Poker software is a magic wand for both beginner online poker players and true professionals. Among the programs presented, complex solutions are popular, which allow you to obtain the most detailed information about poker analytics based on the hand history you have played.

One of these programs is Hold'em Manager 2. Every self-respecting poker player has one.(except for those who preferred Poker Tracker 4). Let's look at how to use Holdem Manager 2 and what this useful utility can be useful for.

Description of Hold'em Manager 2

The program has been around for a very long time. Despite the fact that Poker Tracker has already released four versions of its software, and NM - only two, the programs were released at approximately the same time and enjoy approximately the same popularity among users.

Reports in Holdem Manager 2

Be sure to master the reports tab if you want to know how to get the most out of Holdem Manager 2. Our instructions for Holdem Manager 2 cannot include all the functionality of the reports tab, but general outline, this is a page where you can view and analyze played tournaments, cash sessions and specific games. In the reports tab, all received data is conveniently and easily segmented and configured.

How to use Hold'em Manager 2 to study your opponents?

A separate tab in the interface provides information about opponents. Let's say you see that you encounter this or that opponent quite often in each new game, then it's time to start studying his game. In the collected statistics you will see how often the player does, when he squeezes or what he does at a particular stage of the game.

It is impossible to talk about how to use Holdem Manager 2 100% in one article. However, once you install the software, it will be easy to understand the interface on your own. Moreover, you already have the basic instructions for Holdem Manager 2.

​A huge number of PokerStars users resort to the most popular program for collecting statistics - . This is not surprising, because it helps poker players increase their win rate and climb the limits much faster.

Instructions for setting up Hold'em Manager 2 for PokerStars

1. to your computer (you must select English during installation)

2. Create two folders "Cash" And "Mtt", where your hand history for cash tables and multi-table tournaments will be stored in the future.

​3. Launch HM2 and open the menu "Site Setup"

4. You will see a list of poker rooms that your HUD works with – choose PokerStars.

​6. This window also shows standard way Reserve copy. Click on it and then click on "pencil". Next, check the box next to "Include sub-folders" and click “OK”.

​

7. After the above steps, click on two buttons "Auto Detect", then close this window – “Close”.

​How to add hands from PokerStars to Holdem Manager

1. Opening the PokerStars client, then click “Settings” → “Table Appearance” → “Preferred seat”. In this window, check the box next to "Don't Auto-Center me" and in manual mode check the boxes for each table.

​2. Next you need indicate to the poker room the folders into which the hand history will be imported. Click “Playing History” → “Hand History” → “Change Folder” (here select the “Cash” pack). Also, don’t forget to check the box next to "Save My Hand History" and in the field "Keep Hand Stories" expose maximum amount days – 9999.

​We follow a similar procedure for tournaments "Tournament Summaries", but already select the “Mtt” folder.

Setting up XM2 for PokerStars to correctly import hand history – completed. All that remains is to configure the HUD display at the gaming table.

Setting up HUD from HM2 on PokerStars

1. Open Hold'em Manager 2 and press

2. Go to the tab "Site Options", where we select:

a. Site: PokerStars

b. HUD display option at the table

With. Games: Hold'em

Finally, click “OK”.

​After completing simple manipulations, restart your computer and start playing on PokerStars with Holdem Manager2 working correctly.

Taking a closer look at the following tabs:

• General Settings
• Display Settings
• Aliases
• Hands View Columns
• Rakeback and Bonuses
• Currency Exchange Rates
• Auto Rate Rules
• HM.com Website Login
• International Sites
• Feature Logging

By clicking on the player icon on the main control panel of HM2, we will call up a list possible actions. We can also call this menu by clicking on the player’s nickname in the lower right corner of the program.

The drop-down list offers us the following options:

“Select player” - selecting a player who will become Hero from the list of all players in the database. By clicking on this option, we will open a window with a list of all players in the database. Next, we can select the nickname we need by typing the player’s name in the “Current Player” column. After this, we need to select the desired player and click “OK”, then the selected player will become the main one in the database.

