Home >> Poker Software >> Leak Buster Review

Leak Buster Review

Considering purchasing the popular HEM add-on? We walk through Leak Buster and break down the potential value for online poker players.

Tip: Get software like Leak Buster free with PTP Rake Rewards.

Leak Buster: Overview

Leak Buster is a tool for helping you analyze your online poker hand history data. It works in conjunction with Holdem Manager (PokerTracker not supported) and essentially guides you through an analysis of key statistics drawn from your play, highlights where your statistics deviate from those of winning players and proposes solutions to bring your game in line with the approach of a winning player, thus (theoretically) improving your win rate.

Leak Buster is available for Limit Holdem and No Limit Holdem (separate software). Each is available in two versions: Standard and Pro. The Standard version costs $49.99 and allows you to analyze hands from $50 NLHE / .5/1 LHE and below. The Pro version costs $79.99 and allows for analysis of all levels.

Leak Buster is exclusively for cash games, both full ring and 6max. Tournament, Omaha and Sit and Go hands won’t work with Leak Buster.

Leak Buster: Screen Shot

Leak Buster: Pros

If you’ve ever stared at the massive amount of data Holdem Manager places in front of your already-strained-from-twelve-tabling-on-a-laptop-eyes and wondered just exactly what the $*@&! you were supposed to make of it all, Leak Buster is for you.

In many ways, Leak Buster effectively serves as a how-to guide for Holdem Manager, saving you countless hours of producing custom stats from your history and searching the net for baseline stats to compare yours against.

How does Leak Buster determine those baselines? From their FAQ:

We have analyzed hundreds of millions of hands played by winning players to find the recommended ranges. Leak Buster poker software uses a separate program which analyzes the highest median win rates for each statistical field, then measures where significant drops in win-rate occur. Leak Buster uses this data to create an algorithm, which scores your statistics based on a simple bell curve ratio.

Leak Buster is an excellently documented piece of software. You’ll find several instructional videos throughout the process, all of which are professionally produced and useful. That documentation accompanies a nicely designed interface that succeeds where programs such as HEM often fail – cutting through the clutter and providing an intuitive method for moving through a linear analysis of your game.

Leak Buster also comes with a good amount of supplemental material, including videos, articles, hand charts and custom HUDs. That supplemental material forms the backbone of Leak Buster’s greatest asset as a tool: it doesn’t just tell you that you’re doing a particular thing wrong, but instead identifies areas for improvement and offers you concrete steps and resources for achieving that improvement.

Bonus: The instructional videos for Limit Leakbuster are by Bryce Paradis; Corwin Cole (Vital Myth) does training videos for the NLHE version of Leakbuster.

Finally, Leak Buster offers a limited trial, so you can get a taste of how it works before committing to purchase.

Cons

Perhaps the biggest con is that Leak Buster isn’t very useful for players without a solid sample of hands. The program doesn’t suggest any explicit minimum, but for all the leaks and filters to produce seriously reliable information, you’d probably like to have at least 50k hands. Players entering only a few hundred hands will generally not receive useful / accurate information, although, to the program’s credit, Leak Buster does a good job of alerting you when you’re working with a possibly insufficient sample size.

Also, while not a con per se’, it’s important to remember that Leak Buster only works for NLHE / PLHE / LHE cash games, and is only supported for use with Holdem Manager.

One last note: Leak Buster does require a bit of time and effort to use optimally. That’s not the fault of the program – it’s well-designed in terms of offering a compact experience – but players with a history of laziness when it comes to study or away-from-the-table work in general aren’t going to get a lot out of this tool.

Recent upgrades (Version 3.0) have gone a long way to increasing the usability of LeakBuster, but it’s still a tool that will reward you proportionately to the work you put into it.

Verdict

No tool will instantly make you a better player – it’s up to you to take the data a tool provides and implement it into your game. That said, Leak Buster should offer the typical online poker player plenty of quality fodder for self-analysis and improvement. If you are a regular player, especially at micro-to-small stakes NLHE or LHE, Leak Buster is a no-brainer.

Visit Leak Buster

Don’t Forget: Leak Buster and related software such as HEM are available free via PTP Rake Rewards.

Get your daily dose of poker news with the PTP Hit and Run.

Props Get Paid up to 125% Rakeback. Click for Offers >>>