If you play your poker primarily online, and you want to play in a more serious fashion, then you simply need to purchase tracking software. 

There are many options but the two main types are Poker Tracker (PT) and Hold’em Manager (HEM). Poker Tracker is Mac compatible but Hold’em Manager is not. Another alternative for Mac users is Poker Copilot.

All of the best soccer teams in the world hire scouts to watch their opponents. Their task is to compile statistics and identify strengths and weaknesses so the managers and his training team can create strategies that will give them the best opportunity to win the game. 

Why should poker be any different?

There are two main ways to use statistics to help improve your edge in poker live tournaments. The first is to use them real time. The software will track hands being played in actual time and you will observe the changing statistics through something known as a Heads Up Display (HUD), which is simply a bar on the screen with a series of stats and numbers. 

Here is a popular example from the online poker tips site: You open the cutoff and the button three-bets you. It seems like the button has been doing this a lot. Well, there is no need to second guess as there is a stat that will tell you exactly how often the button has been three-betting you.

The second way that you can successfully integrate statistics into your game is to use them to create player profiles. You can do this after the game has finished by going through the statistics of the players you have played against. You can then make specific notes against a player and then read these notes in real time next time you go head to head.

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