Is using a poker app at the table allowed?
Usually, yes — if it's recording what already happened. Writing down a hand after it's over is the thing players have done in notebooks for decades, and no card room objects to it.
What is not allowed is real-time assistance: anything that helps you decide a hand you're still in. House rules vary, they're posted for a reason, and the floor's word is final.
What card rooms actually prohibit
The line almost everywhere is whether the tool is helping you with a decision you haven't made yet. An odds calculator, an equity display or a solver output while you're facing a bet is assistance, and it'll get you warned or barred.
There are three separate reasons, and only one of them is the rule book. It's unfair to the other eight people at the table, who are playing with what's in their heads. It's a rule the room will enforce because the game depends on it. And the poker community judges each other on this independently of what any rule says — being the person with the equity app open is a reputation you don't recover from quickly.
Why a recorder is different
The hand is over. The chips are pushed. Nothing you type can change a decision you've already made, and nothing about writing it down affects anyone else at the table.
That's why note-taking has always been accepted, and a recorder is a faster notebook. The distinction isn't the phone — it's whether the thing in your hand is telling you something you could act on.
Where Hero Call draws it
Hero Call shows no odds, no equity and no advice while a hand is in progress. Not in the logger, and not in the summary when you finish a hand.
Equity is genuinely useful and genuinely forbidden in the moment, which makes it the clearest example of where the line sits. So it appears in exactly one place: a hand you have already saved, reviewed after the fact — each player's equity street by street, against the cards that were shown.
Practical etiquette, from people who play
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Phones between hands are normal. Nobody is watching you.
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Don't hold up the action. Log after the hand, not while someone's deciding.
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If you're in the hand, you're in the hand. Type when you're out of it.
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If the room says put it away, put it away. Arguing about the rule is worse than the rule.
Related questions
Does a poker tracker work without a signal in a card room?
It depends on the app. Hero Call does — starting a session, logging hands and ending a session all work offline, because most card rooms have poor reception. Anything that needs a server to record what already happened will fail you exactly where you need it.
Do poker trackers work for live cash games?
Money tracking, yes — most apps handle buy-ins, cash-outs and hours. Hand capture is the part that varies. Online trackers import hand histories automatically; live poker has no such file, so a live app has to let you enter the hand quickly enough to keep up with the table.
Can I log a hand after the session has ended?
In Hero Call, yes. You can attach a hand to a session afterwards, and everything you record stays editable. The trade is accuracy — the details fade fast, which is the whole reason for capturing at the table.
Is it rude to use your phone at a poker table?
Using a phone between hands is normal at most tables. What irritates people is holding up the action. Log after the hand is over rather than while someone is deciding, and nobody will notice.
Hero Call is a live poker companion that records the hand you just played as data you can search later. It never advises you during one. See what it records