How many times have you rushed into a river bet, only to lose a pot when it was a close call whether you should have been involved?
Improving at poker is all about going back and re-assessing your old hands. All good poker sites have 'History' options where you can look back at hands, but using a poker calculator is better still.
A poker calculator works out the odds of you winning a hand in any given situation. It can, in some circumstances, be used while you play, but they're particularly good for revisiting old hands so you can learn from your mistakes.
You tell the calculator what hand you're holding, in what position, and what your opponent has. Then, you select from a bank of playing cards to decide the flop, turn and river, and the calculator will display the changing odds of the hand on-screen.
First, select your game, whether it's Hold'em, Omaha or Stud. Input your own hole cards and the cards of your opponent or opponents, and then hit the 'Calculate Odds' button. You can reset the board any time.
Now, it's possible to work out whether it was right to chase that flush draw, whether calling with trips on the flop when your opponent needed four outs to a flush was smart, or whether you're really learning from the game at all.
Effectively, the calculator takes a few things into consideration:
You know how many
cards are left in the deck, and how many have been dealt out/burned. You also know your
outs (cards in the deck that can improve your hand) and what those particular outs are.
Game: No Limit Texas Hold'em
Players: 2
You: Jd 10d
Opponent: Ad Jh
Board: 10c 8d 9h Jc
In a big hand you played online, you're sitting with J-10 suited and find an aggressive opponent behind you. From the history you see he held Ad Jh.
After a raise and call, the flop comes 10c 8d 9h. With top-pair you hit the 'Calculate Odds' button and see that you have a 90.81 percent chance of winning the hand after the flop.
You bet, and with an open-ended straight draw the opponent calls. The turn comes a Jack, giving you two-pair but also potentially completing your opponent's straight. Hitting the 'Calculate Odds' sees your win chances reduce to 74.94 percent.
Now you're a little more cautious. You lead out again, and your opponent calls. The river comes a meaningless 2d and you win the hand with two-pair. However, even with the clubs on the board and the straight draw, you're still almost a 75 percent shot to win the hand.
A poker odds calculator is great for helping you with decisions at every stage of the hand. Better, odds calculators are free, so you can visit a site and utilize this bit of kit without spending a cent.
Poker calculators can be good too if you're watching poker on TV. Watch two seasoned pros going head-to-head and input their hands into your calculator as you watch. Then you can see the thought processes going through these players' minds as the odds fluctuate.
While a poker odds calculator can help you make the correct decision depending on your hand and the board, as well as factoring in the number of opponents, that's just the start.
To really improve your game, you need to get some tracking software. For cash players, that means a Heads-up Display like PokerTracker or Holdem Manager, which let you take really detailed notes on regular opponents so you can beat them the next time you meet.
For Sit 'n' Go players, consider a cool piece of kit called 'SitNGo Wizard' that lets you store stats on your past online SNGs. It's also great for going back over old tournaments and advising on moves you should have made during a typical game.
