Emotional Detachment

You may know what is at stake and you may have a clear comprehension of odds and outs, but if you cannot detach your emotions from the hand, the game, the money, or the opponent, then your emotions will be making decisions for you.

calculator video

What are the odds. I have posted a simple instructional video at Poker Calculator for anyone who needs to learn basic odds calculatons.

Poker Calculators and Odds at work here...

Poker Calculators and Odds at work here...
Now as I mentioned without positional and stack advantage, these odds busting hands are your best weapon. You should be waiting for someone ahead of you, preferably a big stack to raise and isolate you in a hand. Many players will be surprised when you turn over 97s and double up on the big stacks AQos. Live cards are the key for this play, and knowing what your opponent is likely to raise with is also a good backdrop.

Becoming too reliant on poker software

I had an interesting conversation with a customer of my website last week that brought up some critical points about using poker calculators in your internet game. Through our exchanges I found that – let’s say George, was fascinated with calculating the precise mathematical answer for his every move. Let me tell you now, that as a proponent of using poker calculators, you should deem them as merely an assistant that frees up your mind allowing you to concentrate on your opponents.

George was right when he wrote to me and was able to distinguish differences between certain poker calculators and the calculations they make. For example, some use very complex mathematical computations, while others may use more general rounded figures, and still others take Sklansky’s group rating and EV factors into consideration. I even had a software firm contact me and ask me to push their poker calculator because it had a new, patent-protected combi-calc configuration that could give superior calculations.

I have had the pleasure and challenge of reviewing nearly all of the poker calculators available on the market today, and I can firmly inform you now, that the calculations served up in any one of them should rank quite low in your decision making process. Firstly, most of them calculate within fractions of each other, thus making this buying factor rather homogenous. Secondly, whether it’s 3 percentage points or 7, you just can’t confuse 63os with KK. All of the competitive products are going to give the same indications as to whether or not you should be playing your hand – at least mathematically, and therein lies the true value of your poker calculator. It allows your game to evolve around your competition, as well as solid odds play. One without the other is like sitting naked at the poker table. You might as well let it all show.
My friend George got so hung up in the numbers the game, it became his game. And that is a critical error that leads to strategic disadvantages that your opponents will simply nail you with by bluffing you out of pots. George debated with me about win odds, pot odds, EV, turn, and river odds, when I basically had to stop and remind him that at a certain point the numbers become inconsequential when the human game begins, and threading hairs here will do nothing for his game. George would probably be better off playing sudoku.

Holdem Indicator is a new poker calculator that actually helps in the odds and mind game as not only does it show win odds, pot odds, EV and Sklansky ratings, but it also tracks your opponents tendencies and applies a profile icon that you can use against them while playing a hand. There is a free offer for this product on my website and works with all major poker sites.
Marty Smith is webmaster of http://www.PokerCalculatorReport.com where all the online poker calculators are tested and reviewed, including Sit and Go Shark, Calculatem Pro, and Poker Spy. He is also editor of http://www.PokerBookReport.com.

Hold'em Winner Poker Calculator - AVOID!

Hold'em Winner and Hold'em Hands are sister programs that just do not have the support of some of the mainstream software providers. I mean even if you can install it on your computer, it's a nigthmare to use because of crashes and archaic looking graphics. Stay clear.

Building an Online Bankroll Playing Sit and Go's

If you play tight aggressive in the low buy-in sit and go tournaments at party poker while using your poker calculator you can easily fund a lot of MTT buy ins by acheiving a decent win rate at your STT tables. See my full article at Poker Strategy Articles.com

Poker Calculator Articles.

I have submitted all my poker calculator articles to a new website call ed PokerStrategyArticles.com . There are many other articles there too. Some good reading. I have added a couple new ones on sitandgoshark as well.

your poker strategy education

great new site if you are just starting out with poker.
http://www.pokerstrategyarticles.com/pages/site-map
including a whole section on poker calculators

first place at party poker - 800 entries!!

ok ok, it was only a $10 buck tourney, but I thought it was very effective in using Dan Harrington's strategy all the way through. Also used Holdem Pirate to watch the other players.

sit and go shark = avoid!

That sit and go shark program by roy rounder is a scam. I would avoid it. You are probably better off with holdem pirate or poker spy.

online poker withdrawal, what are the odds?

I seriously wanted to play in some online tournaments this weekend, but it was not be. The wife needed some extra attention, or else its divorce city again. I watched DVDs with her ... LOST (which was cool), went to see Jennifer Annistons ass at the movies, (which was cool), then went home and had to watch a rerun of some bird flu show Oprah Winfrey had.. (ok that wasn't cool) but alas, I am still married, and she still loves me.

Poker Calculators and The Art of Folding – Part 1

I was in 6, $10+$1 qualifier tournaments just this week at party poker determined to play in The Sunday Million for the 3rd week in a row. They have 60 players in each qualifier, and 1st and 2nd get entries while 3rd, 4th, and 5th get some cash. My poker calculator of choice for MTT’s is Hold’em Pirate, but most will give you at least the basic odds for making the right decisions, at least mathematically.

As it were, I placed in 4 of them, earning 2 entries (multiples are refunded in cash), and getting some extra cash in the other two. One tournament I did not place was the result of an ugly draw out by an inexperienced player. The other was a situation where I should have folded, but greed overcame me. Herein lies the beauty of using a poker calculator – it will give you the power to fold, when you are so inclined to take advice. That one tournament, I wasn’t. But here is a situation that arose in the other qualifiers where I seized the art of folding.

