Topics on this page

• Overview: Summary of what POP3 client does.
• Save locally: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you do this to backup your hand histories!
• Usage: Instructions on use.
• NOTE - username: Things you can set in the POP3 client dialog window.
• NOTE - antivirus: Be sure to set username properly!
• AntiVirus: Note, antivirus programs may interfere with POP3 client.
• No Prompt: Using no prompting (will not ask for settings information).

I. Overview

The PokerStat POP client allows you to automatically retrieve and read in hand histories and tournament results from your POP3 email server into a PokerStat database! There's no need to save emails as text files, and then read them in! This is by far the easiest way to get hand histories into PokerStat, and the method I recommend using.

What is POP3 email? It's a standard used to read email used by Outlook, Eudora, Outlook Express, Netscape mail, and many other email programs. If you have a web-based email account, like HotMail, then you don't have a POP3 email account. Using the PokerStat POP3 client will require a POP3 email account. With most ISPs (Internet Service Providers), you get a POP3 email account. Contact your ISP if you are unsure.

There are also some free POP3 email servers out there, like http://www.hotpop.com. If you don't mind paying for a service, http://mail.yahoo.com offers POP3 access for as little as around $30/year.

It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you save ALL hand history and tournament results as text files on your computer, EVEN AFTER you have read them into PokerStat's database. The reason is safety. In case your database file becomes corrupt, or you accidentally delete your database file, you can rebuild your database from your hand history files. You should also backup your database file periodically. The POP3 client has an option to save hand history and tournament result emails locally on your computer ("Save emails on your computer:" option below).

II. Usage

To get to the POP3 client, go to the [File] menu after opening/creating a database, and choose [Read Email from POP3 Server]. Then type in your POP3 server name, along with your POP3 account username (see NOTE about username below). Then click the "Connect and Process Data" button. You will then be asked to enter your password. This is the password for your POP3 email account. The PokerStat POP3 client then will connect to the server, download, process your email messages for hand histories and tournament results, and load them into your database!

NOTE: If you use an email program to check your POP3 emails, be sure that your email program is not set to delete emails from the POP3 server before you've had a chance to read them into PokerStat! For example, if you are using Outlook Express, be sure to check the "Leave a copy of message on server" under the "Advanced" tab in the account properties setting. This way, a your email program will not remove read emails from the POP3 server, allowing the PokerStat POP3 client to read them in..

After processing, summary information is displayed that shows how many emails were processed, how many hands read, and how many tournament results read. Also, how many hands/tourney results were skipped is shown also.

The options you may set are:

• POP3 Server port:
  By default, most POP3 servers use port 110, but you can change this if your POP3 server uses a different port.
• Delete emails:
  Deletes any processed emails that contain any hand histories or tournament results. BE CAREFUL WHEN USING THIS OPTION! All emails that are processed may be deleted. If the email contains any hand history or tournament result, it will be deleted! This may include an email a friend sends you that has part of a hand history in it, especially if you have the "Process emails with" option unchecked. When using this option, I recommend also using the "Save emails locally" option.

  Note that you can always manually delete emails by logging into your email account the normal way and deleting hand histories/tournament result emails, or saving them to another email folder.

• Process emails with:
  If this option is set, only emails with "Transcript of hand", "Transcript of last", or "Tournament Results" somewhere in the subject line will be processed. Setting this option will let you skip processing of non-hand history emails, and will prevent any emails without the above in the subject line from being deleted, if you have the "Delete emails" option set. If you wish to process all emails on your POP3 email server regardless of subject, uncheck this option.
• Save emails on your computer:
  This allows you to save all processed emails locally on your computer. Saved files will be named by date. Tournament results will be preceded by a 't'. For example, "2001-10-22-2231.txt" indicates a hand history file where the first hand history was played on Oct 22nd, 2001, at 22:31 CST. No existing files will be overwritten. Instead, the text "-dup1", "-dup2", etc. will be appended to the filename. We recommend always setting this option (see note above).

NOTE (antivirus): If you use an Anti-Virus program set to scan incoming emails, you may need to disable email scanning in your Anti-Virus program. Or you may have to reconfigure the port/server/username and other settings for the PokerStat POP3 client to work with your Anti-Virus email scanning. See the documentation that came with your Anti-Virus program. Note that disabling your Anti-Virus's email scanning will result in emails not being scanned. You should have your real-time auto-protect on in this case. Be sure you understand what you are doing! For example, to configure Norton Anti-Virus 2001 to work with PokerStat, you would do something similar to the instructions here.

Note that if a friend forwards you a hand history, it should be sent as an attachment, not as "forwarded" text. The reason is that "forwarded" text many times will have each line pre-pended with a "> " character. Also, if you have the "Process emails with..." option set, they must keep the subject line unchanged so that it contains the text "Transcript of hand", "Transcript of last", or "Tournament Results", or else the email will not be processed.

III. No Prompt

For advanced users: If you have used PokerStat's POP3 client a few times already, the "No Prompt" method gives you a way to read in hands using the POP3 client with only one or two keystrokes or mouse clicks.

The three ways to use the "No Prompt" method are:

• Go to the [File] menu, and choose [Read Email from POP3 (no prompting)].
• Press the shortcut key CONTROL-E.
• Press the POP3 no prompting button, next to the green and blue "TR" buttons.

BACK TO MAIN HELP SCREEN.