America's Cardroom Hand History: Where to Find It and How to Import It
Almost every guide to this still sends you to a menu that America's Cardroom deleted in 2023. If you went looking for Game Info and gave up, that's why.
Start here, because the old instructions are dead
ACR redesigned its client in July 2023, and the hand history settings moved. Most guides you'll find still describe the previous one.
The current path, in ACR's own words:
- Click the settings cog at the top right of the poker client.
- Click Hand Histories in the left-hand menu of the pop-up.
- Choose the folders to save your hand histories and your tournament summaries.
- Press OK.
If a page tells you to open Game Info, then View Hand History, then Options, it's describing software that no longer exists. That includes several tracker vendors' official documentation, which is worth knowing before you spend an evening hunting for a menu.
Where the files go
| OS | Default |
|---|---|
| Windows | C:\AmericasCardroom\handHistory |
| Mac | Not published by anyone, ACR included |
The Windows path is consistent across every tracker vendor. The Mac one genuinely isn't documented, despite the Mac client having existed for years, so read it out of that same settings panel rather than trusting a guessed path.
Older versions of the client used a different shape, one folder per screen name under profiles. If you've been playing a long time, you may have both.
Nothing is saved until you say so
This is the part that costs people months of data. ACR writes files as you play, and only if you've set it up. There's no server-side archive and no export button. Hands you played before you turned this on were never written down.
Support can't help either. The in-client replayer shows you a hand, and there's no way to get it out.
So the job today is the setup, not the download. Do it before your next session rather than after it.
The files themselves
Plain text, in a format close enough to PokerStars' that everything reads it. No converter needed. PokerTracker 4, Hold'em Manager 3, Hand2Note, DriveHUD and Poker Copilot all import ACR natively.
One requirement, and it's the same on every site: the client has to be in English, or the parsers fail on the language they weren't expecting.
Real names, hidden lobby
ACR is not an anonymous site, which puts it in a different category from Ignition or GGPoker.
What changed is the lobby. In ACR's own words, you no longer see who you're going to play against until you sit down and pay a big blind. Once you're seated, screen names are visible as normal and they appear in your hand histories.
Screen names are permanent on ACR, so a cross-session opponent database works properly here. If you keep notes on regulars, this is one of the few remaining sites where that still means something.
What ACR allows, in writing
ACR publishes a security policy that says explicitly what's permitted, which is rarer than it should be. Trackers and heads-up displays are allowed, with three conditions:
- The numbers must come only from hands you personally played.
- Nothing from the hand currently in progress may be displayed.
- No datamining: collecting, scraping or sharing hands you weren't in is prohibited.
Also banned: web-based chart and database services, which ACR treats as real-time assistance, seating scripts, and old tracker versions whose features don't comply.
Reviewing your own hands after a session sits comfortably inside all of that. The 2023 crackdown was aimed at virtual machines, remote access, seating scripts and mining, and the clause permitting own-hands trackers came through it unchanged.
One practical note: the client refuses to launch when it detects prohibited software, and ACR deliberately publishes no list of what that covers.
BetOnline is not this network
Worth saying plainly, because the two get muddled constantly.
| America's Cardroom | BetOnline | |
|---|---|---|
| Network | Winning Poker Network | Chico |
| Writes hand histories? | Yes, locally | No |
| Converter needed? | No | Yes, a paid one |
The Chico client doesn't write usable hand histories to disk, so a paid converter that hooks the client is the only route in. Chico's position on trackers is also genuinely unclear, with its own published sources contradicting each other, so check with the room before you buy anything.
Things that go wrong
- Tournament summaries are a separate setting. Both need a folder. Miss the second and your tournament results are incomplete, which trackers flag as a critical problem.
- Mobile Blitz hands have gone missing from desktop histories, and support couldn't supply them. Treat mobile play as unrecorded.
- Blitz needs its own handling in most trackers, and a couple can't display on it at all.
- Don't delete the archive subfolder when you tidy up. Trackers read it.
- The last hand of a tournament sometimes isn't written correctly.
For every other site, see the full list. For the site with the opposite problem, where files arrive ready but expire in a week, see Ignition and Bovada.
Educational only. No real-money play. 18+. On Google Play now; iPhone coming soon.
Frequently asked questions
Where are America's Cardroom hand histories saved?
In the folder you choose, and on Windows the default is C:\AmericasCardroom\handHistory. Nobody publishes a Mac default, ACR included, so read yours from the client's own Hand Histories panel rather than trusting a path off a forum.
How do I turn on hand history saving on ACR?
Click the settings cog at the top right of the client, then Hand Histories in the left-hand menu, then choose where to save your hand histories and your tournament summaries. Press OK. Those are ACR's own words from its current help page.
Why can't I find Game Info, then View Hand History?
Because it's gone. That path belonged to the client ACR replaced in July 2023, and most tracker vendors' documentation still hasn't been updated. The settings cog is the current route.
Can I get my old ACR hands back?
No. ACR writes files as you play and offers no server-side export, so if saving wasn't set up, those hands were never recorded. Support can't retrieve them either. Set it up before your next session.
Does America's Cardroom allow HUDs?
Yes, within limits, and it says so in writing. Its security policy permits trackers and heads-up displays that show numbers built only from hands you personally played, with nothing from the hand in progress. Datamining and shared databases are prohibited.
Do I need a converter for ACR hand histories?
No. The files are plain text in a PokerStars-like format, and PokerTracker, Hold'em Manager, Hand2Note, DriveHUD and the rest read them as they are.
Is BetOnline the same network?
No, and this trips people up constantly. America's Cardroom is the Winning Poker Network. BetOnline is on the Chico network, which is a different pool with a different client that doesn't write proper hand histories at all.