Tourney Stat/HUD improvements - Waited 5 years now!!!

[Thomas42]

[Warning, this is a very long post :) - I have posted this in the General forum as it is not just only a feature request]

Ever since I bought PokerTracker2 back in October 2004 I have loved it. It is an fantastic tool to use both when playing, keeping statistics and analysing both my own and others play.

A great tool can of course always be improved and for years I, and many others, have requested new features for tournaments. Improvements for tournament statistics have been promised for as long as I have used PT, but unfortunately I can't say that I have seen any really useful once added yet. Focus seems to be almost exclusively on cash games, which I play very little compared to especially SnGs.

I have now waited patiently for almost 5 years to see any of all feature requests for tournaments materialise in PT. My patience is now reaching the limit and I am tired of waiting any more.

My main purpose with this text is to outline what, and why, changes and new features are needed, to make the statistics as useful as possible for the HUD as well as analysing my game. I am sure there are some things I have missed, but hopefully this can lay ground for both a discussion and base for implementing it.

I know that I am really going into great details of what I would like to see and that some suggestions might seem a bit "over the top", but I just want to cover every detail I can think of to give an as complete picture as possible.

I have divided this post into two parts; Statistics and HUD.


Statistics Improvements

In cash games you have Limit, No Limit and Pot Limit, blinds don't change. The only real uncertainty is the number of players at a table, but that is easily sorted with the filter available.

In tournaments though everything is much more complicated. It is therefore very important that the tournaments can be classified correctly to be really useful in the HUD.

The below changes are needed to be able to filter the tournaments and hand history to match a certain type so that the statistics make sense both in the HUD and when analysing.

Differences between cash games and tourneys

In cash games you can basically plan you strategy based on the limit type and the blind levels. Using very reliable stats shown by the HUD during the game.

In tournaments there are many more factors that needs to be considered both before deciding to play a tournament and during it; Blind structure, blind time, freezeout, re-buy, how many places that pay out, SnG single table, SnG multitable, MTT, qualifier, etc...

All of the above is factors that is needed to be taken into account for applying the right strategy for playing a tournament.

As things are now, PT3 is missing a lot of classification options needed to prepare the statistics to be really useful.

Improvements needed for tournament statistics

Buy-Ins needs to have three options:
- Freeroll
- Frequent Player Points
- Normal Buy-In

Play is very different between these three, especially the Freeroll ones as a lot of playing just trying to double or triple up quick or go bust to hit the next one.

For FPP tourneys it should also be possible to store how many points was used to enter it.

Tourney Type only have a choices for Limit, No Limit and Pot Limit. Options are needed for:

Buy-In type:
- Freezeout
- Re-Buy unlimited
- Re-Buy restricted (such as one Re-Buy and one Add-On only)

Pay-Out Type:
- MTT 10% payout
- MTT 15% payout
- MTT 20% or more payout
- MTT Qualifier (Satellite)
- SnG normal (such as pays the first 3 on a single table)
- SnG 50% (Ladbrokes has this)
- SnG Double or Nothing (DoN)
- SnG Qualifier (Satellite)
- Steps/Ladder

Qualifiers:
In most qualifiers the top X finishers win a seat to another tournament. On PokerStars the game ends when all remaining players will win the same prize. Thus they should all share 1st place. Any remaining prizes should be treated as normal as normal play still goes on there. On Ladbrokes play continues, but it turns into a pre-flop AI war so here too they should all share 1st place.

DoN:
On PokerStars the first 5 in a DoN share 1st place and the game ends when there is only 5 left. But when importing the summary they are still placed 1-5 and not even in the order of the stack sizes. Place 1-5 should all share 1st place as it otherwise screws up the statistics completely. On Ladbrokes its the same as for qualifiers.

Steps/Ladder:
This also need options for the level...

Blind Structure:
- Slow
- Normal
- Fast

This is about how much the blinds increase for every new blind level. PokerStars are using a mix of these three and it greatly changes how long you can sit back and wait for premium hands depending on your stack compared to the blinds.

Blind Level Time:
- Super Turbo (less than 5 minutes)
- Turbo (5-9 minutes)
- Normal (10-12 minutes)
- Slow (13-19 minutes)
- Super Slow (20 minutes or more)

Table Size:
Simply the max number of players at each table - 2-10.