“Edit Aliases” - creating and editing a “combined” nickname, which is compiled by combining several players. We will look at the process of creating a player's nickname when we look at the basic settings of the program.

If you click on the “Settings” icon on the main control panel of the program, a window will be called up containing a list of the main settings of HM2.

General Settings

In the first tab “General Settings” in the “Start of week” field we should indicate the day of the week from which HM2 will start the week: Sunday – if you want to start your week from Sunday and Monday – if from Monday.

The same must be done to select the start time of the day: “Start of Day”. The Session Timeout option is available below, with which you can set the interval between sessions, after which HM2 will consider your session a new one, and not a continuation of the previous one.

The “Automatically refresh” option - activates the automatic application of filters for reports on the “Reports” tab after selecting them, which saves us from constantly pressing “Refresh”.

“Clear filters does not clear Date Filter” - if this option is activated, then when you click on the “Clear Filters” button, all applied filters will be canceled except for filters in the “Date Range” category.

“Auto apply filter changes to all reports” is an option that allows you to automatically apply all selected filters in one of the tabs to all others, saving us from clicking the “Apply to All Reports” button.

“Reset Messages” - after clicking this button, all pop-up help windows in HM2 will begin to be displayed again.

“Restore Defaults” button - returns HM2 to its original settings.

Display Settings

Here you can specify the option for displaying maps: either in graphically, or in text. To use the graphical interface, enable the option “Use graphical cards in hand view”

If the “Show winning/losing value colors” option is active, then in the HM2 hand list the results of hands will be displayed in different colors: green - won, red - lost, black - hands with a zero result.

The active option “Show currency symbols in reports” displays currency icons in the tabs of the “Reports” category.

When you activate the “Show percent symbols in reports” option, you will see a “%” sign after the statistical indicators.

“Theme” - allows you to choose one of two HM2 themes: dark or light.

Aliases

The “Aliases” tab, as we said above, allows you to create a collective nickname for several of your accounts. To do this, click the “+” icon.

Then in the window that appears, enter the name of our “collective” nickname.

After this, we need to add real nicknames from various rooms to our “collective” nickname. To do this, click the second plus.

From the list that appears, we add the player from the database that we need. It will now appear in the “Player Site Names” column.

After this, click the plus sign in the “Player Site Names” column again and repeat the procedure until all the nicknames that will be included in our “collective” nickname are selected. Once the Alias ​​is created, we will be able to select it through the player selection option by entering the name of the Alias.

Hands View Columns

This tab has two fields. The first is “Columns Included”, the second is “Columns Available”. Below these fields there is a “Reset Columns to Defaults” button, which allows you to return all the settings of this tab to the original ones.

The “Columns Included” field contains a list of data that will be displayed in the distribution lists, and the “Columns Available” field contains data that can be added to the “Columns Included” list.

Adding data from the "Available Columns" column to the "Columns Included" field is accomplished by simply dragging it by clicking the left arrow icon. The data can also be arranged in the order we need by clicking the down and up arrows.

Below are descriptions of the data we may display in giveaway listings:

HandTimeStamp – date and time the hand was played.

StakesBlinds – size of the blinds.

HoleCards are the player's pocket cards.

PlayerAction – player actions on all streets.

BoardCards – board cards.

NetAmountWon – player's winnings.

NetBBsWon – player's winnings in big blinds.

EVDifference – a player’s shortfall or overkill in all-in situations (if the all-in player wins, the difference between the result of the draw and the expected value; if the all-in player loses, the expected difference).

ICMDifference – in tournaments, how much in monetary terms a shortfall or overkill is valued in an all-in situation.

PositionType – player position.

PreflopActionFaced – the type of preflop pot before the player's preflop action.

PreflopVPIPPFR – whether the player raised preflop or entered the game by calling.

AllInStreet – the street on which the player went all-in.

EVEquity – player’s equity when going all-in.

ShortGameType – in tournaments: buy-in, in cash games: game limit.

PreflopPlayerAction – player’s actions preflop.

FlopCards – flop cards.

FlopPlayerAction – player’s actions on the flop.

TurnCard – turn card.