Sitting to the left of a loose/aggressive in the early stages, Hold’em Pirate VPIP rating had the maniac clocked at playing a full 80% of the pots! I picked up AQs at the cutoff where there had been an early position, 3XBB raise from a somewhat tight player. The player after him cool-called and then the maniac put in a minimum raise bringing it to 4X the blind. Then came my turn. I was surprised to see my poker calculator giving a decisive FOLD recommendation for AQs. As I pondered playing, that minimum re-raise concerned me as it gave the other 2 players the chance to come over the top of the maniac, while the maniac seemed to be inviting such a thing.

I correctly discerned that there was going to be an all-in situation with at least two players. Had my poker calculator said call, I may have done so. AQs however, is a hand at this stage in the poker tournament where you do not want all your chips in the middle against 2 players. You are bound to be outdrawn even if you are ahead – which you are probably not. There are so many online players that would have been right in the middle of this hand with AQs – and OUT. The early position tight player had KK, while maniac called his all-in with A9suited, and hit a silly flop that ended up turning a 6-7-8-9-10 straight for him.

When you got a guy like this at the table, best to be way ahead, as David Slansky teaches, otherwise let the others get frustrated and and you will see a lot of high card vs low pair show downs, all the while depleting the field. In the meantime, you can cuddle up with your poker calculator and practice the art of folding.

Dan Harrington Volume III

Well I discovered that the Dan Harrington on Hold'em series is gonna be 3 now!! I loved the first two and this one is supposed to be some kind of testing as to how well you learned from the earlier works. Great idea, can't wait to read it. I need help with tournaments anyway.

Poker-Spy Calculator Shows me My Top 5 Earning Hands

I was playing around with those massive looking reports that Poker-Spy outputs for you. I have about 2500 hands in the history, virtually all of them on tournament play at Party Poker and Paradise Poker. There is a hand analysis feature where you can look at each and every hand you played, and it it groups them together to show you if you are playing them right, wrong or not at all. I clicked on the amounts tab and it reorganized the hands by money (chips) earned rather than hand rank. There were some surprises.

The most profitable hand for me is ATos with a hand rank of 44 in the group 6 Slansky chart. Wow. A distant second was AA rank 1, group 1. KQs with a rank of 9 in group 2, is just a sliver behind AA! Here is another shocker - 88 is my 4th best earner! Hand rank is 19 in group 4. Rounding out my top 5 is everybody's most dreaded JJ. I must be doing something right with that hand. With this kind of information, you can see how poker-spy would help those willing to be analytical with their game. What I have mentioned here is just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the reports available.

Using Poker Spy on MTT's along with Calculatem Pro.

I hate reading the puny little number and card displays on Poker-Spy. The presentation is so "aged" looking I feel there must have been graphic artists in the 70's that did more clever work. However, I do like the alert system, and the last 10 or 12 hands displayed for all the players at your table. So when I use Poker Spy, I also run CalculatemPro simultaneously so that I can actually SEE the flop, odds and my hole cards being analyzed. Decent combination. I ran with that through several tournaments and got quite used to it.

Poker Calculator Wars Part 1; Sit and Go Shark vs. Hold’em Pirate.

Ok so you need a poker calculator, you play a lot of sit and go tournaments, and you’re not sure which one to buy – right? If this sounds like you, herein lays some technical information about two online poker calculators. One of them claims to be great for sit and go poker, and one of them really is great for sit and go poker.

I have had the opportunity to test about 15 online poker calculators, and in all honesty, not one of them is perfect for me. That being said, among the Empirical type of poker calculators, there are two that I have used exclusively for single table, sit and go tournaments (STT). They are, Sit and Go Shark and Hold’em Pirate.

Empirical Poker calculators offer up to the user a dynamic collection of the aggregate activity of your opponents. This contributes to the feel, or momentum of the table. An important factor to be sure. Sit and Go Shark makes claim to this by having descriptive phrases parsed in stacked sections for you to read while playing. Yes you have to read. Problem is, it offers up different opinions about the same hand, rarely giving a clear recommendation.

Thing is, after using this for over 7 weeks and about 120 sit and gos, the multiple recommendations are continuously distracting, while slowing your game down. You eventually have to ignore them to maintain your sanity. Conversely, Hold’em Pirate’s VPIP meter lets you determine in a glance the momentum of the table, the style grid of your opponents, and the strength of your hand based on pot odds. Seriously, what else can you ask for?

I eventually came to the conclusion that Sit and Go Shark was just like Calculatem Pro, but wearing a nicer suit. The only thing I feel it has done well is remind weak players about not playing garbage hands. It plainly says to fold these garbage hands. This may be a good thing for beginners. However, if you are beyond knowing the true weakness of J6os, 104s etc, you’ll be much better off with Hold’em Pirate in your sit and go domination.

Now Sit and Go Shark is a Roy Rounder product that specifically tried to nail a market niche in that he knew a lot of online players played STT’s exclusively, or used them frequently to build a bankroll or gain MTT experience. (As far as marketing goes, you can’t beat Roy Rounder – he successfully pushes a 2 year old poker eBook for 3 times the cost of Matthew Hilger’s “Internet Texas Hold’em”, a vastly superior product).

I was excited by some of the claims Rounder made about Sit and Go Shark, which offered a new level of intuitiveness that other Mathematical Poker Calculators were just starting to morph into. Maybe v2.0 will deliver.

I need help with the odds.

I was never that good at math. When I fell in love with poker but kept losing money, I tried to read up as much as I could. I read in all the poker books that to become proficient you had to know the odds. Odds = Math. I improved. Somewhat. Placed in a tourney here and there, got decent at Sit and Go tables - just enough from keeping the VISA from boiling over.

One day, while surfing poker websites, I found some help. No not that kind. An advertisement for a poker calculator popped up on my screen. I remember specifically it saying "calculate odds instantly". It felt like that advertisement was speaking heavenly towards me.

I tried the product. I got better. I am getting better. That's the genesis of my poker calculator blog.

TurtleKnife