Number of SnG tables:
Simply the number of tables 1-x in the SnG tournament.

Table Type:
I suggest that the table type only include SnG, MTT and Head-Up. The rest is defined in the above. This will ensure that it is possible to properly define each SnG/MTT without needing any new entries here.

Take out the Speed/Turbo and Qualifyer and use the separate option above. That way they can be used for any table type instead of having to add new tabel types for each variant they are used for.

SnG (2 MAX) should be renamed to Heads-Up.

PokerStars also have a Battle of the Planets tournament that is a bit special. Each table is in fact a one table SnG and you have to win your table to advance to the next round. So it is a combination of SnG and MTT and needs to be classified as such.

Tournament Profiles

Of course manually having to enter all the above, when it can't be parsed from the summary, would be very time consuming. Therefore being able to create Tournament Profiles, including creating from an already fully classified one, would greatly speed up things. Then I simply only need to highlight all tournaments I want to classify as a certain type and select the profile to apply.

It might even be possible to have this done automatically for some tournament types.


Tournaments Tab Improvements

The scope of this text is not about improvements here, but there is one thing I would like to mention.

Table Type Filter:
I know this can be done using filters, but it would be really convenient to have a simple popup-menu to be able to quickly filter the views based on All, MTT, SnG, SNG/MTT and Heads-Up SNG/MTT.

This option should be available on each tab so it can thus be made global for all.


HUD Improvements

The HUD is great, especially for cash games as it contains all filters needed to get statistics that suites the game I play.

For tournaments though it is severely crippled as it just bunches every hand together for a player as long as the hand is qualified as a tournament hand. Thus I have no idea what the statistics is based on, if I play a MTT it could very well be Heads-Up or SnG hands I see stats for. Likewise I have no idea what Buy-In or anything else as well.

There are basically 3 filters available today:
- Current Blind level
- All or X last hands
- Number of players at the table

That's it, nothing else.

I know that for MTTs I will most likely have very little statistics for most of the players I sit down with. But when it comes to SnGs it is very different. Many poker players plays several SnGs at the same time, I usually play 4-6, and will even on PokerStars quickly build up enough hands for many of the opponents.

Why changes are needed

Simply because all the statistics improvements I have outlined above affect the strategy needed when playing a tournament.

Take a normal SnG and a Double or Nothing SnG as example. The normal pays place 1-3 with 50%, 30% and 20%. The DoN pays place 1-5 the same. Thus in the normal you have two objective, firstly to make it to the final three and then to win it. The DoN on the other hand your objective is to come 5th and nothing else. The strategy is completely different and you opponents, at least most of them, plays very different comparing these two.

I am convinced that a majority of players play a variety of games so I am sure that for many players in my database I have hands for both, plus of course MTTs and Heads-Up. This will then result in HUD stats that are more an indication than reliable.

HUD Profiles

This is a great improvement and will make it so much easier to be able to create the various profiles needed depending on what tournament is going to be played.

What is needed to be added is the possibility to configure a profile based on every option I have listed in the Statistics Improvements above.

That way I can then create a profile, optionally using the Tournament Profiles as base, that will work perfectly for DoN and only use hands from those games.

Blind Levels:
The option to only see hands from the current blind level is in my opinion quite useless unless I have played many times against the same player. For each new blind level there wont be any stats for new players.

Instead it should be possible to configure to filter on current blind level plus X blind before and after. So if the blind are at level 5, I can configure it to show hands for level 4-6 (that is minus 1 and plus 1 level). At level 6 it will thus show hands from levels 5-7. Simple, but an incredible useful improvement.

Player Ranges:
This filter is much more useful, but crippled due to that I can't configure it to overlap.

As it is now I have three ranges: 2-3, 4-6 and 7-10. The problem is that when it goes from 7 to 6 player at the table all statistics disappears, unless I have hands for them.

It needs to be changed in a similar way to blind levels, making so I can overlap the ranges. Then when the table becomes 6, I will still see the stats from 7 players and at least have something to go on instead of nothing.

For each range I should be able to set the added plus or minus. That way I can have 2-2 that only shows Heads-Up hands if I need. Of course, if I haven't played this player Heads-Up before it would be empty so it would be great to have an option like "If no hands use X hands from plus X players until X hands collected) with an indication that is is from 3 handed play.

