the flop in a 3-way pot.

no comment! We are holding ourselves back from sharing how the HUD will look and work until we release the beta, its groundbreaking - and a big secret

Which is when?


sorry, i could not resist

Would ya say before the second week of september?

Will cEV graphs be included?

When its done. You wouldn't want us to release an incomplete application, would you? Even in Beta form, PokerTracker 4 must blow everyone out of the water ;-)


We wouldn't say anything until the date is announced. It could be next week, next month, 2 months from now - all of those dates are equally possible, we won't rush development. As Orson Wells once said, we will sell no wine before it's time, I think that is a good motto to go by for PokerTracker 4.

Yes we have the ability to do what you would call chip EV and also T$ based on final hand ICM. This is one of the big advantages of having a built-in ICM calculator!

Maintaining the database is still important, but in PT4 these tasks are automated and invisible to the user so there isn't any housekeeping to be done in PT4. Thats right, we perform all housekeeping on the fly as hands are being imported, its a fully automated solution that will not force you to stop playing just to maintain the database.. As hands are imported, PT4 will assure that you have an up to date cache, this is still necessary for SSD users to optimize HUD performance.

an example of what I mean is "do not run clustering if the underlying disk is SSD". I believe that the point of clustering is to organize data so that it can be efficient accessed from a spinning disk platter. I.e. clustering serves a function similar to disk defragmenting. Defragmentation (and also clustering?) are meaningless on an SSD. Moving data around unnecessarily (e.g. defragmenting) on an SSD just puts unnecessary wear on said SSD.

I really know nothing about PostgreSQL (and SQL DBs in general) so I could be way off base here.

I am certain that any sort of moving of data to optimize access based on the assumption that the underlying storage is a spinning disk (e.g. disk defragmentation) does no good on an SSD and simply causes unnecessary wear.

I realize there are several DB housekeeping operations that will still need to be done when the underlying disk is an SSD. It is my current understanding that performing the "Housekeeping > Advanced Options > Cluster" is pointless for SSDs.

You are correct that Cluster is pointless for users with SSDs. However, we have found that for users without SSDs it's not even worth it except in very, very rare circumstances (as in, it came up once) - therefore it will be gone entirely from PT4.

Whoa there nellie!

I see you only have 14 posts so you're either new to things around here or you got the opportunity to change your screen name. In either case, there is considerable history, and egg on faces due to slippage, in that everyone from the PT team, including the tea lady, has promised PT4 beta release in Q3. This was later modded to Sep which is still in Q3.

PS. Wells was a better actor than he was a wine connoisseur. Wine is often released when it's ready to be released which is not necessarily when it's ready to be enjoyed.

1st it should be stated that all along we said that we project a Q3 beta release, it was never promised. The press release was very specific in saying "PT4 is expected to enter public beta-testing late in the third quarter, with commercial sales slated for fourth quarter 2011." From day one we have worked hard to make sure that a firm date was never provided because it would be inaccurate if given. Even with the big massive companies with thousands of developers at hand working on the same code at the same time projections might slip.... its the nature of the beast (see past MS Windows release dates slipping as a good example).

As for the "history with egg on the face" comment, I can confirm that we readily admit we made the mistake of releasing PT3 before it was ready for prime time. We will not make that same mistake again, we admit we might have lost some users during PT3's beta who never gave us the chance to solve the issues that they found. We of course solved these issues over time, and then continued to improve upon PT3 when opportunity knocked.

If it requires a little egg on the face because we slip into Q4 then so be it, our users swill be much happier in the long run to have access to a working application that will not interfere with their playing experience, we won't take that risk. We are willing to take an egg or two for the team, the players who rely on our software for a living deserve a complete application - not an alpha stage product in beta form - and we intend to deliver that!


