Known Bug: Sometimes when a player is waiting for the big blind or is sitting out PokerWiz® will count that player as a live opponent. This is due to incomplete signals being received from the card room client. This will be corrected in the first upgrade.

1. Where´s the manual ?
The PokerWiz® online help files are indexed and set up to be used as the manuals for PokerWiz®II programs. To consult the manual, just click on “Help” either here or on “Help” in your PokerWiz®II program’s main menu.

2. I had a pair of Queens in the pocket and there was an ace on the board. At the River the Play Tips told me I had an “above average” chance of winning the hand. But the other player had an Ace so I had no chance of winning. Why did it tell me I had a chance of winning?
Like you, PokerWiz® can not see your opponents’ cards. If the PokerWiz® told you you had, say, a 70% chance of winning that hand, that means, statistically, there will be no Ace (or other hand to beat you) out against you 70% of the time. It also means there will be an Ace (or other hand to beat you) out against you 30% of the time. Does your opponent have the Ace this time? That is for you to decide.

3. Why does PokerWiz® give me information, but no advice?
The PokerWiz®II UPS is not a robot program. It does not make your moves for you and it does not even tell you what moves you should make. It gives you the information you need to play good poker, but you make your own decisions about how to use (or not) that information.

4. I have read that [such and such hand] is not a good starting hand for Hold’em but PokerWiz® tells me it is “above average”. Why is that?
PokerWiz® gives you pure statistics. There are no judgement calls. PokerWiz® runs your hand against the number of opponents you face and shows you the percentage of times it won, then states it in relation to average.

5. There is so much information on everybody and everything, isn’t that like cheating?
Certainly not. Every good poker player, whether live or online, should keep thorough notes on his play and his opponents’ play. The PokerWiz®II UPS does just that. It does not see or record anything that you could not record yourself with a pencil if you could write fast enough.

6. How does PokerWiz®II decide if a player’s Risk Factor is high or low?
The Risk Factor is a function of actions and results. Examples: (1) If a player bets on the Turn and shows an “Extreme” Risk Factor it means that, historically, when this player bets on the Turn he wins the hand an extremely high proportion of the time. (2) If a player calls on the Flop and shows a “Low” Risk Factor it means that, historically, he does not win very often when he calls on the Flop.

7. Why is there a question mark (?) by some names in the Risk Factor?
The question mark (?) shows when there are fewer than 100 hands recorded for a player. It reminds you that the analysis is based on what PokerWiz® considers an insufficient amount of data.

8. Why doesn’t my Sidekick open when I sit at a table?
....a) Your Sidekick will open when you are first dealt into a hand. If it doesn’t, then see the answers below.
....b) Your PokerWiz®II UPS may not be enabled for that card room. Check the “Enabled Sites List” on the main screen of PokerWiz®. If the name of your card room is not shown there, click here to download the Enabler for your room.
....c) Check that your play alias is entered correctly under “User Play Name” on the main UPS main screen. It must match the alias you use at the card room. And it is case sensitive: capital and small letters must match.
....d) Check that your Sidekick is turned on. When it is on, a green light will show at the bottom right of the main screen where it says “Inet” and it will indicate “on”.

9. Why does my Sidekick look like this ? That’s not what it looks like in the pictures?
That is the “Sidekick Rack” for use when you are playing more than one table. For single table use, disable the Sidekick Rack and enable the Sidekick.

10. Why do my Odds and the Play Tips keep changing during the hand?
The Odds and the Play Tips change according to the number of opponents left in the hand. You will often find that a hand’s relative strength changes quite a lot from 9 opponents to 2 or 3 opponents.

11. Why does PokerWiz® sometimes not give positional tips?
There are two situations where PokerWiz® does not give positional tips: (1) When your starting cards are “below average”; (2) When there are fewer than 5 players dealt into the hand.

12. Why does my Watcher show “Watcher on – No Signal”?
There is no signal until a table is open. If you open a table and there is still no signal, then your PokerWiz®II UPS may not be enabled for that card room. Check the “Enabled Sites List” on the main screen of PokerWiz®. If the name of your card room is not shown there, click here to download the Enabler for your room.

14. Why does my Sidekick Notebook sometimes not show a player’s name who is at the table?
That indicates the player is sitting out. It can be very handy in tournaments where players’ names show at the table but they are not really playing and are being blinded off. If their names are not showing on the Notebook then you know those players are not really there (so make sure you raise them off their blinds if you get a chance).

15. I counted the times in a session that I called or raised the blind. It was 24 times, but my data showed 23 times. What happened?
Sometimes there will be a dropped signal or a Windows blip that causes PokerWiz® to miss an action. But this is rare and will not make any statistical difference over time as the number of hands recorded gets large.