TurnPlayerAction – the player’s actions on the turn.

RiverCard – river card.

RiverPlayerAction – the player’s actions on the river.

Rakeback and Bonuses

The next tab - Rakeback and Bonuses - consists of two parts: rakeback accounting and bonus accounting.

To create a rakeback record for a player, we need to click on the “+” sign in the “Rakeback” field and then fill in the following fields.

“Description” - indicate the name of our entry.

“Player” - select the player whose rakeback record we want to create.

“Percentage” - indicate the percentage of rakeback received by the player.

In the “Start Date” and “End Date” fields we indicate the start and end dates of rakeback payment accounting, respectively.

After that, click “OK” and see our new entry about rakeback in the “Rakeback” field.

To create a bonus accounting record, click “+” in the “Bonuses” field, and then fill in the appropriate fields.

“Description” - name or description of the bonus.

“Player” - player selection.

“Amount” - the amount of the bonus received.

“Currency” - the type of currency in which the bonus will be paid.

“Date” - select the time period for which our bonus will work.

After filling out the “Rakeback” and “Bonuses” fields, we will be able to track this data on the graph of the total winnings.

Currency Exchange Rates

This tab shows the ratios of currencies to each other for their correct display in HM2 reports. Click the "Get Current Rates" button to get current rates from the HM2 servers.

Auto Rate Rules

The “Auto Rate Rules” tab allows you to configure the automatic classification of players in accordance with the specified rules. It should be noted here that when setting classification rules, you must adjust them to different types of games (by default, the HM2 auto-rating rules for all types of games are the same).

At the top of the tab we can select the game type based on the following criteria.

Full Ring – long tables;

6-Max – short tables;

Heads up – one-on-one tables.

Holdem - hold'em;

Omaha (Hi) – Omaha high;

Omaha 8 (Hi/Lo) – Omaha high/low.

No/Pot Limit – no-limit and pot-limit games;

Fixed Limit – limit games;

Tournament – ​​tournaments.

At the bottom there is a control panel for player auto-rating rules, consisting of the following options:

“+” - creating a new rule.

“-” - deleting a rule.

“Pencil” - editing the selected rule.

"" - raising the rule in the list of rules (increasing priority).

“↓” - lowering the rule in the list of rules (lowering priority).

In the center there is a panel of created rules. Here we see all the rules created, arranged according to their priority: if an opponent falls under several rules at the same time, then he will be classified by HM2 according to the priority rule.

In order to create a rule, we need to click on the “+” icon.

Next, in the window that opens, in the “Description” field, indicate what our new player classification will be called. In the “Icon” field, select the icon that will be assigned this type opponent. Using the “TableScanner Score” slider, we indicate the indicator for assessing the enemy’s profitability, which will be displayed in the “TableScanner”.

After filling in the basic data, click the “+” button. In the new window we will be able to set conditions for the classification rule.

The condition editor consists of the following elements:

1. Options for the logical operators "AND" (and) and "OR" (or).
2. “Available Statistics” is a set of stats on the basis of which conditions are created. You can only select one stat for a condition.
3. Field for defining stat parameters.

If we need the created condition to work together with other conditions, then we select the logical operator “AND”. If it is necessary for at least one of all available conditions to work, then the “OR” operator should be selected.

After selecting the logical operator and stats, we can apply following operators comparisons:

"Between" - between.

">" is more.

">=" - greater than or equal.

«<» - меньше.

«<=» - меньше или равно.

After selecting the comparison operator, enter the value, as well as the number of samples according to which this condition will be checked. Next, click “OK” and our rule will appear in the list. We can create multiple rules for each type of player.

HM.com Website Login

This tab is intended for entering the password for your account on the HM2 website in the “HM.com Website Login” column in order to be able to synchronize the database with the cloud database.

International Sites

Since some rooms have their reservations in certain countries, we should indicate which room server we are playing on. This is necessary for the correct operation of HM2.

Feature Logging

From the list presented, we can select HM2 reports on our work, which the program will create in order to search for system errors. This is necessary if you are experiencing problems with a specific element of the program. Once you create such a report, you can send it to the support team for assistance.