PS: If anyone in our company specifically said September then I must apologize for that mistake, I feel confident that it would not have been intentional because everyone in our company knows that we are not permitted to state any specific dates. Could it be released in September? Maybe. But it could also be released in August or October or some other month if we need the extra time to work out bugs before release. We will never tell until its time. We are aware that some people will be bummed out by this, but in the long run we can assure you that it is for the best.

PS: This is our new corporate account provided by Two Plus Two, there are no new employees, its the same guys without modifications. Thanks for asking though, we may have missed explaining this earlier.

I'm pretty sure almost no-one "lost faith" in PT3 for releasing a free Beta early, it is widely expected betas will contain show-stopping bugs and should only be used if you wish to help find such bugs, not relied upon for general usage. Imo some people lost faith when the beta ended and they paid for the "final" product, but there were still bugs to be found.

From what I can guess from this thread / videos / pace of progress, it looks like the PT team want the "beta" to be basically a fully featured almost flawless "free trial" rather than a traditional beta this time around. Which I think is a shame, but then I'm not one to complain when beta software does what it's supposed to (crash).

I have to agree with Dave here. I don't think anyone expects a fully working, almost flawless beta.If anything it looks more likely you will loose potential clients because people did not have the chance to make a choice between PT4 and HM2. When people get in a habit of using one software it is very difficult to change their minds. It is human nature people - do not like changes. When HM2 was first released it was pretty unstable, full of bugs beta.This was a few weeks ago, but just because what they did and thousands of people reported bugs for the past 3 weeks they are now much closer to releasing the end product than PT4 is.
There a lot of people out there who are willing to help you with speeding up the development by testing and reporting bugs and giving feedback, but you guys are going to have to let them help you.

Also answering an ETA question with is at the very least unprofessional and i fail to see how this sort of attitude will get your sales up. I do not know what your area of expertise is in the PT team but i can certainly tell it is nothing to do with revenue or customer service. Maybe you should let someone else answer those type of questions...

You could also manage expectation by calling the initial release an alpha release and tell folks that only those who want to be on the bleeding edge and test drive raw SW should use it.

As KuPoB points out, this could help you get more platform coverage. Of course having your bug reporting system well automated (as suggested earlier) is a feature that pays dividends the sooner it is done.

I know PT has marketing folks thinking about various release strategies. I'm sure they've considered many options before settling on the current course.

In any event, I look forward to PT4.

We have learned that the average player will abandon the app if they found bugs that interfered with their playing experience in game. I'd agree that your statement is more correct for post-game analysis provided that the bug is something minor. An experienced "software jockey: like you expects bugs to exist in betas; however the average person who will be using the PT4 beta is not expected to have the same level of experience you have, therefore we need to make sure the process is as smooth as possible for this more common type of user. Our beta process is fully public, not semi-public or private; most opinions are made upon the first use of the application, we want to make that first opinion as good as possible.

As we see it, the alpha stage is where we work out the majority of our design issues; our goal is to make sure that we catch as many of these concerns as possible before turning over the application to beta testers. Our beta stage is for the final run through prior to release to catch bugs that we missed earlier. Nobody on our team expects to be able to deliver a flawless beta; I'm sure many issues will arise that need to be addressed when we turn over the app to a larger audience - our goal is to reduce the number of issues during the alpha stage so the beta process is shorter.

We also agree with your lost faith statement, we don't deny that. During the PT3 beta process we did not receive as much feedback as we expected to, there were some issues that were not made aware to our team until after PT3 was released for sale. We learned from this experience, that is why we endeavor to gain more detailed info during the PT4 beta to avoid a repeat of the initial PT3 post-beta. Additionally we will not commit to a sale date until we know for sure that the beta process is complete, retail sales won't occur until we know players will be happy with the initial release of PT4.
If there is a risk, then it is one we are willing to take. If it is necessary, then we are prepared to lose a few initial sales in exchange for making the best tracking application that has been released to date. If we have to take a few hits for the good of the players who will be using PT4 then we are prepared to do so!
The actual quote is below, did you miss the the smile on the end? We are aware how excited some people have become about the pending release of PT4, our responses try to communicate with a very wide audience and try to share in that excitement. At times we have a little fun with the answers by being playful - that was a good example of a playful response (as is the screen capture I posted below from the PT support forums with a similar response that was received favorably). Our communications goal is to make our potential users feel as comfortable as possible, poker is stressful; the discussion and use of PT4 should be joyful, not an anxiety filled experience. Please accept my apologies if the fun I was attempting to inject into the post wasn't clear... communications is not a perfect science, but I can assure you that post was meant to be respectful and playful while giving a qualified answer at the same time.


