It may come as a bit of a surprise but the line-up for Hold'Em software of the player trainer variety is actually quite short. We're going to look at two of the leaders, Turbo Hold'Em by Wilson Software and Poker Academy by BioTools, to see what they've got to offer.
If you've spent any time at all looking for a Hold'Em trainer then you'll have heard of Wilson Software's Turbo Hold'Em (WSTH). At its core WSTH is a rock solid gaming simulation with a strong Advisor and hand Evaluator to help guide your in-game play and a full suite of reports and charts to help you analyze your overall behaviour and performance.
The Advisor, named "Mike", is WSTH's strategy tutor. On screen --or via the speaker-- Mike will tell you whether to Fold, Check, Call, Raise or Re-Raise. And if you click the "Advice" button you'll get the reasons based on the type of hand you're looking at, your position, the pot status and so on. As they say themselves it's "USUALLY" the best advice but you're free to follow it or not as you please.
If you're looking for game analysis the Stats button hides some real treasures. There are over a dozen different kinds of analysis available, each delivered in graph or table format as appropriate. For instance "Mike" noticed that I tended to play "Too Aggressive" throughout the hand except on the Turn where I was consistently "Too Tight". That was totally unexpected and it warned me that I had better mix things up a little or risk being an easy read.
That's the upside of WSTH. The downside is that the game's interface is terribly outdated --it looks like it was released around the time Windows first hit the market-- and aspects of it can be downright annoying. For instance, as it comes "out of the box" Mike speaks to you in one of the most irritating voices I've ever heard from a piece of computer software. This "feature" will almost certainly have you searching in desperation for the "Kill Him Now!" option. Fortunately it's there, in a fashion, and you can shut the guy up forever.
However, rants aside, WSTH is a solid Hold'Em trainer that enjoys wide respect and if you can keep it from getting on your nerves you'll almost certainly improve your game in the process. At about US$90 it ain't cheap but then no Hold'Em trainer worth its salt is.
Poker Academy by BioTools is actually three different products. There's "Poki's Poker Academy" which, if I understand the history here, is a retail product that predates the other two. "Poker Academy" (PA) and "Poker Academy Pro" (PA Pro) are the newer products.
All this Poker Academy stuff is based on the results of Artificial Intelligence research at the University of Alberta in Canada. In actual game play different "bots" can be chosen to drive your computer opponents where each bot has its own characteristics and "habits".
In the current configuration of the games "Poker Academy" is the basic product. When you start a game you can choose a Limit or No-Limit table or you can go Heads-Up (again, Limit or No-Limit). In each case you're playing against those AI-driven opponents which you can configure in the usual way --Tight, Moderate, or Loose-- plus a myriad of play options such as an opponent player's current stake, Auto-Deal, etc, etc.
It's soon obvious in PA that there are more options than you can shake a stick at but many of them --like being able to change the play room floor to "Sandstone" for instance-- are not going to have much bearing on the quality of your learning experience.
Advice is always available in PA via The Advisor and it differs from WSTH in two ways. First, it is as configurable as the rest of PA so you can adjust the type of advice you are given (Loose vs Tight, Passive vs Aggressive, Math vs Model, etc). Secondly it's a weighted adviser --as in it might recommend 85% Call/15% Bet instead of simply "Call", for example-- which may not have a lot of real time importance but at least it gives you some idea how confident you should be in the decision you make from the advice you're being given.
In support of the Advisor is a split panel of basic stats that are always on screen. The best of it is the Current Hand stats including your hand Strength, Potential and Pot Odds. There are also a Player Statistics section where you get your Fold percentages (Pre-Flop, Flop, etc), your Action percentages (Fold, Call, Bet, etc) and a chart of your winnings over time.
PA throws in a nice little graphical table of Hand Histories and Hand Calculator ("How often will my KJs beat an AQo?") but the bottom line is that the statistical "tell me about my game" information just isn't there like it is in WSTH.
Poker Academy is relatively inexpensive at about US$40. Given what you get that's a pretty respectable price but what about Poker Academy Pro? It's a whole lot pricier --US$99 on a holiday special-- but it adds quite a bit more to the package too.
Of particular interest to me were the in-game Hand Analyzer, the additional entries under the Player Statistics button, full configurability of the opponents at the table including the bots that drive them and the ability to fix the draw and flop cards that are dealt in order to play and replay a specific scenario.
Do all these additional features in PA Pro make it a contender to WSTH? I'd say yes ... and no, it depends on what you want. WSTH still has the Stats area locked up but PA Pro has so many config options and in-play controls that it becomes a powerful step-by-step and "what if?" learning tool. PA Pro opens up a gap between it and WSTH that makes it a personal choice which way you want to go. Either way the new Hold'Em player will have a lot to chew on before they're ready to graduate from these trainers and hit the big time.
