If you’ve been playing online poker at a serious level for a decent amount of time then you would be familiar with the poker software providers, Poker Tracker and Hold’em Manager, or PT and HM for short.
The two leading poker software providers for serious cash game and tournament grinders have merged. This merger will create a new world-class statistical poker software provider and the formation of a new company, Max Value Software, LLC (MVS), however existing users of Poker Tracker and Holdem Manager shouldn’t fear anything because both products will continue to be offered by Max Value Software.
It is believed the agreement will serve to create development efficiency for the new company which will inevitably improve the product and the user experience. Derek Charles, who is the lead developer for PokerTracker had this to say to PokerNews: “We believe that the merger of PokerTracker and Hold’em Manager into one unified company allows us to better represent our customers in the market and to ultimately provide better software and tools for the average online poker player,”
A statement issued by the executives at Hold’em Manager expresses very similar views. Both companies clearly seem adamant that their products will be greatly improved once they combine their resources, which if accurate, is great news for online poker players who are using poker heads-up displays (HUDs.)
With that being said, some online poker players on 2+2 poker forum were surprised by the merger and found the news hard to swallow, as many believe that whenever two industry leaders merge, it will be hard to prevent abuse of the pricing power as a result of a monopoly.
However, players should not be concerned by the announcement. According to a press release which came out on Thursday, the company has no plans of making changes to their existing products, and the future line of products will be offered in parallel to please all customers.
There also have been no plans to increase pricing. Also, considering the fact that the merger hasn’t resulted in both products being formed into one product offering, shows their intentions of wanting to fully develop Poker Tracker and Hold’em Manager with the user in mind.
Poker Tracker is already at its fourth software release, and Hold’em Manager has released a second version of its software. The first version of Poker Tracker was actually released quite a few years before Hold’em Manager came onto the scene, although both poker software tools quickly developed a strong following, as the quality of their products were that impressive they basically sold themselves.
Other poker software tools have since been developed including Holdem Indicator and Poker Office but have never reached the same level of popularity as Poker Tracker or Hold’em Manager. Both poker software and analytical tools are considered just as good as each other, with the choice between both of them coming down to a matter of preference. Moving forward, players will see new versions of both software, PT5 and HM3.
Max Value Software has plans to release cloud based tracking solutions for their products, or HM Cloud Beta as it’s more accurately called, but implementing this change is designed to compliment the products not change them in any drastic way. The benefits of a cloud-based HUD will mean no local database software needs to be used, and this will enable computer resources to be freed up. The additional resources can be used to fire up more tournaments or ring game tables as well as to play at other poker sites.
As a result of the merger that has taken place, the company also hopes to provide better customer support services for their products. Both support teams are going to be cross trained to enable them to be prepared to address any and all support questions, regardless of the product in question.