PKR Support

[Ranno]

Kinda suprise that there isnt PKR support, probrably have to buy HEM2 then :|

[StevenM]

Same here. I really like PT4 more than HEM2

Why thank you!

For me even just support for importing PKR's hand histories would be fine for a start (so that I can analyze my game). I can then wait a bit more for the HUD if implementing it would be too difficult and time-consuming due to the 3D nature of the poker client.

The issue is not technology, we have a basic framework for PKR support in place but we cannot implement it because we have no business relationship with PKR. We do not add poker rooms without their expressed request, we would like to work with PKR but to date there has been no interest from them to work with us. We hope to meet with PKR management again next month, perhaps they will be more interested if their users such as you express that you want PRK to allow PokerTracker to add support. PokerTracker helps players like you rake more and create more tables, we feel it is in the best interest of their network to work with PokerTracker but we cannot proceed until they request our services. Sorry!

[StevenM]

Is PKR a supported site now? If not, can you give us an update and/or a time frame? HEM 2 does support it for a quite a while now as far as I know.

We will have PKR support in PT4. We need to get PT4 stable first, then we can focus on new sites and features.

This was almost exactly a year ago.

Almost a year ago we thought that it might be possible to have interest from PKR, alas that has not occured.

I hope you are going to support PKR soon and that you are not going to disappoint me like you did with Boss tournament HUD support, which you said is not possible because of this and that while even HEM1 for some reason (magically I suppose) can display a HUD for these tournaments...

Your understanding of the Boss situation is slightly flawed, please allow me to correct you. PokerTracker automates the placement of HUDs on the table, HEM semi-automates this - when automation is not possible they created a manual placement tool. In our opinion a manual HUD placement tool is archaic, our design philosophy is to assure a clean playing environment without the need for players to use another tool that takes up screen real estate. As long as the table and hand history includes a unique identifier, we can automate the HUD placement. Over time nearly every poker room has worked with us to solve this issue if it occurred, currently the only network that still has the tournament identification problem is Winning and Everleaf IIRC. The best way to solve these issues is to lobby your respective poker room to demand a change, when this occurs PokerTracker can step in and add support!

[Tolp]

Thank you for your answer!
I’m not saying you aren’t telling the truth, but fact is every player I know, who uses HEM or HEM2, has a rather flawlessly working tourney HUD on Boss. They don’t have to manually place anything as far as I understand. Even such a basic tool like Holdem Indicator manages to display a HUD for Boss tourneys (and there also is no need to manually place anything).
I respect your “design philosophy”, but “a clean playing environment” sounds a little like an excuse to me. It doesn’t really matter anymore, because I’ve accepted that I probably won’t see Boss tourney support on PT and I always could’ve purchased HEM, but I rarely play tournaments anymore so Holdem Indicator is good enough for this task.
The problems with lobbying my poker room is that I’m pretty sure this issue requires an update for all Boss sites and the room I play on is only applying a fraction of the updates other Boss skins apply. Writing them is a complete waste of time (and I wouldn’t play there, if it wasn’t the only fully legal poker room in my country and for the low rake).

Regarding PKR:
This is a fair statement, but, again, the fact remains HEM supports it and you don’t. I doubt users had to help the HEM guys to make the site support available for their software. Sure, it won’t hurt to write PKR and lobby for you, but at the end of the day it’s your business and you have to negotiate with the poker rooms, especially when the competition does something you don’t. I highly doubt PKR is going to “request” your services, because they try to create a poker environment, which is recreational player friendly. Consequently they might not care as much about tracking software as other rooms. Whether or not tracking software really helps a site to generate more rake and more profit in the long run is hard to say. Some sites think this way, some seem to disagree while some don’t seem care. Personally I believe it’s the tracking software company’s obligation to approach a poker site and make the site support happen not the other way around. You probably do this anyway, in case of PKR you just might have to try harder, but maybe the traffic there is not worth the effort for you, who knows, it’s your business not mine. I’ll wait and see. Fortunately as a customer I have the free choice to support the competition, if I think this is better for me.