The Holdem Manager 2 program is one of the most popular and sought-after versions, which quite firmly holds its leading position. This software is chosen by the majority.

Instructions for Holdem Manager - useful information about the functionality and how to use it. HM2 is not just a program that accompanies poker players, providing statistical information for better play. Today it appears as a multifunctional platform that communicates with all large-scale poker rooms popular around the world. This is a very brief description of holdem manager.

But it definitely becomes clear that a lot of opportunities and prospects will open up for those who arm themselves with this program. It is only important to figure out how to use it.

If we talk briefly about what role this program plays in the poker fight, then the conclusion suggests itself - important!

Regardless of which poker room the user is a member of, he generates a large number of text files containing information about the history of combinations. In order to transform data into useful information, Hold'em Manager 2 was created in the first place.

This program assembles text files into a single, coherent file cabinet, giving participants the opportunity to analyze the converted information. Instructions for Holdem manager - useful information adapted for study.

Armed with basic skills and delving into the process, it will not be difficult to skillfully apply the program day after day and achieve decent results in poker competitions.

Program functions or how to use Нoldem Manager 2

Before going into battle, it is important to understand and understand the operating principle of the software, study the location of the options and the capabilities of each of them. How to use Holdem Manager? First of all, you need to familiarize yourself with the list of functional contributions with which you will directly need to conduct fruitful work.

• The interface offers the following positions:
• Home;
• Reports;
• Active Session;
• Opponents;
• HM Apps;

It is clear that everything starts from the Home start page, from here each user travels through the positions in search of the necessary actions. One of the most visited tabs is HUD.

After going through it, the user has the opportunity to familiarize himself with the statistical information of opponents. An impressive list of indicators is offered, the player makes an independent choice of positions that he directly needs to conduct a successful battle. If there is such a need, the participant can remove some indicators and add others.

So, in practice, the player begins to understand how to use Holdem Manager 2. For those who are just starting their poker activities, standard generated sets of statistical data are offered. All this can be found in the Hud tab.

For user convenience, the following settings are suggested:

• Font type;
• Its size;
• Color, etc.

In working form, this tab looks like this: the nicknames of the table representatives are indicated in red, the number of sets in blue, and the statistical data itself in green. In the conditions of a set of hands, you can observe automatic changes in information.

A user who wants to learn more about an opponent must hover over his nickname, after which a window will open with detailed information about the opponent at all stages of the tournament. Everyone is able to make their own adjustments to the positions presented in the window.

Reports is a useful tab to use. These Holdem manager instructions will help you understand the functionality of this position. Most of the participant's time is spent here.

Here the user gets acquainted with the results of cash competitions and poker tournaments, as well as an analysis of the battles held. You can also access graphical tools here.

How to use Hold'em Manager 2 directly in the "Opponents" tab is especially important, because the most significant information about the player's opponents is concentrated here. Based on the information, the participant is able to analyze their tactics and lines of behavior and draw conclusions.

Replayer is a classic option that is well known to users of previous versions. Thanks to the feature, the participant can play back episodes rather than just read discreet, laconic statistical figures.

These are perhaps the main positions that you should pay special attention to. But it is also important to study the capabilities of other tabs, because in NM2 they are all particularly rich and informative.

Helper Applications

For those who have figured out how to use holdem manager 2, it will also be important to learn about auxiliary applications designed to improve the program. They have a more highly specialized focus. The most common variations include:

• Leak Buster - provides a database of cache participant errors;
• TableScan Turbo - a program for finding the most profitable tables with weak opponents;

We talked in detail about the installation and initial launch of the program, and also discussed the issue of creating a database. This article will cover the following elements of the “Settings” category:

• General Settings
• Display Settings
• Aliases
• Hands View Columns
• Rakeback and Bonuses
• Currency Exchange Rates
• Auto Rate Rules
• HM.com Website Login
• International Sites

If you click the player icon on the main control panel of HM2, a list of possible actions will open, consisting of the following options:

“Select player” – selecting a player who will become Hero from the list of all players from the database. By clicking on this option, we will open a window with a list of all players in the database. Next, we can select the nickname we need by typing the player’s name in the “Current Player” column. After this, we need to select the desired player and click “OK”, then the selected player will become the main one in the database.

