Down for a Month

I apologize for waiting so long to post again.  I got involved in a huge mess and didn't think about anything else.  That was not fair to my readers.



My previous post, on May 20, was entitled Down for a Week, so it's only fitting that this one is Down for a Month.

Everything possible has gone wrong for the last month.  As mentioned in my previous post, I had a lot of computer problems.  Things aren't any better since then.

The computer lag was so bad that I didn't play for a few days.  I tried to solve the problem but decided that it was above my pay grade.

It took me about three weeks to solve the password problem with Juicy Stakes Poker.

I ordered a new computer.  I spent several days trying to figure out how to transfer everything from my old computer to the new one.  When I couldn't figure it out, I decided to take it to my computer tech and have them do it.

My tech told me that it would take 2-5 days.  It took 5.

When I got the computer home I had trouble figuring out how to use the new machine.  There were two issues.  First, I couldn't figure out the new operating system (Windows 10 instead of 8) but I thought it best to figure out how to use Windows 10.  I still haven't really done that.

On the old computer my wife and I had separate "sides" and we logged in with separate passwords.  I would only see my files and she would only see hers.  It's not that way any more.  Today when I looked at my Open Office "Recent Documents" to open my spreadsheets, the entire list was documents from her job.  I had to hunt for what I needed.  Our files and folders are no longer separated (even though my tech said that he could do that) so that's really awkward.

When I used Holdem Manager on the new computer for the first time, most of my database was either gone or inaccessible.  I started to play a tournament and all of my numbers started from zero, After playing a few hands in a tournaments, the "Hands" statistic for every player was in the single digits.  I previously had statistics covering hundreds of hands, thousands in a few cases, for the regulars in that tournament.

I wrote to Holdem Manager support on the twoplustwo.com poker forums and asked what I should do.  Here is the response:

You can't just copy files from the old PC to the new PC. You have to backup your database/settings and then restore them after you have installed HM2 on the new machine.
Please see this FAQ to transfer/backup data. This will ensure that you have your hand histories and HUD saved to import into a new computer, and as a backup to restore in case of an emergency. I recommend you do this at least once a month and keep the last 2 or 3 most recent backups (and your \HM2Archive folder) stored on an external drive and/or cloud storage site like dropbox or google drive.

I looked at the FAQ and it's too late to do all of the things that I was supposed to do.  I messed everything up and I don't think that there is a way to fix my database issue any more.

My wife and I talked it over.  She has dealt with information lost in system changes and she thought that I should just start over with a clean database  I hated the idea that I was going to lose so much (I have over 5,000 hands on one player who I regularly meet at final tables) but starting over did seem to be my only option.

I started over.  I used Revo Uninstaller to delete both the HUD and the database and I downloaded new ones.  I still have problems.

I was tracking statistics on two sites, Juicy Stakes Poker and Americas Cardroom.  Now the dropdown menu on the upper left doesn't show any sites and I can't figure out how to get the two sites back in.  I was in fact tracking on Juicy Stakes Poker, or at least I think that I was.  When I played a few hands I don't know if that information was saved or not, and I have no idea if Americas Cardroom stats will be saved.

My wife asked me if I could play without a HUD, and the short answer is yes--but it would be a very bad idea.  I have a poker rule: Never bring a knife to a gunfight.  I never go to a tournament unprepared.  If I don't have a bankroll of 100 buy-ins for that level, I don't play.  If it's a rebuy tournament I won't play if I can't afford at least three rebuys.  If I haven't had enough sleep, I won't play.

If I play without a HUD, I'll have the knife and the players with a HUD will have the guns.  I can't do that.  I've been plowing through some of the videos (there are hundreds of them)* on how to use the Holdem Manager 2 HUD, but for some reason I haven't been able to make it work, even though I've set up HUDs in the past.

To top everything off, I'm now seeing this message on my one-week-old computer:

"You are running out of disk space on drive E:"

This could all be solved quickly of course.  I could farm the problem out.  All I would need to do is find a local online professional poker player, who is also a HUD expert and a computer technician and would want the job, to set everything up.  Then I could get two new computers, one for me and one for my wife, find the money to pay cash for all of that (we don't do debt) and I'm all set.

Short of that, I don't see a solution, but I have to find one.

As always, your questions or comments are welcome in the box below.

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*https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=holdem+manager+2+hud&FORM=HDRSC3