Hey everyone,
So I was browsing the forum the other day and I saw someone talking about poker calculators for online play. I couldn't find the thread and since I tend to run on and on I figured I would just start a new thread.
The first thing I wanted to discuss were a couple of basic things that people new to poker software might be confused about.
Right off the bat the first question a lot of people have about poker calculators is 'is this legal? is this cheating?'. Well, that was my first question anyways. The answer like almost every other question in poker is 'it depends'. Mainly it depends on the software that you use. Pokerstars has a list of banned software that is usually quickly banned at sites around the internet. If you are looking at a piece of software you may want to cross check it with the list at Pokerstars before you try it anywhere else. It's usually safe to assume that if it's on that list it's probably something that would be considered 'cheating' or giving you a bigger edge than you should have.
My theory of a cheating piece of software would be something that plays for you. This could mean a program that says 'bet 300' or something along those lines every time it is your turn to act. I would also consider any 'bot' cheating. A Bot is something that you can program in time with a software that says what you should do everytime so you don't have to do anything. Basically you could set up four cash game tables, turn on your program, and put your bot on and go out and never have to worry about it.
While this is illegal on almost every major site, this is also pretty stupid. Unless you are playing micro stakes cash games the better players will catch on that you do the same thing every time and use that against you. It's not worth the risk and it's just not worth it in general.
So with all that being said there are basically two types of calculators that are legal: ones that track hands and ones that track players.
An example of one that tracks hands is called Calculatem Pro. These types of calculators do very little to be quite honest. What you do is attach it to a table and it will watch your table and your hole cards and tell you how to act accordingly. It's pretty robotic meaning it will tell you to bet and raise with big hands and check and fold your trash...that's about it. Speaking specifically about Calculatem Pro it has a couple of different setting to make the advice different. You can set it for loose/tight and passive/aggressive and how you play in certain positions (on the button, out of the blinds, etc.). Again these types of calculators are easily exploitable as is anyone who plays A B C poker. Calculators like these I have been told are best for limit games, which I honestly couldn't tell you if that is fact or fiction. I would assume unless you are playing .05/.10 limit or lower something like this would get picked apart.
The other type of calculator is one that would track players. This is the one I highly suggest investing in if you are looking for good poker software. The specific one that I use is called the 'indicator series'. There are four different types of indicators: Holdem Indicator, Tournament Indicator, Omaha Indicator, and Stud Indicator. For the purposes of this thread I will mainly focus on Tournament Indicator. The only note I would like to make here is that Holdem Indicator works for both tournaments AND cash games, while Tournament Indicator only works for tournaments but has more useful stats that apply to tournaments. It really depends what your intentions are as to which one you should get if you are trying to choose one over the other. If you are a strictly tournament player, Tournament Indicator (TI) is the way to go. If you are a cash game player who plays tournaments on the side, you can probably get away with Holdem Indicator (HI).
I would also like to mention at this time that there are other pieces of software such as Poker Tracker and Holdem Manager and some others that escape me at the time of this writing. I have heard great things about them, I also know that they cost quite a bit (some as high as $300). So if someone has these products and would like to talk about them, feel free. I can't really say one way or the other about how they work. I tried the demos a long long time ago and they were pretty bulky and lots of stats about everything, most of them were kind of irrelevant for the stakes and players I play. I found TI to be a happy medium. Speaking of prices, I know for players outside the U.S. there are a bunch of offers on the site that go something like 'deposit $50 on such and such a site and play 1000 hands and it will give you a lifetime key'. That's how I got all of my indicator products, I think to just buy it it's around $90 or so. There is also a free 48 hour unlocked trial to use TI.
So let's get to the features of TI. The most important thing it does is it tracks the player activity throughout the table. Even if you minimize the screen to check e-mail or something it is still "watching" the table, this is a great feature for those of us who play more than one table at a time. It tracks several key statistics including Mzone, VPIP, PFR, 3bets, Steals, Agression, Cbets, and others that I will explain in full detail in another post. On the left there are tabs labeled "Odds, Stats, H, and +". Odds will show you two different settings: Pre flop it will show you how your hand will do against certain groups of hands (big pairs, big slick, face cards, suited connectors, etc.). This is great when you are short handed or in heads up play to see just how good your hole cards are going to do in showdown. Post-Flop it will change to the odds of certain hands for the players remaining (pair, two pair, sets, etc.). Stats are the default screen that shows all the stats I mentioned a moment ago. The H button will let you toggle your history on the players on and off. Turning it on will make the stats show for every hand you have had with that player, turning it off will just show the stats you have on all players since you turned the software on. The + button will detach the stats into a different window that you could set to the side or wherever you would like to put it.
Moving from Left to right (if you are following along with your own TI) in the middle of the program we have the EV and Group data. EV is the Expected Value of your hole cards which can range from a green positive number to a red negative number. This is great for beginners who are struggling learning hand selection and which hands to play. The Group rating is based on Skalansky group rating from 1-8 with Group 9 being everything that isn't ranked. Below that is your outs display, again this is a feature great for newer players who aren't really sure how many outs they have should they flop a double gut shot or something disguised. Below that is your win odds and pot odds display, this is good for people who are learning post flop poker who might not understand how weak that ace rag holding on an ace high board in a multi-way pot really is when facing a pot sized bet.
Finally on the extreme right is your M zone gauge which shows how big your stack is compared to the sizes of both blinds and antes, again we'll get into M zones in a later post. This is also where you will find your hole cards and board cards that will continue to be displayed even after you fold your hand. Underneath the board cards it will tell you what your hand is so far and will show in bright lights "YOU HAVE THE NUTS" should you have the nuts. Not really a big feature but it's useful when you are multi-tabling or if you are playing Omaha or Stud games where the nuts are not as clear.
So in a nutshell that's tournament indicator, depending on what people would like to know about this software or have questions/ideas/etc. on how to use the software I'll post some other stuff on specific game situations.
Some Useful Links:
www.tournamentindicator.com
Poker Odds Calculator | Stats Tracker - Advanced Real-Time Poker Calculator for online Poker
www.pokerstove.com (didn't talk about that but I will later on, very useeful FREE software to have)
Online Poker Software - Prohibited Programs, Tools and Services (the first list are tools that are ok, the 2nd is a list of banned products)
Love and life,
BG
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