Empirical Poker Calculators "Profiling"

A lot of players don't realize the importance of profiling, and I must stress that doing so is a virtual necessity when starting out in online poker. Fortunately there are several excellent, legal, and fair pieces of software that will help you do it.

__________________________________________________

If you have an empirical poker calculator, then you likely have a distinct advantage over your competition. Read “likely” because the software can’t do everything for you, it just presents valid information for you to surmise and act upon.

There a lot of players who actually do use a poker calculator with profiling features but yet still have trouble acting on the information in a consistently profitable way. That’s pretty much the same as not having a poker calculator to begin with but either way, not profiling is a costly venture in online poker.

There are several reasons for this, but it all comes down to making the right decisions, for the right odds, at the right time, and against the right opponent(s).

With odds decisions, sometimes that also involves what your opponent is likely to have, and without some profiling data on him, it’s very difficult to narrow his hand down to the range where you can apply effective odds to his hand, his next likely action, and the eventual outcome at the river.

Timing is very critical in poker tournaments, and having your opponent profiled with pertinent data then your decision making may be a lot more clear and concise if you know how this player has acted up to a given point in the tournament. Tournament Indicator, an empirical poker calculator designed for tournaments also profiles opponents as to how they “behave” under different MZone conditions! This would give you a very strong indication if your opponent is making a “move” with a moderate strength hand, given his weak predicament in the tournament.

Picking an opponent to steal a pot from, or make your own move can sometimes keep you in a game, advance you in a tournament, force a smaller stack out of the pot, or even recoup some cash game losses. But picking that opponent to make that move on, is all based on what he is likely to do after you make your play.

We all have some instinct in poker and that is always useful of course. There are some players who just don’t need or want any help. To me, it’s fair to say those players are in the extreme minority, because volume poker these days is battled via monitors and multi-tabling. Multiple distractions, online and off are inherent in playing online poker, so a profiling tool is the least of which you should consider and make the most of when playing, because the competition is getting tougher and tougher all the time.