So you think that buddy lists are just associated with programs like AOL Instant Messenger or MSN Messenger? Think again. The days of using buddy lists only to make plans with your friends or chat with co-workers is over. Now, you can use specially designed buddy lists in order to find fish, stalk your favorite poker celebrities, and also check out where your friends are playing. It’s all part of the world of buddy lists, a rapidly growing subsection of the poker software world.

Ultimate Buddy, just like its counterpart on Absolute Poker, is what comes to mind when I think of poker-related buddy lists. It was really the first one created when Ultimate Bet was the premier destination for online poker. It used to be really about hunting down where Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth were playing. Their screen names would pop up, you could double click on the name of the table, and within a few minutes be asking Annie Duke inappropriate questions like the rest of her loyal following does. I used to sit and watch these and other high-stakes players like Debo34 play on the site. The ability for me to do so was solely possible because of the buddy list.

Now, many players use Ultimate Buddy to hunt down fish. Wait, hunt down fish? How on Earth could that be possible using a buddy list? Here’s your answer: When you’re playing at a poker table, add the names of weak opponents to your buddy list. Are you constantly making money off of one person? Are there a few players at the table who are just woefully bad? If so, add them to your buddy list. The next time you sign onto the online poker site, head directly to their table, sit down, and then resume taking money from them. It’s that easy.

Another perk of using programs like Ultimate Buddy is that in many cases, you’re able to make notes on players from the poker room software itself or from the buddy list program. Then, the notes that you make in one medium are transferred over to the other. You’ll be up to date in note-land no matter where you take them from, so if you can’t remember why a player is on your buddy list to begin with, all you have to do is look at what you’ve written about them to jog your memory. It’s similar to many traditional buddy list programs that allow you to re-name players in order to make it easier to recall who each person is.

Ultimate Buddy isn’t the only game in town. Stars Buddy List and Full Tilt Buddies are two additional programs you can use for those particular online poker rooms. However, be forewarned: Each of these programs uses what’s called AutoHotKey, or AHK, to operate. This means that it’s going to take a little finagling on your part to get the program to work. In the case of Ultimate Buddy, just download and install it like any other Windows-based program.

Several programs that you can find will merge buddies on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and other clients together to form one “master” list. In the world of poker software, this program is called Smart Buddy. It even comes pre-loaded with the screen names of some of the top names in poker, like “Lady Maverick” on PokerStars (Vanessa Rousso) and FossilMan on PokerStars (Greg Raymer). Just double click on a famous person’s name and you’re off to their table.

On Smart Buddy, you can also import names from PokerTracker, a poker client, or from a text file. You’re able to share these with other players by exporting them and you can also create as many groups as you can think of within the program. It’s truly a powerful and unique program which is, at the time of writing, fairly new to the poker software marketplace. It will set you back about $50.