POKER PAL HELP
If you don't find the answer to your specific query on this page, please feel free to contact us.
Introduction
Paragon Poker Pal™ is an incredibly easy to use software Poker calculator that you can use with many supported online Poker rooms or as a stand-alone product. It works with Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, 7 Card Stud and 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo. Its neat and intuitive interface will have you making instant odds calculations in no time at all.
Known Conflicts
In most cases Poker Pal will work happily on your system. However, if you're experiencing some sporadic crashing or strange behaviour, there are some things to look out for: Microsoft's Service Pack 2 (SP2) for WinXP, Firewalls (Zone Alarm in particular), popup add blockers, background virus software or disk utility programs could be a potential conflict. This is because Poker Pal does some pretty low-level stuff to function and, any type of low-level program can be a potential conflict.
The best way to try and discover if you have a conflict is to temporarily disable such programs and firewalls and see if the situation improves. Turn them back on one by one until you find the cause of the conflict.
We've also had a couple of people in the past who have experienced blue screen fatal errors on their system. It turned out that these hard disks had problems in them and, after running Norton Disk Doctor on each, the problem was cured.
If you are using WinXP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) you may encounter a conflict. Apparently, this Service Pack has caused problems with many other software titles - so much so that DELL are even recommending that people uninstall the SP2 from their systems. You can read about SP2 woes with third party software here: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117990,00.asp
Performance Issues
Because of the large number of calculations that Poker Pal performs, users on certain systems may experience performance issues with graphics as they play. If you experience these problems, we recommend you try any of the following (in this order):
- First, make sure you are using the latest version of Poker Pal
- Go under the Options tab and check the "Display Basic Gauges Only" check box - it may not look as pretty but it's infinitely faster!
- Try changing your Display preferences to 16 bit instead of 32 bit during play
- Try turning off the animation for your Poker site
- Try disabling certain Poker Pal plug-ins
- Try disabling sound effects under the Options tab in Poker Pal
- Try disabling any other software that could be potentially conflicting with Poker Pal (see Known Conflicts above)
- Try running a free utility such as Lavasoft's Ad-aware (spyware removal tool)
- Try running a disk utility such as Norton Disk Doctor and/or Norton Win Doctor
If you are still having issues then please contact us for support.
Windows 98 Compatibility
Although we don't openly support Win98 systems we do have many people who are successfully using Poker Pal on Win98. The best thing to do is try it. From what we understand, there are certain service packs for Win98 available from Microsoft's web site that you may need to install to use Poker Pal on a Win98 system.
Automatic Detection
Poker Pal works automatically with over 100 different online Poker rooms. If your favorite Poker room isn't in our list of supported sites then it may be soon as we plan to support all sites eventually. To enable automatic detection you simply need to launch Poker Pal and ensure that the "Calc [auto]" tab is selected. On there you will see a pull-down list of the supported sites. Simply choose the site you wish to launch and hit the "Launch" button. Poker Pal should then launch your site for you and, once you sit down and play, Poker Pal should automatically detect and enter your cards for you.
It's always important to remember that you need to launch Poker Pal before the Poker room you plan to play at otherwise you'll receive an error message.
General Options
From version 5.0 of Poker Pal, the number of general user options has been reduced. More advanced options (eg. tight/loose settings, pot odds, etc.) can now be set through their respective plug-ins.
The general options now consist of Manual Calcs Game Type, where you can set the game type for performing manual calculations and, Sound Alerts where you can choose whether or not to play alert sounds when new calculations are finished. You can change the sound files that are played by swapping out the .WAV files in the "sounds" directory which resides in your Poker Pal directory. If there are no sound files in the "sounds" directory, Poker Pal will use different system beeps instead.
Calculating Odds
On supported sites, Poker Pal will automatically enter your cards for you and calculate your odds as necessary. Odds are calculated as soon as Poker Pal detects new cards and if the action comes back to you and the number of players has changed.
Poker Pal sports two different graphical gauges: the main (larger) gauge on the left shows your winning chance and the smaller gauge to the right shows your pot odds. Let's look at each individually:
 WINNING CHANCE ODDS
Arguably your most important figure, your winning chance is simply how much chance you have of winning this hand. Take for example a game of Hold'em in which there are 5 players (including you). Before the hole cards are even dealt, you have a 1 in 5 chance (20%) of winning the hand. If, after the hole cards are dealt, you now only have a 14% chance of winning, you would be making a mathematically incorrect call to continue playing the hand. On the other hand, if you now had a 33% chance of winning, it would be mathematically correct to call with those cards.
