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Warning: Very Long Post
So I recently thought I would take on the task of learning how to setup and use an Xbox Controller to play poker with. The concept is sound, and I believe with time, it will be a better way to interface than mouse and keyboard. Today I will teach you how to get the same setup for a relatively cheap price, and some of the pro's and con's of using the Xbox Controller Setup vs using the generic mouse/keyboard setup.
Firstly right now, this setup only works with PokerStars. It may be possible to set it up with FTP, or both, right now, but I haven't attempted to do it yet. I will talk about how you could do that later.
The things you need:
Xbox controller (wired or wireless) - note: the usb charger cable does not count as turning a wireless controller into a wired controller $37.99
Xbox Controller drivers for PC - these are not included with the CD for the wireless receiver and I believe you need them to operate the controller, not entirely sure but I downloaded and installed them anyways.
If you have a wireless controller (recommended) you need:
Xbox Wireless receiver for PC - This connects the controller to the PC $48.99
Xpadder - this sets up hotkeys for the Xbox controller $9.99
Optional Xpadder Big File Pack - this will have some Pictures of controllers and profiles for games that may come in handy.
TableNinja - this program sets up hotkeys for poker actions $55.99
Now comes the tricky part. Once you get your wireless receiver and drivers installed, you need to click and hold the connection button on both the receiver and the controller (at the same time) to get them to connect to each other. Make sure your Xbox is off. I have had trouble on and off with this. Some times the controller will "connect" to the receiver but the lights around the X will all flash slowly. What needs to happen is the top left (player one spot) light needs to flash and hold on, that signals that the connection is solid. If you encounter connection problems, make sure you have drivers installed, restart the computer, try again, close all programs out, unplug all other wireless devices. If this doesn't work scream and shout and try again, it should work and its unlikely your wireless receiver isn't working properly, these things are touchy.
Once the xbox controller is connected, open up xpadder and there should be a screen up that has signaled xpadder has detected the connection, if there is a little searching type thing on the screen, then the connection has not been made or recognized. In xpadder you will need to make your first profile or you can upload mine. Doing it yourself may give you a better feel for the software and its not very hard, if you want to upload my controller profile click here. Once the controller profile is up you will need to start creating your own button layout profile. Or you can again copy from me. Even if you copy my profile you will need to know the correct hotkey combinations to input into tableninja, so you may be better off doing it yourself but following my profile as an example. To download my profile click here. Now take a look below, on the left is my xbox controller setup. The left analog stick controls mouse movement, then you can see some of the labeled buttons. This profile is by no means perfect, and I think everyone will have a different preference on how they want their controller set up. Some things that I absolutely recommend in your setup are: High speed mouse movement with an analog stick. Different size pot bets with the other analog stick, easy access left click button (you want actually need this to play a hand, but it comes in handy still ), I really like the triggers being +-BBs (I actually set it up for .2BBs so I can make more goofy/unique bets at the higher stakes games), must have a table forward/backward setup somewhere, obviously your bet, fold, and check buttons should be near each other, so abxy makes sense.
Now here is a really cool feature that I added and its not hard to do. I want the mouse to move at a relatively high speed so I can zoom across 2 monitors to highlight different tables rather fast (the table forward backwards buttons are a little annoying when going to a far away positioned table, the program pokershortcuts actually has a better solution with table up down left right, hopefully I can find a way to use that program or get it added to tableninja soon, anyways), but when I get to a highlighted table, my mouse is too touchy for unique control like say picking a seat or looking at a player note, or bringing up HEM stats (the yellow box). So what I did was I use the top left button (the one with a hair of blue at the bottom in the picture below) to switch "sets." While this button is held (Selects Set 2 while held option in Advanced/Set Selector) I move to a different profile setup essentially, where I can use the same buttons for different features. So with the mouse, I turned down the movement speed a ton so I zoom over to a table hold the button and movement slows a bit. I also brought over a lot of the important features like bet call fold left click etc, so that I can still make actions while in the slower movement speed. I found this very helpful. See the second picture for what the second "set" looks like. I also liked keeping poker playing and poker starting/stopping separate which is why I have the auto-post and sit out features on the second page.
Picture One: On the left is Set 1 for the Xbox controller using Xpadder. On the right is the front screen of TableNinja, showing some hotkeys and options.
Picture Two: On the left is Set 2 of the Controller, you get to it only when the left B trigger is held (the thingee on the left with blue and green on it). On the right is the pot betting screen from TableNinja which shows you my preference on preflop/postflop bet sizing.
Picture 3: This shows the assignment screen from Xpadder, click ALT or CTRL or Shift (preferably not shift) first then choose your key, to assign a hotkey. On the right is the mouse, with the wrench for changing the mouse movement speed. Below that is the advanced features which may come in handy as well.
Now onto TableNinja. TableNinja will take the hotkeys you program into the controller on xpadder, and turn them into actions at the poker table. Some obvious ideas are DO NOT use single character macro's/hotkey's. For bet I use ALT-B, fold is ALT-F, call is ALT-C, etc. You can make the hotkeys whatever you would like so long as you make sure they coordinate to the controller buttons that you want them to. Some of the less obvious important things to set on TableNinja are: your betting increase decrease increment - I like to bet $48 into a $65 pot at 5/10 NL, TableNinja would usually give me the option at 40 or 50, unless I set my increase/decrease change by to .2BBs (seen on the first picture above). Something that is important to know is that using the auto click check fold button is equivalent to using the fold button. For example, if you are dealt 23o in middle position, you can click the auto fold button, or if someone raises and the action is to you, you can use the same button to fold to their raise. The same goes with the checking and calling. You check a flop, your opponent bets, you can use the same button to call their bet. This greatly reduces the number of buttons needed to make similar actions, which is cool because it keeps all the buttons right there on the abxy part.
