Magic Holdem

There is nothing worse than software designers that can't listen to the market, so you're not going to find any magic here.

Yet another mathematical poker calculator - Magic Holdem is the latest entry in the poker calculator market. With sharp looking displays, and quick programming on a variety of your favorite poker sites, this poker calculator will do the mathematical functions you would expect a mathematical poker calculator to do.

Note: Because of some of the features in Magic Holdem, this Poker Calculator is banned from use at Poker Stars.

Therein however, lies the good and the not so good about introducing a new poker calculator. Let's assume this is NOT a knock-off of borrowed programming from holdem genius. Since they do operate in a similar way, it could be a totally feasible market strategy to try and capture more market share. I would have no problem with that strategy. Get as many products out there as you can and try and dominate your competition.

Magic Holdem sure looks good, but is it better?

On the other hand, if this software has been designed specifically for magic holdem, then where are the investors getting their research from? They must not have realized that mathematical poker calculators are in abundance and offer up virtually the very same information as does the next one. Marketing 101: entering a homogeneous market is a tough market to crack without some kind of distinct advantage. It's like buying a dozen eggs and deciding between six different packages. As smooth as Magic Holdem operates, it is certainly not distinct. Hence the programming has more to do with how the software looks than how it can help you at a poker table, and that is simply poor value.

I am not saying its a poor programming job, just ill-conceived as it doesn't bring anything new to the market. And in that sense there are far better options. Poker Spy and Holdem Indicator have tracking abilities in their software that go beyond the mathematical style poker calculators. That makes Holdem Indicator and Poker Spy empirical poker calculators which are far more valuable in that they offer up information on your opponents, not just the math of the game although they do that as well.

So this begs the question again: Why are they still making poker calculator software that is purely mathematical? The answer probably lies in the realism that programmers just don't play enough poker or simply don't pay attention to the market.

Note to designers and investors: Add features or options to your product that will differentiate your product and add critical features that can improve a player's game.

I constantly get poker calculator software to review and am constantly surprised at how little the designers are paying attention to this market. As it is, software like Holdem Indicator will continue to reap the rewards of others' ignorance of the market, as it is at the forefront of feature design and seamless programming. I just wish other software engineers would wake up so we could have more competition.

Poker Calculator Report: Poker Stars Gives the Boot to Bots

Most online players already know that Poker Stars is the runaway market share leader for online poker sites. They consistently have the most tables running, the most tournaments running and send the most qualifiers to live major buy-in tournaments.

What a lot of players may not know though is that Poker Stars also leads the way in defining security, safety and fairness for its players. So much so that other sites generally follow in fashion, trying to keep up with the strict policies that the security staff at Poker Stars diligently design in these increasingly important arenas of online gaming security.

You can imagine that Poker Stars would have their hands full of internal gaming issues to take care of, but security also involves third party software that either extracts database information or offers BOT-like recommendations to players rounding the tables at Poker Stars. “Bot” is a poker term used for assist software that makes a check, raise, or fold suggestion to the player using the software. Robot is the key underlying suggestion here, and to Poker Stars, software that removes the human element and runs purely on the calculating prowess of some fantastical, mathematical, electronic HAL, well is simply not fair play.

You might wonder why Stars may be concerned about BOTs given there isn’t a truly profitable BOT machine out there that is beating games online anyway. (Oh sorry, you mean you fell for that underground poker ad?) The problem Stars is mainly addressing right now is BOT like features within otherwise acceptable poker software. Take Magic Hold’em for instance. This software, seemingly another copy of a generic Mathematical Poker Calculator with some nice graphics thrown in was recently banned from Poker Stars because of a single feature it added to its software.

That feature is a Check, Raise, or Fold recommendation to the user. Exactly the same thing a full-fledged BOT would conceivably be doing. I can see why Magic Hold’em wanted to add some value to their otherwise homogeneous product as it would be tough to claim it was any better than any other out-dated mathematical poker calculator. The problem though, is that they didn’t consult the big sites before they did it. Poker Stars doesn’t want to shut out third party software completely, but they have a vested interest in keeping their tables - fair play tables.

Thus, that one single feature has got Magic Holdem on the prohibited list at Poker Stars, and now its biggest challenge will be to get removed from that list.

Notwithstanding the BOT feature has limited use and success anyway, Magic Hold’em could likely make it easier on themselves to recreate and rebrand a new product altogether, as getting removed from Stars’ prohibited list is something that hasn’t been done before.