Poker Academy Prospector 2 in Beta Testing Mode

One of the cornerstones of the poker training and tracking software industry, Poker Academy, is currently beta testing its newest program, Poker Academy Prospector 2. While I have always enjoyed the Poker Academy Pro software that the company has created, I had not tried its Prospector series. At that time, I was debating the merits of running poker software while playing and never got around to using Prospector's original build. When the beta version came out in December, however, I had to take a shot at it.

I was very pleased with how quickly the program loaded onto my computer. It took about three minutes and there was very little input that the installation needed from me in order to launch. After the installation was finished, I found several brand new features along with some that still haven't been changed since the original Prospector came out.

After the download is complete, Poker Academy Prospector 2 brings you to an "Overview" screen. It requires some input from the operator in order to import the files into the system, but that is minor if you have already configured hand histories to be saved. In fact, PAP2 will search your system for those files and present them to you in a box on the "Import" screen, where you can pick and choose which ones you want PAP2 to import.

Poker Academy Prospector 2 will work with many of the world's most popular online poker rooms. It supports PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, iPoker Network rooms, Ultimate Bet (prior to its merger into the CEREUS Network), Absolute Poker (post-CEREUS), Ongame Network rooms, and will even migrate your playing files from Poker Academy Pro and its online version. To get a feel for what the software would do, I warmed up PokerStars and jumped into a ring game to test PAP2 and its capabilities.

After a small test - about 50 hands – PAP2 had enough information for me to get a good impression of its performance. It is quite a bit like the other tracking and analysis programs out there, but I personally liked the graphing that automatically came up for a player to look over. Some programs only give you the raw data derived from your play. PAP2 will actually put this into a graphical form that is recognizable to even the most green of poker players out there. If you have any troubles with PAP2, there is an extensive help library with the program itself that will direct you to the Poker Academy website.

Whereas other tracking programs will offer you a massive list when breaking down your session at the tables, PAP2’s didn't go quite as deep as I would have liked. In addition - and perhaps so it doesn't skew your statistical entries - PAP2 doesn't datamine information if you aren't actually playing at the table.

There were also a couple of features that I wanted to see that other programs have. For example, when hands go to showdown with other tracking tools, you will see what both players held on other programs, even if one mucks his hand. With PAP2, this doesn't happen; you can miss some of the action at the tables if you're scrambling to hit the "last hand" button on whatever poker room you're playing on. Also, much like its predecessor, it doesn't have a Heads-Up Display (HUD), which it seems like pretty much every program has nowadays.

All in all, Poker Academy Prospector 2 could be just what some people are looking for in a tracking and analysis program. The advancements that the programmers of PAP2 have made make it a great tool for someone who is in their infancy with online poker. It offers a great deal of information for players with a variety of statistics and graphs, but other pieces of software undoubtedly offer more information.

Visit our review of Poker Academy Prospector today and see what you're missing!