-TT

We have an invitation only alpha with many testers that is taking place right now. These people have all been trained prior to receiving their alphas so they know how to submit guidance, issues found, and navigate the unfinished components of the application. They all know that playing while using the Alpha of PT4 is a risk, we greatly appreciate their willingness to accept that risk to help us make the playing experience as smooth as possible for our users once we release the public beta.

-TT

From the official notice on the PT forum,:
There is nothing there about 'expectations'

I don't give a ratz azz (should I insert smilie face?) about the release of PT3. I'm referring to this comedy of errors: https://www.pokertracker.com/forums/...p?f=19&t=31462

And an update from a concerned user:

Does PT4 have street stats in pop up hud? I would like to see short video about this.

Yes, there will be street by street stats in the HUD pop ups. More detail will be available about the HUD in an upcoming video.

will PT4 have vs Hero stats? I weeeeeeelly want this feature so i can find out villain's true stats vs me.

I know it might not be of use to alot of players as you need to play a bunch of hands vs someone for these stats to be useful but I play 24 tables and would love to have a second set of vs hero stats to go by for use against fellow masstabling nemeses'.

By the same token is there a way to limit the stats displayed on your hud to the last x amount of villain hands? I think by hands would be a better filter than by how old the hands are.

EDIT: I realize the latter is already included in pt3, been a long night...

We are looking at this, there has been internal discussion but we are not committed to implementing this idea yet because for all the pluses, there are also downsides. There are many opinions within our company that have been shared, I personally want to see more real world application first because although the idea seems good initially, the reality is that it would require such a massive database that the trade off on database performance may not be worth it. I can assure you that it is an idea we will continue to look at.

With that said, I suspect you will find some of the new stats in PT4 far more useful - and long over due. We aren't ready to discuss that, once we show the player community what we have planned it might make the reasons for our reluctance to support vs player stats obvious. We don't want PT4 to become bloatware, our goal is to provide the most important tools at your fingertips without getting in your way.

Our upcoming video is on the topic of "foreign" currencies and how PT4 can be used in any currency with a very high degree of accuracy. If you play in US Dollars but want to track your winnings in Euros this will be a ground breaking video for you. If you have a question you would like answered in the video let us know!

-TT

this should be "LDO" but I don't see mention of fixing the "win rate in terms of BB (limit poker big bets) vs bb (no limit big blinds)" on the PDF release. I.e. that infernal quirk that has spurred the nomenclature "ptbb" to indicate "2 x the big blind"

PokerTracker was the first in the market, PokerTracker 2 created all the commonly used stats today. PT3 was initially a rebuild of PT2 to provide the same foundation while planning for the future. I often use the car analogy, PT3 was a new model of car featuring a new frame and engine but using the old design plans - PT4 is a redesign of the frame and interior but the engine was updated - while using the same design concepts.

As part of the frame redesign we have abandoned any thinking from the PT2 era which had become stale - such as the way we now compensate for walks in the big blind when calculating VPIP (notice the dollar sign is no longer in that stat?) or PFR. Rest assured, the days of ptBBs are done as well - our analysis is now based on big blinds rather than big bets. For anyone who was around from the earlier stages of PokerTracker this is going to be a radical change, for more recent players its a no-brainer - and we would agree.

-TT

will there be columns in the database for sng-type actions such as "shove all in" and "call all in"? not simply a "was all in" flag.