Another thing you will have to figure out on tableninja, is using your Pot % calculator. I personally don't always raise the same amount preflop. If there is a shortstack in the BB I will minraise, if I am raising from early position I make it 3.5x, if a huge fish is in the BB I may 4x, etc. I have set my preflop default setting to 3bbs +2 per limper. The idea here is that my standard open will be 3BBs, if I need to adjust, I go to my right analog stick. I set the smallest # to 45% which at any stake should make it a minraise. The next is at 85% which should be 3x; 100% will be 3.5x, and 120% will be 4x. This is usually the case in any game where the SB is 1/2 the BB. You can obviously check it out in your own game and adjust accordingly. Postflop I just have options at amounts between 50% and 80% of the pot. Postflop is generally a little less complicated than preflop and I felt all the %'s can stay around the same numbers, and I can use my triggers to adjust by .2BBs until I get an amount I am happy with.
Some features that I haven't well incorporated yet are: sit out, auto post, waitlisting tables, leaving tables, tiling tables. These are things that I have just been picking up my mouse and doing for the most part. I have attempted to familiarize myself and incorporate them more, and I suppose it would be optimal to improve that situation at some point. I have only been tweaking with these programs for a few days now, trying to get them just right.
Now for the overall review of the setup. I do like using the controller over the mouse keyboard combo, and as soon as I get it up and running for FTP, I will switch to it completely.
Pros
- Comfort - the Xbox controller is designed for many hours of gameplay. Taking your arm off a mouse will reduce the stress accompanied with using a mouse. I know I have developed RSI, and it can be painful to use the mouse for hours on end. You can put the controller right in your lap and relax a little bit more than when you have to drag a mouse slightly to the left or right. Also you can move further away from the screen, while this could be true with any wireless keyboard/mouse setup, I found myself about a foot or two further back from the monitors and still tackling the work with ease.
- Speed - In the end, after you become familiarized with this setup, you should be able to make your actions much faster than you did before this setup.
- Control - The next active table allows you to jump to a table that awaits your decision. In the meanwhile you can move around to other tables with a forward backward selector, or use the mouse to move over any table, activating that table. Once at any table your suggested betsizes will pop up and you can create an action as soon as you have decided on which action to take (yes I am saying you save miliseconds because you dont have to move the mouse over to the button and click bet). This proves to keep you really involved in the games, its really intense when you are getting used to it.
- SNGs - this is the perfect setup for SNGs, it will increase your actions/minute by a ton and you can setup an ALLIN button that will become quite handy.
Cons
- Learning Curve - this is the big one. For a while you will need to move down in stakes to tweak out your controller until you are comfortable at your regular games. I have already misclicked a couple hundred dollars away, I recommend avoiding that situation. While all the buttons are in a compact area, its unlikely that you will bump into the wrong button, only that you will make an action for the wrong table, or as you are learning, get the buttons confused and mistake one button for another.
- Precision - I imagine if you spend more time with the controller, and getting used to the mouse setup, you will get better at precise mouse control, but until then you have to stumble to zero in your mouse on say the chat box or the little X in the corner of the screen. This turns out not to matter to much though because you can create shortcut buttons to replace "inefficient" mouse movements.
- Predetermined betsizing - If you don't watch yourself you may become robotic and just be throwing out predetermined bets, rather than adjusting your bet size based on the board texture game flow etc. In the end, if you aren't paying attention, you will lose the edge you can have by playing a well adjusted game. For the low stakes games, this will barely matter, but as you move up, or if you play a lot of headsup, you will just have to stop yourself from getting lazy with the predetermined bet sizes.
- Chat Off - This setup will encourage you to stop your mouse and keyboard usage all together (thats the goal right?) which means no AIM, no scrolling the internet, just good old fashioned poker. Obviously you can still AIM and scroll the internet but it is extremely goofy picking up and setting down the controller when the whole purpose of the controller is to eliminate the other movements.
- Processing Power - All these applications, combined with your HUD and hand importer will start to bog down any older PC, you must have a nice computer before thinking about starting this setup.
- Reliability - Also with more apps, comes more failing. TableNinja and Xpadder were both made by at home programmers, meaning they are both prone to a little bit of crashing. Also they need to be updated after many PokerStars updates, so it may be possible to have a downtime of Xbox controller usage. You may have to spend a day back on mouse/keyboard until TableNinja people update their software (they are pretty fast at it usually).
- No Full Tilt ? - I wasn't able to get it working with full tilt, but I know there is a way. I got poker shortcuts for free (its in beta) and it worked fine with pokerstars, but I could never get it to do bet sizing right with FTP. If you have FTP Shortcuts, you should be able to get it to work on FTP no problem, but if you run both FTP and Stars, you will need to get Poker Shortcuts working, or wait until TableNinja releases its dual site program. Either way this is a temporary problem that could probably be solved if I spent more time emailing pokershortcuts support.
Overall I am stoked on the setup and look forward to using it more when I get FTP and Stars working together. I think I will actually move onto a 4 monitor setup after I get this thing working, because of the speed increase I will be able to play even more tables. While its going to be sweet, an Xbox controller may not be the best thing for you. I have wasted a lot of time tweaking out this controller, and I am still familiarizing myself with the button setup. I will keep you updated as to how well it works over the long haul. Also I will create a video of me playing poker on it and put it up in a few days.
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