Heads-Up with NoteCaddy Edge

If you don't already know, NoteCaddy Edge, in coordination with NoteCaddy Premium, takes your data from your Hold'em Manager 2 database and presents it in your HUD in the form of badges, definitions, spark graphs, and more.  Justin from NoteCaddy Edge was happy to take some time out to answer our questions about his powerful software tool.
 
PokerSoftware: What types of players is your software best suited for?
 
NoteCaddy Edge: We feel that our packages are suited for all types of players, from micro-limits to high-stakes.  The stats in the popups are statistical frequencies that I think anybody would benefit from.  The more information we have on our opponents, the more informed decisions we can make.

The badges are based on mathematics, so they're also suited for players of all stakes.  For example, if someone is folding to a continuation-bet of half-pot more than 33% of the time, we know it is profitable overall to continuation-bet half-pot against this person with our weak hands.
 
PokerSoftware: What would you recommend a player to focus on when they are using the software for the first time?
 
NoteCaddy Edge: After installing the software, I would recommend to go into the HM2 replayer and go through the popups on the HUD.  Just clicking through them will help you get familiar with how everything is built and you'll feel more comfortable when you need to quickly access information in real-time at a table.  Also, I'd recommend clicking through the badges in the replayer on opponents and especially on yourself so you can see where you may have some leaks that your opponents could be exploiting.

I would also recommend going through all of the documentation, which is automatically put into a new desktop folder named "NoteCaddy Coaching Pack Files" once your package is installed.  The most important file in my opinion is a PDF named "Badges Explained."  This file will show you what each badge means and how you can use it.

It can be overwhelming for some people to have so much new information.  I would recommend taking baby steps and play your normal game, but try to incorporate a little of the new information when you can.  When the action isn't on you, you can be viewing your opponents' badges and popups to get more acquainted with everything and really get a feel on how that player plays.

PokerSoftware: What are the main differences between the Essentials and Ultimate Packs?

NoteCaddy Edge: Both of these packages are designed for No Limit Hold'em cash games.  Essentials costs $99 and Ultimate costs $199.  Essentials is a smaller package with fewer stats in the popups and fewer overall badges.  For players who play lower stakes and players who don't want too much information, the Essentials package is a good option.  The Ultimate package has much more detailed popups and about 25% more badges.  It comes with around 3.5x the number of NoteCaddy definitions than the Essentials version.

For people who are not sure if either of these packages will help them, we recommend to start with the Essentials version and if they like it and want to upgrade, they can do so by paying the difference in price ($100) at any time.
 
PokerSoftware: Why are different packs necessary for tournaments and sit and gos?

NoteCaddy Edge: The main reason we have different versions is because sit and go grinders will have a smaller player pool with more data on their opponents and MTT grinders will have a bigger player pool with less data on their opponents.  With this in mind, we designed the sit and go package with more detailed statistics throughout the popups.  The MTT package badges are designed to show up really quickly so we can get early reads on our opponents even if it's our first and only tournament with them.
 
PokerSoftware: How much development time goes into the creation and maintenance of each pack?  What is involved?
 
NoteCaddy Edge: To develop a package, it's very time-consuming how we do it, but we believe we do it the right way.  First, we have to come up with an overall plan of what we and our customers want included.  Then, we have to create all of the NoteCaddy notes and color definitions, test them, develop HUDs and popups, create badge images, and write the documentation.

Once the package is designed, maintenance is still a project.  We welcome feedback and receive a lot of it from our customers.  Every suggestion is saved and considered.  Some are easy to implement and some are pretty complex.  We also make changes ourselves because we are poker players and come up with new ideas all the time.
 
PokerSoftware: Is there anything new on the horizon?
 
NoteCaddy Edge: We recently sent out pretty big updates to our Ultimate and Essentials packages.  Right now, we're working on a MTT update.  After that, we plan on updating the sit and go and PLO versions.  MTT is planned to be finished sometime this month.  Then, sit and go and PLO should both be finished by the end of the year.

I'm not quite sure if we'll create any completely new packages any time soon, but we do have some ideas for the future.  If we act on the ideas, we will be sure to let everybody know.

PokerSoftware: How does the PokerTracker and Hold'em Manager merger affect you?  What are your general thoughts of it?
 
NoteCaddy Edge: So far, it hasn't really affected us.  Since they've merged, nothing really has changed for us yet.  It would be great if NoteCaddy Edge customers could use their packages with PokerTracker, but I'm not sure that would ever happen.  Some people think PokerTracker has better performance than Hold'em Manager, so if they could use NoteCaddy Edge with PokerTracker it would surely help our business.  In my opinion, though, HM2 performance is not an issue if it is tuned correctly, which we give guides for to our customers.
 
PokerSoftware: What are some of the more creative requests you have received from your customers?
 
NoteCaddy Edge: We've had clients who want a complete set of popups tailored exactly to their specifications.  It has included building thousands of NoteCaddy definitions and creating popups with them.  Usually when someone requests a few definitions, they soon think of more that they want and sometimes it starts snowballing into huge projects.  For the time being, we have put this part of our business on hold because it gets too time-consuming!  We do offer a single free custom definition for all packages and for the Ultimate package we offer two free custom definitions.

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