Should I have separate databases for observed and played hands?
This is up to you, and really depends on how many hands you will have.
More hands -> more need for separate DBs, but you don't have to separate them at all.
Regardless of how many DBs you use, the HUD will show combined stats (if you choose). NOTE: there is a bug in beta10 which means you can only use 1 DB, but this will be fixed for the next version.
Ok well here is my question/problem. I have a pretty big mined hands database and a slightly smaller played hands database - and split them up as you suggested. I think splitting is a very good idea as it allows me to get rid of old mined hands. Lets say I have 30k hands mined on Player A in the mined hands DB and 15k hands where I have actually played against Player A in my Played hands db. There seems to be no way to link these two DB's so that I can use filters on this player which cover both the mined hands DB and the played hands DB. So when I am using filters when the played hands db is active, I am unfortunately not getting any of the hands which I have mined on the player. I know that ace hud succesfully displays a combination from both databases, but unfortunately this is not the case within the general (and other) tabs within poker tracker itself. Have I overlooked something? It would be great if we could have 2 DBs open at the same time, and have the General (and other) tabs display a combination of the statistics from both DBs...otherwise it is pretty useless having seprate DBs