The winning chance is a much better gauge than simply counting outs to a certain hand because all possibilities are taken into account. For example, if you were counting outs to a flush, that flush may not necessarily become a winner! That's why Poker Pal uses the winning chance.
Poker Pal is designed to give you instant feedback visually with your winning chance. Simply note where the needle lay on the gauge: if it's in the red area then you should check or fold, if it's in the green then you should call or bet (or even raise if well into the green). If it's in the yellow then it's a borderline call so, if there's been some heavy betting or raising by your opponents, you should probably fold.
POT ODDS
Poker Pal now processes pot odds through a separate plug-in called "PotOddsProcessor.px5". You can choose to use either implied or true pot odds under the plug-in's options. The only difference between implied and true pot odds is that implied odds are "implying" that everyone after the highest bettor will call that bet. Here's how pot odds work:
Say you're in a hand where the pot is $5 because the player in front of you has just bet $1. That means it will cost you $1 to call which, in turn, would mean the pot is $6. This would give you a pot odds ratio of around 16.6%. The lower this figure, the better because it means you're getting a good return on your money (if you win). Now, what you need is for this pot odds figure to be less than your winning chance percentage: if your chance of winning is 25% and the pot odds is 19% then it would be mathematically correct to call - even if you don't have very good cards!
Just like the winning chance gauge, the pot odds gauge has a red area so you can quickly see if the pot odds are favorable for you or not.
Status Display
In the center of Poker Pal's main window is a small status text display. This will tell you when the software is inactive or waiting for something. However, once you begin a hand, it will tell you key pieces of information such as the best possible hand you could finish up with, the best possible hand anyone could have from the board cards (ie, the "nuts") and, in Hi/Lo games, it will also tell you the best possibles for Lo hands too. The text changes every couple of seconds.
Deck Display
 Poker Pal shows a representation of the entire deck during automatic detection. As known (visible) cards are spent, those cards are grayed out on the display. If you move your mouse over any card in the display, it will display a text bubble which tells you your probability of catching that particular card, the probability of catching any card of that face and the probability of catching any card of that suit. Overall, the deck display is particularly useful in Stud games!
Play Suggestions
Poker Pal gives play suggestions for each calculation. However, it's important to understand that these suggestions are really only meant for new or novice players to learn the game of Poker. More seasoned players are really only interested in the winning chance and pot odds percentages and they will want to occasionally throw in a check/raise or perform a slow play. The play suggestions are simply based on the settings the user enters on the AutoCalc.px5 plug-in and they can be set to certain levels of tightness or looseness for each stage of the hand.
Plug-Ins Tab
Poker Pal is now fully third-party plug-in compliant. This means that other software developers can effectively "tap into" Poker Pal's resources and be "pumped" with the game information on-the-fly in real time. This adds endless possibilities to the list of extra features that can be added to the main program such as statistical and analysis tracking and charts, etc.
Each plug-in is a separate module and resides in the "plugins" directory which is inside the main Poker Pal directory. When Poker Pal starts up, it loads all known plug-ins from the plugins directory. Each loaded plug-in is displayed under the Plug-Ins tab in Poker Pal. You can right-click on a plug-in in the list to view options, enable or disable, get help or view information about that particular plug-in.
AutoCalc Plug-In
 The winning chance calculations are now performed through the AutoCalc.px5 plug-in. You can set specific options by right-clicking on this plug-in under the Plug-Ins tab in Poker Pal's main window. You can set tight/loose settings for each stage of the hand - these only affect the novice play suggestions and do not alter the actual percentages you receive. You can also set a myriad of options for Hold'em starting hands - again these only affect the play suggestions. For example, you can choose to play any hand to the flop (always see flop) or you can choose to only play AA or AK suited if you so desire. The number of combinations is quite high.
Hand History Plug-In
This is a small plug-in which keeps track of the game and your calculation results on-the-fly. The plug-in's window is initially minimized though you can view it as needed. More improtantly, you can have the history saved to the "History Logs" directory for later analysis.
Charts Plug-In
Poker Pal's Chart feature is now a separate plug-in and displays it's own separate window. There are two main parts to the display. Let's look at each separately:
 POTENTIAL WIN HAND ANALYSIS
This chart shows a bar graph of the main Poker hand rankings. When you receive new cards, this chart breaks down your winning chance into separate hand ranks and visually shows you which hand rank you're most likely to win with. Additionally, the chart shows a red line representing the strength of your hand in comparison to what your opponents likely hold. For example, you ideally want this line to be a string upward curve towards the top-right if you have a really strong hand. However, if the line is weak and low at the bottom of the chart then you probably have very little chance of winning. If the line has a "bump" in the middle then you probably have a reasonable hand but there's a good chance someone could have a better hand than you.
