Pokeit Enters Private Beta

Back in November, a poster on the TwoPlusTwo forums announced a new web-based tracking software tool called Pokeit, which offers access to your hands anywhere and on any platform. It would not be based on a local database like PokerTracker or Holdem Manager.  Instead, its backend uses the Free Poker Database (FPDB) that supports Hold’em, Omaha, Stud, and Draw games for a wide variety of poker sites.

The program promised to keep track of stats, utilize a Heads-Up Display (HUD), have interactive graphs to plot your lifetime earnings, and automatic syncing.

Recently, the development team behind Pokeit sent out an e-mail stating that it is one week away from a private beta launch.  Starting this week, they will begin sending out invitation emails to those who signed up to be beta testers.  According to the e-mail, Pokeit has close to 100 beta testers at this first stage.  The beta will last approximately two months, as the team polishes the software and gets the bugs out.  One the beta concludes, the plan is to release Pokeit Version 1.0 to the public.

We got in touch with Chaz Littlejohn, the chief man behind the Pokeit project.  He was kind enough to answer a few questions about the progress of the program.

PokerSoftware.com: What major problem in the hand history tracking genre does PokeIt try to address?

Chaz Littlejohn: Our #1 goal with Pokeit is to make reviewing and extracting information from hand histories far easier for players. We're hoping to achieve this in two ways - by minimizing the technical knowledge needed to use the program and by building an interface designed around browsing hands, analyzing opponents, and tracking winnings.

PSW: What are the major features that you'll be touting as part of the official release of the program when it goes live?

Chaz Littlejohn: Probably the most novel feature about Pokeit is that it's almost entirely web-based. All of the processing and storing of data is done on our own secure servers and you can access your hands from any browser anywhere on the planet. We'll never share your hands with anyone else and we use an SSL encrypted connection - the same level of security that your bank's website uses. In addition to eliminating the need to maintain a database on their own computer, in the future, this kind of portability of data will allow us to roll out mobile and tablet apps for Pokeit.

PSW: How important was it to leverage the FPDB architecture into the program and how is that going to benefit potential users?

Chaz Littlejohn: Building Pokeit on top of the FPDB architecture really means two things. In keeping with FPDB's original mission, Pokeit is designed to support all games from any site. And if a site or game isn't currently supported, it's usually just a matter of getting an example hand history and coding a few minor patches. Second, teaming up with the FPDB open-source project means Bryon (Pokeit's other developer) and I can devote more resources to helping you make sense of your hands rather than reinventing the wheel of parsing hand histories.

PSW: What's going to be unique in the main program and its HUD?

Chaz Littlejohn: To be sure, I think the HUD was a great innovation and it's by and large what people use HEM and PT3 for. That being said, this focus on the HUD has shifted the emphasis away from how players review their play away from the table. With Pokeit, we wanted to put the attention back on the design of the program itself and how it can help players see patterns in their mountain of data.

In addition, there's a whole other dimension of statistical analysis that neither HEM nor PT3 has put any effort into. For example, some of the most important questions in poker like how strong my opponent's hand is or what's the likelihood that he would fold to my bet in this spot have received very little attention on the quantitative side of things. It's spending time on problems like these that we'd like to do before we build a Pokeit HUD.

PSW: Is there any sort of development timeline you can share with our readers? When is the beta officially starting and is there a target date for commercial release?

Chaz Littlejohn: Yes, we're launching our private beta in February. It should last about two months while we finish up the main features and squash bugs. After that, we'll introduce our pricing tiers and launch Version 1.0.

If you are interested in learning more about this program, visit the official Pokeit website at Pokeit.co.