Last X Tournaments
Just use stats from the last X tournaments for a player.

Since a Date
Only use stats since a specified date.

Old stats wanted back:
In PT2, especially the Tournament Time window, I could easily see how many tournaments, average finish, ITM and real money won for each player. Please add this back as it is very useful.

HUD on Table

The HUD in PT3 compared to PA-HUD is a great improvement, but I still see many things that can be improved even more.

Table Image:
I really like that my stats is based on the hands I played at the current table. What is missing though is to be able to view the same for the others at the table as well. An option in the HUD icon menu to switch between "Normal" and "This Table Only" would solve that.

Especially when you multitable SnGs you often see the same player on more than one table at the time and they, like me, will play different on each.

Session Stats Bubble:
The delay for this to popup makes it useless when multitabling. Often it doesn't show up even after 10 seconds or more. Most people have a three button mouse these days, why not use that so when I middle click on any stat it immediately shows.

This is especially useful for the notes icon.

Pop-Up to Show Both Total and Table:
It would be great if the pop-up could optionally show table stats as well as the total stat. Either using "total / table" or "total (table)".

Notes Window:
Right now the notes window seems to pop-op pretty random anywhere on my screen. It would be great if there was an option for it to remember last position. I rarely have more than one open and even if I do it doesn't matter if they are on top of each other as long as they are where I want them.


Final Words

OK, that's all from me. I do hope that my efforts in writing this will finally result in the much needed tournament improvements I have patently been waiting for the last 5 years.

And please, I am not interested of a reply about that is is planned. I have heard that for 5 years now and still nothing has happened. Most of the above has been asked for years ago so it is definitely not news to you.

[WhiteRider]

Our lead developer has read your post. I can't give you any more than the answer you don't want at the moment, but rest assured that your suggestions have been read and will be given full consideration.

[Thomas42]

Thanks Whiterider,

I do understand that you can't give any promises, but I am also quite sure that if you and the rest of the staff look back and the what improvements that has been done regarding statistics and HUD for tournaments you will agree with what I write about in my post.

I am looking forward to hopefully see something coming us tournament players way soon :)

[Thomas42]

A couple of more thoughts about blind levels and player rangers.

Blind levels filters, as I suggest above, would by far be the most useful here, especially for MTTs as it is firstly when it is 3-4 tables or less left that player rangers come into action. As you also normally have a very limited number of hands available for each player I don't see them really make any use at all until you are at the final table.

If it is possible for PT3 to keep track on the number of blind levels I go through in a tourney, it would be perfect if it was possible to configure different plus and minus counting from the current blind level depending on how far in the tourney I am. That way I can configure it optimal based on the blind structure for a tourney. PokerStars has some blind structures where you almost can sit out and haven't lost a third of your stack even after 1.5-2h, while at others they go up much quicker. So if I can fine tune the blind level filters on this it would be perfect.

Player Ranges is on the other hand more useful for SnG's when it is up to around 5 tables. As serious online players generally play a lot of these, some tens or even hundreds a day, you will be able to build up a large amount of hands for many players, even on PokerStars. Thus being able to combine these two are of much more usability.

[kraada]

Those suggestions have been made before and are on our list of features to add, though I don't know at what point they would be made available.

[Thomas42]

I understand that. But a you can see you the subject, I (and I'm sure many with me) have been waiting for almost five years for this to happen. I'm sure you agree that needs to be taken in consideration when you guys decide what to implement.

It seems to me that it is always coming up something "more" important to implement and then it always these features that again has to wait and be pushed even further into the future.

[kraada]

I certainly agree that it should be -- and it will -- be taken into consideration. Unfortunately I cannot promise you more than that as I personally don't have much say in the particular order that things get implemented.

[Thomas42]

I certainly agree that it should be -- and it will -- be taken into consideration.

Thanks Kraada, with that comment you have just given me what I wanted to accomplish with my post.

I hope my summary and reasoning about the features I outlined will be of some use and save you guys some time in your own work in making this happen.

[kraada]

Indeed, and we've put a link in a place that our lead developer will see when it's time to return to adding new features.

[CjS77]

PT2 had this functionality via the tourney-time windows; I find it strange it wasn't carried over to PT3, which I have just bought.