Quickest route to start posting hands ?

[AcesFull]

I am wanting to start posting hand histories for review, using the FTR HH converter, but am not sure of the quickest way that I should go about it. Here's what my BetOnline hand history files look like:

http://i.imgur.com/EEWquVu.png

... they are all in spreadsheet files (*.xlsx) that open with MS Excel 2007. I had them emailed to me and received them in the Excel file format because I don't have a database yet (unsupported by the poker site). The poker site that I play on is not in the support list of the "FTR HH converter". I have used Excel's "save as" feature to export the HH info into both a "text" file and a "csv" file but neither of those work in the FTR HH converter either. I also tried copying and pasting the Excel contents directly into the FTR HH converter, but no go. So, after a fruitless search for some ideas on which route I should try next to get my HH info from Excel into a format that I can then copy and paste into the FTR HH converter, I am making this thread to ask the opinions of everyone else who either already knows how to go about it, or has any ideas of what I might try next?

I know the basics of a few programming languages and can code HTML pretty good, so if it's feasible to do I was thinking that my next step would be to get a PokerStars hand history file for HUSnG's and just edit/hack it until it's sort of a template that I can then use to manually enter my HH info from the Excel file into the PokerStars hand history format - then I can copy/paste the PokerStars HH info into the FTR HH converter and then I guess that I should be able to post that output into the forums for a HH review? But, I have practically no hands-on knowledge of hand history files in general, so that's why I am asking if my above idea of the next step to take seems like a sensible thing to try next, or should I maybe try some alternative way? Has anyone else ever edited a hand history file for use as a template? I'm thinking that this shouldn't be any more comlicated than coding a table in HTML, but since I don't know enough about hand history files, I could be way wrong and I didn't want to waste time trying something if it just won't work. So, should I go ahead and alter a generic PokerStars hand history file into a template that I can use, or is there maybe something better and/or quicker that I should try?

I mentioned trying PokerStars but the hand history file that I end up altering could actually be from any site that's versatile across several forums; I just picked PokerStars because that site seems popular and I can understand the raw hh info pretty easily.

[AcesFull]

I didn't think of it before, but after looking around for a bit I guess that I had better use an HH file from a poker client with a similar blind structure to the HUSnG's that I play, so people aren't mislead and the advice that I get is applicable to my game. The game structure of the regular speed, 2 man, microstakes HUSnG's that I play are:

Starting Chips = t1500; Levels last 6 minutes each; they are: 1= 10/20, 2= 15/30, 3= 20/40, 4= 30/60, 5= 40/80, 6= 50/100, 7= 75/150, 8= 100/200 (matches rarely last beyond this point), 9= 150/300, 10= 200/400, 11= 300/600, 12= 400/800, 13= 500/1000, 14= 750/1500, 15= 1000/2000, 16= 1500/3000, 17= 2000/4000, 18= 3000/6000, 19= 4000/8000, 20= 5000/10000, 21= 7500/15000, 22= 10000/20000, 23= 15000/30000, 24= 20000/40000, 25= 30000/60000, 26= 40000/80000, 27= 50000/100000, 28= 75000/150000, 29= 100000/200000, 30= 150000/300000, 31= 200000/400000, 32= 300000/600000, 33= 400000/800000, 34= 500000/1000000, 35= 750000/1500000, 36= 1000000/2000000, 37= 1500000/3000000, 38= 2000000/4000000, 39= 3000000/6000000, 40= 4000000/8000000, 41= 5000000/10000000, 42= 7500000/15000000, 43= 10000000/20000000.

I may go with adapting a FullTilt hand history file into a template, instead of Stars, since that's the format I quiz with in SnG Wiz and it seems to be both a similar game format to what I play and also a popular file type on various forums. I just have to check and confirm that their blind structure is the same one that I play.
Something that I'm not really sure about but I was thinking as I was going through a hand history database, is that I don't want to clutter up a site's database by using their HH converter and then having my fraudulent hand go into their database. But, since I've never posted a hand before, I don't know if this is even an issue. If anyone can think of a way that my doing this would be a problem worth being concerned about, please let me know.