TABLE/PLAYER ANALYSIS
This chart examines the play of all the players at the table and attempts to calculate who is tight and who is loose. The red dotted line going across the chart is the median. Anything above the median is loose and anything below the median is tight. Player's names are displayed as play progresses. The top-most players are the loosest and the bottom-most players are the tightest. Additionally, there is an orange line that represents the overall tightness or looseness of the table as a whole. If the orange line is above the median it is a loose table, if it's below the median then it's a tight table. 
Hand Improvement Statistics Plug-In
All hand improvement statistics are now done in this separate plug-in and, unlike in previous versions of Poker Pal, the calculations are done instantaneously with the exception of starting hands for Omaha and Stud games. The plug-in's display consists of a set of bars with percentages for each Poker hand ranking. You can see as you play what your chances of improving to any particular ranking are from your current cards. Obviously, if you have no more cards left to come or if you already hold a certain ranking, the figure will be zero because you can't possibly improve to anything else or to that ranking.
Writing Plug-Ins for Poker Pal
If you are a software developer and would like to write plug-ins for the program then we have a starter pack available to get you on track. The starter pack contains all the information you need to write Poker Pal plug-ins either for your own use or to distribute to other Poker Pal users. See the Plug-Ins web page for more information.
FAQ's
Why do the deck display probabilities not always match the hand improvement statistics?
They are two different types of probabilities: the hand improvements only account for particular rankings. For example, the figure for improving to a flush does not include the figure for improving to a straight flush or any other rankings higher than a flush. That's why, if you have four to a flush and one card left to come, the deck display may say you have a 19% chance of catching the suited card but the hand improvement statistics may say you only have a 17% chance of making a flush.
Why does Poker Pal sometimes give a better win chance % for KQ than AK?
You have more chance of catching a straight with KQ than AK but the same chance of pairing, etc. on the board.
Why is Poker Pal telling me to fold with hands like AK and KQ, etc.?
You most likely have the "Change Novice Suggestions" option turned on in the PotOddsProcessor plug-in options and someone is betting heavy before you.
Does Poker Pal take into account my position in Hold'em and Omaha games?
Yes, but this does not affect your winning chance percentage or pot odds as these remain the same no matter what position you're in.
What game type do I get the best advantage in?
By far and wide 7 Card Stud games. This is because Poker Pal knows all the visible board cards and remembers any that were folded earlier in the hand. Typically, in a 7 Card Stud game, by the end of the hand, Poker Pal knows approximately half of the deck!
I was told there was an update available - where is the updater?
Simply run the full installer again. See the downloads page for more information.
Is it possible to get the installer for version 4.9xx?
Yes, the installer can be downloaded here. It will be available for only a limited time.
How do I uninstall Poker Pal?
We don't like messing with people's Registry settings which is why Poker Pal doesn't show up in the Add/Remove Programs. All you need to do is drag the Poker Pal directory to your recycle bin and zap it.
I am a registered user but my hard disk got fried and now I'm back in demo mode. What do I do?
Contact support giving your original license number PLUS the license number that is now showing on the demo version. You'll find the new license number by opening up the program and clicking on the About tab. It is shown in the top-right corner of the About dialog. If you don't have your original license number handy (because that got fried too) then please let us know which email address you most likely registered under.
My online Poker site just upgraded and auto-detection doesn't appear to work anymore. What do I do?
When a site upgrades their client software you need to first allow the upgrade to complete and then, once it's upgraded, close down Poker Pal and the poker site software and start over. If, after doing this, it still doesn't work, let us know so we can fix it. Such fixes usually only take a couple of hours. However, if it's going to take a while, we suggest you play at a different site in the meantime.
Do the poker sites allow players to use Poker Pal?
Poker Pal doesn't violate any of the poker site's rules. It is not a "robot" and it does not allow collusion (ie. team play by sharing hole card information). Poker Pal simply provides you with all your Poker odds instantly - something you could do yourself with a hand-held calculator as you play anyway - just much faster!
Furthermore, some of the online poker rooms actually asked us to support their sites and, you may be surprised to learn that some of the site's employees are registered Poker Pal users!
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