In the last three months, where poker is concerned, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I should have posted earlier, but every time that I though about posting, something new went wrong. Other than playing a few hands as a test, I haven't played for more than three months. When I did play I had to pay to register for the tournament--meaning that even if I only played one test hand I still lost my buy-in.
I have not been handling this well. I didn't get my work hours in. I could have spent that free time studying, but it was hard to make myself put in the study time when I was beginning to wonder if, or when, I would recover from all of the technical problems. I have ADD, which tends to make me disorganized and distractible, especially when I don't have something on which I can focus.
I still don't have everything straightened out. I should have been more diligent about keeping everyone current with what's been going on, but there are a limited number of ways to say "it's still not working."
What I can do is explain what's been going on. I'll give you the short version first, then I'll give you some detail.
The Short Version:
During the time that I wasn't posting, the internet was way too slow, I had problems with the printer, the HUD (heads-up display) stopped working for Juicy Stakes Poker and we ordered a laptop that didn't work. Those are just some of the issues. It's been a bad three months.
The Long Version:
1. The Internet. I ran Internet Speed Tests where download speeds were often under 20 Mbps (megabits per second.) Comcast promises in their advertising that their internet download speed will be at least 100 Mbps. To give a practical example of how slow the internet was, I could sometimes type a ten-word sentence, sit back in my chair and wait for the letters to appear on the screen. A complete freeze lasting 30 seconds is still not uncommon, especially after midnight.
This is a big deal because in online poker hands are timed. I have a certain number of seconds to act. When that time is done, if I haven't played my hand is automatically folded. It doesn't matter that I have the best hand if I'm not able to play it.
I communicated with Comcast several times by phone or online and once in person at the local office. No one was helpful.
Two Comcast techs were sent out on different days but neither of them could fix the problems. The second one figured out the problem, sort of. There was a hidden network, which usually means that someone nearby is using the same frequency and messing with my connection. He said that the competing network was so strong that it would have to be in our house--but it wasn't. He took every electronic device that we have, one by one, and eliminated all of them as the problem.
He finally got my wife's hard-wired desktop (provided by her employer) up to speed, but he was unable to get the desktop on which I play poker (wireless connection) up to speed. A few days later he came back and spent an hour setting up an ethernet connectionfor my desktop and working on other things. The speeds for my poker desktop were much better for about a week, then the lagging and freezing started again. Poker is not affected in the same way as other computer tasks as there is no browser involved, so I think that now that I'm hard-wired (Ethernet), even though the speeds still aren't great they should be good enough to play poker.
2. The Printer.
I don't need to use a printer when I'm playing, but I do need to download and print something from a poker coaching site from time to time and that wasn't working. Also, my wife works at home and we share the same printer, which she uses quite often for her work. That problem took several days to solve.
3. The Laptop.
The new laptop is now my wife's personal computer, which I use on occasion. I don't play poker on it, but that could happen, for example, if we lost power while I was in a tournament. Should that happen I could take the laptop someplace that had wi-fi and I would only miss a few hands.
We ordered the new laptop and it arrived promptly. It didn't work after I followed all of the Windows 10 set-up directions. I tried everything that I could think of. The next day I took it to our local computer shop. The guy took the laptop, was back in less than five minutes and said that there wasn't enough disk space for the computer to function. It turns out that it comes with 33 megabytes of memory, but 32 of them were used for Windows downloads during set up
We returned the laptop and bought a different one. It took a couple days and some reading to set it up correctly, but the new laptop works pretty well now.
4. The Biggest Problem--The HUD Doesn't work.
The final, but worst, problem left to solve is the HUD (heads-up display.) Online pros almost always use a HUD, which gives them access to all kinds of statistics on their play and on the play of their opponents. If your opponent is using a HUD and you're not, you're bringing a knife to a gunfight. I won't do that. I'm careful with my poker bankroll and I don't play when I'm at an obvious disadvantage.
To see the difference between using or not using a HUD, check the two poker videos below. Even if you have no idea what's going on, watching each videos for 30 seconds makew it easy to see that players using a HUD have access to much more information.
Poker table without a HUD: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=online+poker+tournament&&view=detail&mid=EBF4318C74D4408D85FBEBF4318C74D4408D85FB&&FORM=VRDGAR
Poker table using a HUD: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=poker+tournament+with+hud&&view=detail&mid=E926AB5E53BDB60FB3DFE926AB5E53BDB60FB3DF&&FORM=VRDGAR
Things get complicated pretty quickly if one little things goes wrong, because there are so many moving parts. When I play poker online three main programs are working together:
1. The poker site, which displays the virtual table and other information on the monitor.
2. The HUD, the display that overlays the table and displays a wide variety of statistics.
3. The database that stores the history of my play and that of my opponents.
There is a reason that there is a poker forum support thread for addressing those issues, and there is a reason that there almost 50,000 posts in that thread.* It's hard to keep up with all of the moving parts. If I was a rich poker player I would hire a full-time or on-call tech guy to solve those problems for me.
I decided to try one more thing before I gave up. I paid someone in Holdem Manager Emergency Support $60 for one hour to look at how I had everything set up, using Teamviewer. He couldn't fix anything, but I got the $60 back.
After trying for an hour to fix the HUD and some smaller problems, the paid support guy told me that the problem was an update by the poker site (Juicy Stakes Poker) which confused Holdem Manager's tracking. I went back to the Holdem Manager support thread. They said that I would have to wait to use the HUD until Holdem Manager could bring out an update that adjusted their code to the Juicy Stakes Poker changes.
That could take a few days or a month. I know of no other options, but at least I know that at some point Holdem Manager will fix the problem. I need to climb out of my funk, get back to studying every day and see what happens. At least I know that at some point it is fixable.
I will do my best to let you know what's going on, even if it's less-than-exciting news about how much time I spent that day studying flash cards.
As always, your questions and comments are welcome (see box below.)
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*https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/167/commercial-software/holdem-manager-support-1535/?highlight=
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