“Edit Aliases” is a function designed to create a collective nickname by combining all your nicknames into one. We'll look at the process of creating a common nickname a little later.

To call up the main program settings, we should click the “Settings” button on the main program control panel.

General Settings

In the first tab “General Settings” in the “Start of week” field we need to specify the day that will determine the start of the week: Sunday – if you want HM2 to start the week from Sunday, and Monday – if from Monday.

We should do the same with choosing the start time of the day: “Start of Day”. Below, the “Session Timeout” option is available, with which you can set the interval between sessions, after which HM2 will consider your session a new one, and not a continuation of the previous one.

The “Automatically refresh” option – activates the automatic application of filters for reports on the “Reports” tab after selecting them, which saves us from constantly pressing “Refresh”.

“Clear filters does not clear Date Filter” – if this option is activated, then when you click on the “Clear Filters” button, all applied filters will be canceled except for filters of the “Date Range” category.

“Auto apply filter changes to all reports” is an option that allows you to automatically apply all selected filters in one of the tabs to all others, saving us from clicking the “Apply to All Reports” button.

“Reset Messages” is a function that restarts all HM2 pop-up windows.

“Restore Defaults” button – returns the HM2 settings to the original ones.

Display Settings

In this tab we can choose the option to display maps in HM2. To use the graphical interface, you should activate the “Use graphical cards in hand view” option. For text view, uncheck the box.

Enabling the “Show winning/losing value colors” option activates the display of hand results in different colors: green for wins, red for losses, black for hands with zero results.

“Show currency symbols in reports” – activates the display of currency symbols in the tabs of the “Reports” category.

When you activate the “Show percent symbols in reports” option, you will see a “%” sign after the statistical indicators.

“Theme” – select a dark or light theme for the HM2 interface.

Aliases

The “Aliases” tab, as noted earlier, allows you to create a collective nickname for several of your accounts. To do this, click the “+” icon.

In the frame that appears, enter the name of our common nickname.

Now we need to add real nicknames of our accounts from various rooms to our collective nickname. Click the plus sign on the right side of the “Aliases” tab.

From the list that appears, we need to add all the players we are interested in from the database. All selected nicknames will appear in the “Player Site Names” column.

After creating a collective nickname - Alias, we can select it using the player selection option.

Hands View Columns

The tab consists of two fields: “Columns Included” and “Columns Available”. Below them there is a button to reset the settings of this tab to the original ones – “Reset Columns to Defaults”.

The “Columns Included” field contains a list of data that will be displayed in the distribution lists, and the “Columns Available” field contains data that can be added to the “Columns Included” list. In the “Reports” section it will look like this.

Transferring data from one column to another is done by clicking the arrow icon. The data can also be arranged in the order we want using the up and down arrows. Below are descriptions of the data we may display in giveaway listings:

HandTimeStamp – date and time the hand was played.

StakesBlinds – size of the blinds.

HoleCards are the player's pocket cards.

PlayerAction – player actions on all streets.

BoardCards – board cards.

NetAmountWon – player's winnings.

NetBBsWon – player's winnings in big blinds.

EVDifference – a player’s shortfall or overkill in all-in situations (if the all-in player wins, the difference between the result of the draw and the expected value; if the all-in player loses, the expected value).

ICMDifference – in tournaments, how much in monetary terms a shortfall or overkill is valued in an all-in situation.

PositionType – player position.

PreflopActionFaced – the type of preflop pot before the player's preflop action.

PreflopVPIPPFR – whether the player raised preflop or entered the game by calling.

AllInStreet – the street on which the player went all-in.

EVEquity – player’s equity when going all-in.

ShortGameType – in tournaments: buy-in, in cash games: game limit.

PreflopPlayerAction – player’s actions preflop.

FlopCards – flop cards.

FlopPlayerAction – player’s actions on the flop.

