First of all, you have two possibilities when you want to start playing poker, on the mac or on whatever other platform, be it table card game or computer assisted poker software, etc:

• Real Money poker game / Fake Money poker game, or Multplayer online poker
• Poker simulators, which can be called offline single player poker

Usually, real money poker software always come with a fake money mode. For the both best online poker rooms (Full Tilt and PokerStars), you will need to create an account, and creating an account doesn’t mean actually putting money in the game, you can create an account for free.

So still, two choices to make :

• Full Tilt Poker
• PokerStars

Choose whichever you want, just try both to see which one you prefer, i’ll post an extended comparaison between those two soon

Now, for poker simulators, there are MANY MANY software around, but the one i have found to be the most entertaining is :

• ImaginePoker

It’s user interface is polished and fun, with all kind of characters as opponents. You should really try it and leave a comment if you think it sucks or whatever I’m still looking for some other good offline poker software.

BlazingStars, a little utility that’s been developed as a small personal project is now publicly available on it’s official website : http://fullyfunctionalsoftware.com/. BlazingStars is a hotkey or binding software, you will be able to program keyboard shortcuts to trigger actions like flop, raise, etc…

This little soft is only compatible with PokerStars for the moment, maybe one day it’ll be compatible with FullTilt; but still a very interesting tool for people who are tired of using the mouse to play on their favourite room.

I was looking around the AppStore in iTunes and was overwhelmed by the tons of CRAPPS (crappy applications) around, so this is my little round-up of the best apps you’ll find in the official AppStore. Some are free and some are a few bucks:

The Free ones :

PokerClock : a timer for tournaments

Odds free : a probability calculator, free and not so ugly!

Paid apps :

PokerNotes ($2,99) : will help you track your game by taking notes

PokerJournal ($10) : this last application is the most expensive, but some hard work has been put into it: it will help you track all your earnings, it’s a kind of a non-automatic pokercopilot. You will have to input data manually but the statistics are detailed and filtering a very powerful feature. Just have a look at these two videos:

Ok folks,

So this blogpost is about helping you installing and configuring PokerCopilot, a poker tracker software compatible with Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. This software will help you track all your poker money, statistics and also help you in-game with a system called the Heads Up Display.

So the first thing to do is go to the PokerCopilot website and download the software. There’s a 30 day trial period if you want to give it a try, the full version is sold at $50 which is, in my opinion, a fair price because it will help you A LOT (in terms of losing less money at playing poker).

When the software is installed, you have to configure either Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars :

1. Activating hand history

In both poker rooms, you will need to activate hand history as this is NOT the default setting :

In PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker

Go to Options in the menu bar > Hand history options

Then, configure it as in this screenshot : BE SURE TO CHOOSE ENGLISH AS THE LANGUAGE AND SET THE DAYS TO 365.

Once you have done this, and after you have played a few rounds, PokerCopilot will start to collect and calculate many informations: this is the statistic functionality.

Now we will configure everything to start using the HUD : Heads Up Display.

2. The HUD: InGame Statistics

2.1 The Universal Access parameter :

In order to use the HUD, you will have to enable some options in the Universal Access pannel in the System preferences of your Mac

If you don’t know where this is, go to the Apple menu (top left) and choose “System Preferences”.

The option to tick is “Enable access for assistive devices”.

2.2 Now, inside PokerCopilot

Inside pokercopilot, you will now have to enable the HUD. Go into the programs preferences and select the HUD tab, then enable it. And then, just leave pokercopilot running in the background.

2.3 Open Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars

Start playing in a room, if the HUD is correctly enabled, you’ll see this note at the top of the table :

This means pokercopilot needs more information on the players to start displaying statistics. If this information “no hud data available yet” never dissapears, it means PokerCopilot cannot read your Hand history. So check back that if you have that issue.

Then, when stats are displayed, you should see this :

You can drag all these little bubbles, or click on them to show more detailed statistics on the player style :

And that closes this ticket on configuring poker copilot, hope you’ll enjoy this nice software. And support the developer, he’s a nice guy

After you have tried out Full Tilt Poker, you’ll find out that there aren’t as many poker software as on the Windows platform. It can be something good because you won’t fell overwhelmed about which is the best poker software around. Plus the fact that the most serious online poker companies are the ones who have the time and money to develop a mac version of their software.

The second and best online poker software available is PokerStars. And with Full Tilt, you won’t find many others around. So your choice is now simple : PokerStars or Full Tilt ? (I’m preparing a more in-depth comparaison blogpost between these two)

Recently, PokerStars changed their first deposit bonus from $50 to $600 !! So when you register be sure to enter the code :

stars600

All the classic games are available on Pokerstars :

• Texas Hold’em
• OMAHA
• STUD
• HORSE
• etc

And Tournaments of course

For beginners, are fake money mode is also available.