[StevenM]

Thank you for your answer!
I’m not saying you aren’t telling the truth, but fact is every player I know, who uses HEM or HEM2, has a rather flawlessly working tourney HUD on Boss. They don’t have to manually place anything as far as I understand. Even such a basic tool like Holdem Indicator manages to display a HUD for Boss tourneys (and there also is no need to manually place anything).

Your understanding is wrong. Take a look at their documentation, it is very clear that the end user has to manually place the HUD, this can be a nightmare when multitabling, becaus of that their forums were at one time filled with complaints about this (the network is not that popular anymore so it is less of an issue now I assume). We do not build manual placement functionality, we made this choice for many reasons as previously described, one of the reasons was because this is an issue that can be fixed by the poker room with the simple inclusion of a unique table identifier. We have successfully lobbied the majority of poker rooms to make this change (most recently Microgaming has made the change), communication and patience has prevailed so far.

One a related note, you made two "HEM supports" arguments, but the same can be made in reverse. We supported Cake HUD a full 1/2 year before HEM caught up with us, and we have over a year of experience with Winning and they still do not support Winning. They made development priority decisions and have policies in place, the same as we do, the policies may differ but the end results are the same - that is why we both support different networks.

I respect your “design philosophy”, but “a clean playing environment” sounds a little like an excuse to me.

This is not an excuse, its a mandate from some of our poker room partners. Some of them would not be willing to work with us if they felt we created tools that interfered with their player's experience. We need their cooperation, it is in the best interest of our users.

Personally I believe it’s the tracking software company’s obligation to approach a poker site and make the site support happen not the other way around.

We do. PKR did not respond positively. The CEO regularly makes public speeches which discuss how PKR wants a recreational player, I think that should give you some insight as to why they haven't reached out to us. Its out of our hands... once PKR decides they are interested in acquiring additional business from PokerTracker users then we will be happy to speak with them.

[Tolp]

Several Boss Media players told me they don’t have to place their HUD manually while playing in Boss tourneys. I probably going to visit one of them soon (or if this isn’t going to work out I’m going to try out HEM2 myself to see who is right.)

I’m not here to bash PT, I just happen to pick the wrong sites I guess and sometimes I’m annoyed that I find year old threads in which you signalize you are working on something and then nothing happens. I guess that’s how it is sometimes and not always you fault. For the most part I do enjoy PT4 and I think it’s still better than HEM2 for several reasons, especially because your support is top-notch and it’s possible to communicate with you guys directly via the forum.

I hope you can convince PKR to support PT4!

[StevenM]

Several Boss Media players told me they don’t have to place their HUD manually while playing in Boss tourneys. I probably going to visit one of them soon (or if this isn’t going to work out I’m going to try out HEM2 myself to see who is right.)

It is necessary when you multitable the same tournament format,or when you get moved tables in an MTT.

[Canther]

This is what PKR had to say about it.

http://www.pkr.com/forum_thread.aspx?La ... -pt4-67608

It seems as if they don't think they ball is in their court at all. That if PT4 wanted to support PKR they could go ahead and do so. This "the action is on them to invite us to support their site" position doesn't ring true with anyone I've spoken to at PKR admin.

This aside, the idea that you would wait for a supplier to invite you to make your product better seems very naive, and not a very satisfactory response.

[StevenM]

This is what PKR had to say about it.

http://www.pkr.com/forum_thread.aspx?La ... -pt4-67608

It seems as if they don't think they ball is in their court at all. That if PT4 wanted to support PKR they could go ahead and do so. This "the action is on them to invite us to support their site" position doesn't ring true with anyone I've spoken to at PKR admin.

This aside, the idea that you would wait for a supplier to invite you to make your product better seems very naive, and not a very satisfactory response.

We cannot rely on the feedback of a support person, we can only trust the comments we receive from the CEO of PKR who has the athority to make decisions such as this. When we ask our users to lobby this is in the hope that eventually the CEO hears the requests as they trickle down from customer support, once again we cannot support PKR without the explicit request of PKR's management (as in contractual writing, a call from a support representative that says "hey, you guys should support us would not work in this scenario). With that said, we briefly saw the CEO 2 nights ago and hope to have a discussion with him about this topic shortly, if he is interested in having a discussion with us.

[Canther]

Thanks, but what isn't clear to me (or anyone else it seems) is why you need explicit authorisation from PKR.