TurnCard – turn card.

TurnPlayerAction – the player’s actions on the turn.

RiverCard – river card.

RiverPlayerAction – the player’s actions on the river.

Rakeback and Bonuses

This tab consists of two parts – rakeback accounting and bonus accounting.

To create a record of rakeback accounting, you need to click “+” in the “Rakeback” field, and then fill in the following fields.

“Description” – the name of the entry.”Player” – the choice of the player to account for rakeback.”Percentage” – the percentage of rakeback received by the player. In the “Start Date” field, indicate the start date of the rakeback payment; in the “End Date” field – the end. After clicking “OK” we will see the created rakeback record for the selected player in the “Rakeback” field. To create a bonus record, click the plus sign in the “Bonuses” field, and then fill in the appropriate fields .

“Description” – description of the bonus.”Player” – player’s choice.”Amount” – bonus size.”Currency” – currency of the received bonus.”Date” – selection of the bonus validity period. After filling out the “Rakeback” and “Bonuses” fields, we can track this data on a graph of total winnings.

Currency Exchange Rates

This tab shows the ratio of some currencies to others. This is necessary for the actual display of wins and losses in HM2 reports. To get current exchange rates with the HM2 server, click “Get Current Rates”.

Auto Rate Rules

The “Auto Rate Rules” tab allows you to configure the automatic classification of players in accordance with the specified rules. It should be noted here that when setting classification rules, you must adjust them to different types of games (by default, the HM2 auto-rating rules for all types of games are the same).

At the top of the tab we can select the game type based on the following criteria.

Players:

• Full Ring – long tables;
• 6-Max – short tables;
• Heads up – one-on-one tables.

• Holdem - hold'em;
• Omaha (Hi) – Omaha high;
• Omaha 8 (Hi/Lo) – Omaha high/low.

• No/Pot Limit – no-limit and pot-limit games;
• Fixed Limit – limit games;
• Tournament – ​​tournaments.

At the bottom there is a control panel for player auto-rating rules, consisting of:

• “+” – creating a new rule.
• “-” – deleting a rule.
• “Pencil” – editing the selected rule.
• “Up arrow” – raising the rule in the list of rules (increasing priority).
• “Down arrow” – lowers the rule in the list of rules (lowers priority).

In the center there is a panel on which all created rules are displayed. The rules are built in accordance with a given priority: if a player simultaneously matches several rules, he will be classified by the program according to the priority rule. To create a rule, click “+”.

Next, in the window that opens, in the “Description” field, indicate what our new player classification will be called. In the “Icon” field, select the icon that will be assigned to this type of opponent. Using the “TableScanner Score” slider, we indicate the indicator for assessing the enemy’s profitability, which will be displayed in the “TableScanner”.

After filling out the basic data, click “+” to set the conditions for the classification rules.

The condition editor consists of the following elements:

• 1. Options for the logical operators “AND” (and) and “OR” (or).
• 2. “Available Statistics” is a set of stats on the basis of which conditions are created. You can only select one stat for a condition.
• 3. Field for defining stat parameters.

If we need the created condition to work together with other conditions, then select the logical operator “AND”. If it is necessary for at least one of all available conditions to work, then you should select the “OR” operator.

After selecting the logical operator and stats, we can apply the following comparison operators:

• “Between” – between.
• “>” – more.
• “>=” – greater than or equal.
• «<» – меньше.
• “<=” – меньше или равно.

After selecting the comparison operator, enter the value, as well as the number of samples according to which this condition will be checked. After clicking “OK” the rule will appear in the list. We can create multiple rules for each type of player.

HM.com Website Login

On this tab, we can enter the password from our account on the HM2 website in the “HM.com Website Login” column to be able to synchronize with the cloud database.

International Sites

Due to the fact that some rooms have their reservations in certain countries, we should indicate which client server we are playing on, as this is necessary for the correct operation of HM2.

Feature Logging

This tab is intended for creating reports on the performance of the program. If you are experiencing problems with a specific element of the program, then you should create a corresponding report and send it to the HM2 support team in order to obtain assistance from the developers.