About a month ago, my eyes felt particularly tired, and I think it was from having to dart them from table to table for long stretches of time on my 30" monitor.  I like tiling the tables because I like to know what is happening at particular tables... in particular the higher stakes tables I play.  So after a few days of this, I decided to look into an additional piece of software.  Something that might help me reduce the amount of sudden eye movement.

The last few weeks, I had been tinkering with a new piece of software called StackAndTile.  Basically the concept is that you have a main stack you put all your tables in.  And once you click "check" or "raise," the table automatically gets moved into a predefined grid (that you determine).  So your main stack are all your hands for preflop play, and any hands that see a flop get moved into the grid, so that you can watch those tables more carefully.  That's just how I set mine up - you can also have tables go into the grid whenever you get dealt hole cards.  But considering my VPIP is between 15 and 18 for FR, it means most of the time, I can keep my eye on one place.  You can move a "must watch" table permanently into the grid by pressing a hotkey.  This program works over multiple sites...  so if you want to play 4 Bodog tables, 4 Merge and 4 Party tables, the software manages the tables. 

Now, I'm not saying this product is perfect.  I guess some combination of the various pieces of software I use... sometimes causes the tables not to pop up correctly.  So it's very important you have a way of cycling thru the tables (you can do this several ways).  I can do it either thru MergeKeys or StackAndTile.  It actually took me about 3 weeks to get the playability feeling *somewhat* close to the way I want it.  The two main things I'm missing is that I wish I had a "betpot" script that worked 100% on Merge (I have yet to find it on 2+2), and on the StackAndTile side, it would be nice if a table in the grid returned to the stack automatically once the hand is over.  Right now, the table returns to the stack only when I click "fold."  But I guess around half the hands the other guy folds, so every so often, I need to click the "stack all tables" hotkey to put everything back in place.  But these are minor details.

The pricing is a little steep...  $17.95 a MONTH for the full version and $8.95 a MONTH for the small stakes version.  You get 3 months free by buying a year.  The writer (Greg Nice on 2+2) is very helpful, but we have a difference of opinion on the pricing.  We had been having this back-and-forth about how only a small subset of the population is going to be interested in this product at this price level.  But at the end of the day, I just made $15K last month grinding, part of which was due to my new increased efficiency.  More importantly, my eyes feel less tired.  I think I can afford to ship him $17.

Here's a demo video:

If that looks interesting to you, then check it out.  There's a free 3 week trial so it couldn't hurt.  And if you use the coupon code "DOUBLEFLY," you get an additional 10% off.

All I'm getting out of this is 6 months free (and I guess the 10% off once I use my own coupon code).  But I write about new things I find useful anyway, so Greg throwing in those 6 months is just gravy.  As with most industries, it's very important to keep up with technology, lest you get left behind.

Speaking of which, HoldEm Manager 2 is finally open for beta testing...  Ruh Oh!  (later post)