16. How can I separate ring game play from tournament play? The number of chips in tournaments has messed up my win/loss stats.
Soon, in the next upgrade, this will be taken care of for you automatically, but for now you need to use your Data Manager and do it manually. Keep separate groups for ring games and tourneys. That way the data won’t mix.

1. Where’s the manual ?
The PokerWiz® online help files are indexed and set up to be used as the manuals for PokerWiz®II programs. To consult the manual, just click on “Help” either here or on “Help” in your PokerWiz®II program’s main menu.

2. When I start a simulation on my PokerWiz® it starts to babble incoherently. What's going on?
You've got your "Peek Interval" set too low. At the Peek Intervals the statistics on the screen are updated so you can follow what's happening in your simulation. Further, at that interval, you'll see what and who the winner of that last was and The PokerWiz® will announce the winning hand. Depending on the speed of your processor and the type of simulation you're running, a frequent Peek Interval will come and go and come again before the wave file can be reproduced, thus the babble. On fast machines, a Peek Interval about every 100,000 deals is best. You can, of course, just off the sound if you wish. But, it is important to remember also that the more frequently you peek the slower your simulation will run as the computer will use processing power to display graphics rather than gather statistics.

3. In the Win/Loss/Tie statistics, how are ties counted?
A two-way tie is considered half a win, a three-way tie is one-third of a win, and so forth up to a ten-way tie which is considered one-tenth of a win for each player. This, of course, represents reality in that in a, say, four-way tie each winner gets one-fourth of the pot. PokerWiz®II shows you win stats with and without ties.

4. How many deals should I run to get a true simulation?
You should certainly run at least a hundred thousand deals of any simulation. On most machines these days you can run a million hands in a few seconds (Omaha Hi/Lo-8 is the slowest and takes a few minutes). A million is plenty for all your percentages to be no more than a few hundredths off a true mathematical result. More than a million is generally unnecessary. However, see below.

5. Why are my results from The PokerWiz® not exactly the same as the relevant mathematical calculations?
As alluded to above, mathematical calculations of probability are based on infinity -- an infinite number of cases. In order to show exact results you would have to run an infinite number of deals. In reality, however, the differences shown between "theoretical" results and the results from a million-deal run are so small that you would have to play poker all day every day for about ten thousand years to notice. However, some traditional calculations of probability are simply incorrect in that they fail to include all possible variables. If your pencil tells you one thing and The PokerWiz® tells you another, The PokerWiz® will have the better number; it's been checked and rechecked many, many times. Often in these cases, interpolating the information available on the various detail charts will tell you where the calculation went wrong. (Watch out: there is always the possibility that you are not setting up your simulation correctly, not considering discards or other factors. The PokerWiz® is a computer program; it will tell you what you ask it. Whether or not you ask it the right question is up to you.)

6. Your detail charts are kind of complex. Why is it important to have such minute detail?
Let's say you're running a Hold'em simulation and have given Player 1 ace-jack suited. Most poker programs will tell you at the end of the simulation that Player 1 made, say, two-pair X percent of the time, giving his win/loss statistics with that hand. Well, there's two pair and there's two pair. If the board comes up an ace and a pair of queens then, sure, you've made two pair but your win/loss ratio on that two pair will be much worse than had the board come up an ace and a jack. Your overall win/loss statistics will be distorted. If you don't know which two pair you're talking about you won't know the relative power of each, individual two pair hand (In this case, of course, your win-to-loss ratio with two pair aces and jacks will be much better than with the other hand, aces and queens, even though the latter is a "superior" hand). There's a lot of information on the detail charts, but it is necessary to give a true picture of simulation results.

7. Can I use The PokerWiz® to get a feel for "good" hands?
There are many ways to do this, but we find one of the most interesting is to use Qualifiers. For example, set up a simulation of seven card stud, two players with random hands. Set "High Qualifiers" (From the Options Box) at, say, trips or better, and run off a bunch of deals. The PokerWiz® will keep statistics on the "qualified" deals and show the number (or percentage) of deals in which no one qualified, i.e., in which no one had trips or better. Now do the same thing with four players, then with seven players. You'll find that with two players the best hand will be less than trips a whole lot more often than with four or seven players. Qualifiers can be applied to any variation available on PokerWiz®, high, low and high/low split. Like to play deuce-to-the-seven lowball? Use "Low Qualifiers" to tell you how often in five-handed game someone has, say, a pat ten-low or better.

8. I've seen some published statistics that are somewhat different from the results I get from PokerWiz®. Why is that?
See No 4 above about mathematical calculations. It's the same principle.