[abelardx]

I play on Merge and the FTR converter doesn't support them. So I'll first post my hand to weaktight.com and they have a more powerful converter that even has an FTR option. So I'll post the hand to weaktight, then click the FTR tab, and copy paste to the forums here.

Try the weaktight hand converter. It looks like they support all the sites.

[AcesFull]

Thanks, abelardx. Yeah, weaktight.com has a decent HH converter. I really didn't know much about or had any hands-on experience with posting hands before I made this thread. I'm HUDless and the site that I practice on doesn't support any databases any way, so I'm glad that I finally got a hold of about 100K of my hand histories, so that I can finally begin to see where my play is the weakest. I haven't had any luck so far with 2+2's hand converter. Weaktight.com and the converter on this site are about the only ones that I use regularly so far. I found about 60 HH's in the FullTilt (husng) format about an hour ago, so I'm going to start with those and make my template. The hand history code itself is starting to look relatively easy to read now that I've stared at enough of it for several hours. At first, I didn't know whether there was a decent chance of me coming up with a template or not but, now I think that it won't be much of a problem as long as I avoid making any huge errors regarding syntax.
To avoid cluttering up a site's HH database, mentioned above, I think that I'll just include notes (if/where applicable) identifying the hand as being similar to the alternate poker client's game/blind structure, but actually a hand from a different poker client. That way I hopefully won't confuse or mislead people too much. I think that I'll be allowed to change some of the output code after it's converted also, like the name of the poker client and things like that. But the advice that I get should be pretty applicable to my games because the blind structures of the actual game that I play most and the template that I'll be using are about exact, as far as I can tell.
Along the way, during my search to find a suitable template HH, I found another HH converter at pokerhand.org. I haven't tried that one yet because I didn't need to. I emailed the customer support at one of the HH converter sites though (can't remember which one), and gave them a sample of one of the Excell formatted HH's that I had, since they asked to submit unsupported HH's for updating their site.

I don't remember right off hand, but does Merge allow U.S. players to play for real money on their poker client? If so, do they have good enough traffic for HUSnG's at the lower microstakes for a person to get in a decent amount of experience per day - say, anywhere from 15 to 40 matches per day, single tabling?

[abelardx]

Hi, sorry I didn't see this for a few days.

US players can play on Bovada, Merge, and Winning Poker Network. It's Sunday 3 pm and Carbon (Merge) has 6 tables of 4nl 6max which is what I play on there. So for a US facing site, they have plenty of traffic. Probably more than Black Chip (Winning) but maybe not as much as traffic as Bovada.

Merge does have HUSNG's beginning at $5.50. Maybe they start lower but I didn't see any lower. I don't know how often they run.

Bovada has HUSNG's beginning at $1.10. Again I don't know how often they run. Bovada also has HU cash tables at 5nl and it's easy to get a partner on those.

So I think you should be able to get what you're looking for with either Bovada or Merge. IMO/E Merge has nicer software but Bovada probably has more traffic and more recreational players.

[AcesFull]

Thanks! That is good to know, about traffic on Bovada and Merge. The anonymous tables on Bovada don't really worry me too much, since I've already started learning HUDless. The main downside of anon play, that I see, is that I won't be able to avoid sitting villains that consistently outplay me. I guess that could turn out to be a huge factor as far as my winrate, since I'm only a slight winning player anyway, but since most traffic is probably recreational players, maybe it's not as bad as I initially think.
I'm going to look more into getting FreePokerDataBase. After talking with a customer support representative of the pokerclient that I use, I was under the impression that they didn't support any databases. But after reading some posts on 2+2 about FPDB, it seems that about half a dozen people are able to use FPDB and import hand histories that are originally in the Excel (*.xlsx) format. So, if it works, that'll be a huge time saver for me. Then I'll be able to go over my play sooner rather than later, and I'll just use the FullTilt HH template that I have for posting hands on the forums.