Multi-Table Online Poker with TableCrab2 Hotkeys

One of the key skills of an online poker grinder is adding tables to increase your hourly rate.  In theory, if you were able to play more tables at the same quality level of play, you would increase your win-rate every time you add more and more tables into the mix.  Cash game players on PokerStars can play a whopping 24 tables simultaneously; some sit and go grinders are known to play more than double that at one time.  But how is that possible, you ask?  Certainly, this is a skill they’ve worked hard to master, but they also use hotkey programs to automate tasks so they aren’t constantly clicking all over the desktop.

Some programs like Table Ninja are commercial pieces of software and come at a price after the trial period ends.  Although Table Ninja for PokerStars is one of the highest rated third-party programs in poker software history, some people like to use free software instead.  Fortunately, there are a bevy of script-makers who have used their talents to create freeware programs.

Enter a script called TableCrab2, which is currently freeware and is a PokerStars hotkey program for Linux and Windows.  The program has been developed on Linux/Wine and runs nicely within Windows XP environments.  It features configurable hotkeys for the most important table actions and has a built-in hand viewer.  In comparison to other hotkey scripts, TableCrab2 works well with fixed sized tables.

Users wanting to make use of the hotkeys will need to set up templates before they will work within TableCrab2.  Simply create the template and fill it in by clicking the respective points on a screenshot of a table you’ll take beforehand.  Within the “Setup” area, you’ll enter in items for table type, size, empty space, and navigation coordinates for the check, fold, raise, and bet slider buttons.

The “Hotkey” tab within TableCrab2 will allow you to take the most commonly used buttons at a PokerStars table and assign keys for them.  This takes use of the mouse out of the equation, which means faster play at the tables.  You can assign hotkeys for check, bet, raise, fold, all-in, add one big blind to bet, subtract one big blind from bet, multiply bet by 2.5, instant hand history, replayer, and screenshot.

The “Hand” tab is for the hand viewer, which will show hole cards, pot values, and more.  It’s not an incredibly detailed area, but can be helpful if you need immediate access to a particular hand to replay while in a session.

Since the release of the original TableCrab2, the creator of the program has updated it periodically for new hotkey functions as well as to ensure compatibility with Wine.  On September 2nd, Version 0.3.0 was released, which added a new hotkey for “bet pot” to adjust bets according to the current pot size.  It also marks conflicting hotkeys and instituted some minor changes for improvements behind-the-scenes.

Version 0.4.0 fixed the accidental clicking of unrelated tables and addressed a fix for a bug to subtract a bet.  The last update, released only a couple of weeks ago, added a new hotkey for “multiply blind” for pre-flop raising.  The script can be downloaded from Google Code for free and is a 13 MB zip file.