Poker software has always been a part of my evolution as a player. I regularly use a product called Poker Academy Pro to test out various tactics within formats that I will be playing live. However, I recently discovered a real time software package called PokerEdge that is absolutely impressive! I usually do not endorse products but this is a must have for any serious online poker player. Whether you play cash games or tournaments you have genuine real time information on your opponents available to you immediately with on-going updates at the click of a mouse.

You can find this software at PokerEdge Download the free trial version that is fully functional. The install takes about 10 mins to complete on any Windows XP or Windows 2K pc. Once done you are ready to fire up the software along with your online poker software of choice.

PokerEdge supports all of the major online poker rooms from Full Tilt to PokerStars as well as several UK based poker rooms. All you need to do is find the room you play in from the drop down list and click the Free Trial button and it will initiate your software for you.

Once you have fired up PE you will notice that it has a Main window that allows you to do a search on tables for No Limit, Fixed Limit, and Pot Limit games. Once you click the Update Session button on the Lookup window each player is now listed in relation to how they have played based on there hand histories. An icon will pop up by each players avatar indicating there tendencies. For instance: A weak player will show up as a Fish. A strong player will show up as a Shark. A calling station will show up as a Phone etc.

How convenient is that?

You can customize the information at your discretion too! Want to know what percentage of flops a player sees? Just open the Lookup window and click his screen name and it appears in the window along with several other statistical break downs of his play. All of which are completely customizable.

I used this software during a tournament and it provided some very useful information that I was able to benefit from that I just would not have known without it. I also used it in cash games and did well with it too. I usually do well in cash games anyhow but it did take some of the guess work out of a few marginal calls that turned out to be profitable.

In summary, this is an outstanding product that any regular online player should have in there arsenal. So, how much does it cost? Well, there are 2 versions of this software. The first is the Basic membership for Low Stakes players. This version tracks limit games up to $3/6 and No Limit up to $.50 Big Blinds. Basic Membership costs $9.95 per month. This is a small fee considering that the serious cash game player will make this back in one hand.

The Gold Membership, which covers ALL Tournament and Cash games from the smallest to highest, is $19.95 per Month. A nominal fee for high stakes players earning far more than $19.95 in a single hand. The interface is easy to use and the PE web site has both a video tutorial and instructions that are fairly straight forward to use.

System Requirements: Windows XP, Windows 2000, Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0

Here is a brief breakdown of what you get with PokerEdge software:

• PokerEdge automatically detects your current opponents
• Opponents are instantly color coded and assigned icons based on rules you have defined
• Click an opponent’s name and you will get detailed real-time statistics of there play
• Heads Up Display shows the icon and stats directly on the poker table while you are playing
• You will always know when your table is profitable and when to move to another table
• You do have an edge of over players at your table in terms of information available to you
• PokerEdge software is currently tracking 1.1 million players online
• You can import notes from your host software on all players

On a scale of 1 to 10 I would give this software an 8.5

Good luck at the tables!