How to Set Up and Play Voice-Controlled Online Poker

Have you ever been so lazy that having to use your mouse to play online poker was just too much work? Me neither. And when I first decided to put together a fully functional system for voice-controlled poker, I was doing it simply as a novelty. Surprisingly while testing it out, I found that voice-controlled poker can actually be pretty useful.

There are times where I want to sit on my couch, watch TV, and play a table or two of online poker. Nothing too serious, just something to kill time.

I've always hated using laptop touch pads and voice control ended up being a perfect option. This system I've set up is 100% functional. You can start your poker client, find a table, log-in, buy-in and post your blinds.

Once you're on a table you can do everything you would normally use your mouse for - freeing up your hands for more important tasks.

How to Set Up Voice Control Poker

Just three steps stand between you and voice-controlled online poker. All of these steps are simple, but one of them will take a bit of time.

Watch the video above for the basics, or follow the detailed instructions below.

Step 1: Download and Install the Software

I'm sure there are other voice control programs out there, but I had two specific requirements for the software I needed:

1. It had to have enough functionality to get the job done.
2. It had to be free to try and cheap to buy.

e-speaking did both of these things so I'll be happy to give them a little free press.

(Note, the software is free to download and use, but after 15 days of use you are no longer allowed to add or edit the voice commands. After 30 days you can't use it at all. Luckily, if you like how it works it's only $15 to buy.)

You need to DL and install two files:

The Microsoft Speech Application Program Interface (SAPI)

The actual voice control software

Step 2: Learn to Use the Software

The software itself is pretty straight forward. I'd recommend running through some of the tutorials to get an idea of how it all works. Play around with the commands, try it out, and get comfortable.

You also need to train your computer for best results. If you click on the speech tab there's a Voice Training button. Running through that will train your computer to understand how you speak. (This is not required. I did half of this training only and it works great for me.)

Step 3: Configure the software for poker

This is the step I warned you about. It's actually not all that difficult but it does require a bit of effort to get it set up properly. Basically the only part of this software we're going to use is its mouse-click feature.

With this feature we can tell the program to click the mouse in a specific location whenever a certain phrase is spoken. To do this you just need to hover your mouse where you would want to click and speak "Add mouse click."

The software will bring you to a screen to add this command; the only thing you need to type in is the phrase you want to use.

NOTE: The software is smart enough to know which window you're in, so train the mouse click in relation to that window rather than the actual screen. This is good for poker because no matter where your table is on your screen the commands will still work.

You want to add a mouse click on everything you would ever need to click on in a game. Use a phrase that makes sense. I've set up mouse clicks for:

• Auto blinds
• Bet amount
• Bet pot
• Call
• Chatbox
• Check
• Fold
• Get chips
• Post blind
• Raise
• Reload
• Ship it
• Sit out
• Table Left
• Table Right
• Take seat one
• Take seat two (all the way to take seat nine)

(The table left and table right allow me to use two tables at once. I set the mouse clicks to click on the menu bar of each table. You must be active in the left table to set a click for table right and vice-versa)

Other than those listed above I also have some commands for working in the lobby, such as "Hold'em" and "Omaha" to change between games. Fool around a bit and figure out what commands you need.

Set up whatever you want, however you want. There are a couple of commands I use that aren't just a basic mouse click. I figure you might like to use them:

For the bet amount, you want to set a regular mouse click on the bet amount text field. Then add everything after the mouse click tag as is.

This will select the box and erase everything in it. Once you do that you'll need to tell it to start writing what you speak. This command is set in the speech tab in options.

For example:

"Bet Amount, Start Typing, One Zero Zero, Stop Typing, Raise."

This is a little cumbersome, and when using voice control I find myself betting pot far more often than not. If there's an amount you typically bet, you could set it up to automatically type out that amount as well. Really, you can do whatever you like.

Because of how the software works, your poker table always needs to be the same size as it was when you trained the software. Most poker sites allow you to save a custom table layout. I suggest you do this to avoid having to re-train your software.

There you have it: voice-controlled poker, simple and free to try. Once you finish your first session while comfortably laid out on your couch, you can thank me in the comment boxes below.

-Lind