Poker Academy Prospector review
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Poker Academy has introduced a new poker analysis software called Poker Academy Prospector, and if you’re looking to find more gold in your poker game, this is a great place to start. There are several key pieces to this software that are crucial to all online players looking to improve their game and make more money at the tables.
The downside to most of the analysis software on the market today is the cost and the complexity of using the software well enough to gain real valuable information. At $59, the software is inexpensive enough even for the low stakes online players, but the wealth of information available to you is great for low stakes and high stakes players alike.
One of the most common problems among poker players (live and online) is the inability to be completely honest with yourself when critiquing your own play. Most players do not have the ability to look at their game and find the “leaks”. All players have “leaks”, including the best players in the world, but the great players are able to stop leaks. Poker Academy Prospector allows players to review their play clinically.
Overview:
Poker Academy Prospector is a great poker analysis tool from Poker Academy that has been designed to help player’s review their play and look to find “leaks” in their game and patch those leaks to increase profits. The software allows you to look at your cash games and tournament games and review statistics like positional awareness, stealing, and defending blinds. It allows you to compare things like play around “head’s up to the flop” and “multiway to the flop”. It also allows you to look at your play with different types of starting hands as well. Are you overplaying pocket pairs? How often do you c-bet (continuation bet)? Not familiar with some of these things? Not a problem. Poker Academy Prospector has great definitions for each of these reports and what you can gain from reviewing them.
Pros:
Let’s start with the fact that Poker Academy Prospector is an essential tool for both the beginner and the advanced player. The price tag ($59) is affordable to all levels of players, and the software can give you as much or as little information as you need. It’s also incredibly simple to get hand histories into the software with an automated import utility that can be run manually or on a schedule. The software also offers a great Hand History Viewer that allows you to watch the hands play out just as they did when you played them. This is great for players that are not used to ready hand histories. This gives you a visual playback of the hand history itself.
The software also has other great built in additional features. Track your online bankroll through the Bankroll Graph, compare yourself to other players that you meet often at the tables, and get several reports about your play from the report generator.
The screens to import hands, review hands, run reports, and do player comparisons are all very straight forward and easy to use, and it’s quick to get up and running as long as you have been saving hand histories.
The software isn’t free ($59), but you can download a free copy of the application that is fully functional, however, you are limited to only 1000 hands that can be imported.
Cons:
The biggest con that I had with the software was the fact that it is limited to “Hold’em” poker games. It does allow you to import both ring (cash) games and tournaments, but it only allows you to import Texas Hold’em hand histories. So, for those players that play Omaha, Stud, Razz, HORSE, etc, this software will not help analyze any of your play.
A small con that began to get annoying is the fact that there is no local copy of a help file or tutorial. Any time I needed to use the help file, the help file link basically redirected me to the Poker-Academy website. I found this out the very first time I needed the help file, and I was on a plane between Bermuda and the United States, and I was completely without help files. This might not be a problem for most players, but I use my travel time to review my play and if I run into something I can’t figure out with the application I have to wait until I’m back on the internet.
Overall:
The software is incredibly easy to install, import hand histories, and start looking at reports, and there is a wealth of information at your fingertips. The general rule is that you will learn as much as you are willing to learn. If you take the time to review the reports, and apply the things that you learn, you will have the potential to become a better poker player. The toughest part is to remember that forget the ego and trust what the reports are telling you. If the reports say that you are overplaying small pocket pairs, don’t argue with yourself over whether that is true or not. Trust the reports, and remember that the next time you get a pocket pair. In conclusion, it’s a great tool for analyzing your hands, your style, and finding your “leaks” and gaining valuable information on patching those leaks. And, at $59, who doesn’t want to patch leaks that could be costing you much more in the long run.
