Table Scanner Developer Interview with PokerSoftware

Holdem Manager Table Scanner is a powerful poker software tool that scans the lobbies of sites like Absolute Poker, Everest Poker, Full Tilt, and PartyPoker to report player statistics derived from a person’s Holdem Manager database. Table Scanner is available as an add-on to the popular poker tracking and analysis tool and is available for $43 for the Small-Stakes edition and $64 for the Pro version. Recently, PokerSoftware.com sat down with Table Scanner developers to learn more about this popular table selection software.

PokerSoftware.com: What separates Table Scanner from other table selection tools?

Table Scanner: Holdem Manager Integration allows users to share common features so players can focus on playing poker and not software setup. Table Scanner supports both Hold’em and Omaha. Holdem Manager has a feature that works in conjunction with Table Scanner allowing players to see how many tables an opponent is playing. It supports both server-side scanning and client scanning and it uses the same Auto-Rate scoring rules that Holdem Manager uses in the Heads-Up Display (HUD). You can add buddies and regulars from other parts of Holdem Manager.

PokerSoftware.com: Talk about the importance of the multiple filters available.

Table Scanner: Poker is a complex game with a huge variety of playing styles. It gets even more complicated when a random mix of these players are sitting at your table. Table Scanner allows you to set up filters and rules to profile individual players or the table as a whole. This gives Table Scanner users a huge edge before they've even played a single hand. How would you like to play with two players with a VPIP of 60% or more at all of your tables? It gets even better. You can also exclude players from your filters so that you don't sit with players who you know are solid regulars.

PokerSoftware.com: What went into Table Scanner's development? How does it interact with the online poker sites?

Table Scanner: Table selection tools are fairly complex. We have to retrieve the table and player names from the poker client. Since poker sites don't make this information easily available, we have to reverse engineer the poker clients in order to retrieve it. Every poker room uses a different client, so we have to do this for every poker network we support. Sometimes even the skins of networks are built differently, so it's a very time-consuming process.

PokerSoftware.com: Are there specific computer hardware requirements you recommend for users to operate the program efficiently?

Table Scanner: The scanner doesn't add much stress to the CPU (close to zero when using the server side solution). If Holdem Manager is running fine, then the Scanner will also run fine. 99% of the CPU load will come from PostgreSQL searching your database for the player statistics.

PokerSoftware.com: How important is a table selection tool for online poker players to have?

Table Scanner: The best thing to increase your win-rate is using a quality table selection tool. Using table selection properly increases players’ win-rates; it's that simple. You don't even have to be that good at poker; you just need to find players who are worse than you. Table Scanner finds these players quickly, allowing you to sit with tables full of fish. You'll be able to move up in limits faster because you'll be playing with the worst players at each limit.

PokerSoftware.com: What features can we expect to see in the future?

Table Scanner: Table Scanner is a fairly complete package. Because Table Scanner is part of Holdem Manager, we can add cool things like the recent "How many tables is this guy playing" HUD element with relative ease. As for what's in the future, the only thing we can reveal at this time is that support for sites like the Entraction Network, Bodog, or whatever poker room climbs the ladder of popularity will be coming.