In order to understand odds calculators you must understand the game of Texas Hold’em Poker. By its very nature poker is a game of chance / luck and skill. This means that you can employ the best poker strategy in the world but an inferior poker player can still win the hand if luck is on their side. That doesn’t mean that skill doesn’t matter but it does mean that you cannot beat luck or variance. The fact of the matter is that you want to get your chips in the middle with the best hand and hope that your hand holds up. That is the best that any competent poker player can do.
Having established the fact we still need to know that over the long term luck cannot overtake a skilled poker player. So we can all take solace in that fact as we are all striving to be as skilled a poker player as possible. In order to play the game and optimize your opportunities to win you need to understand the math of the game. That means you are going to need to know the percentages of your hand winning or losing the pot. That means you will need to understand where your outs are and how many of them are available. You will need to know the potential of hitting those outs as well. Lastly, you will also need to understand what the implied odds are should you hit your out(s).
Poker Odds calculators are just as the title suggests. Odds calculators enable the player using them to determine just how strong or weak their hand is and what are the odds of that hand winning the pot. Most of these applications are pulling information from a back-end database and making it available to you through their template that fits neatly over your avatar. This allows the software to present that information to poker players in real-time and ultimately enables that player to make best decision based on the current circumstances at the time.
In the end the poker odds calculator acts as a bit of an advisor in that it tells you when you have the best opportunities to win when the odds are in your favor. However, we should not confuse favorite with always. Too many poker players think that just because they are a huge favorite that they should never lose a pot. That is not true and if you are looking for an “always” type of situation then poker may not be the game for you.
Many of these poker odds calculators are software applications and applets that can be found all over the Internet. You can also purchase some of the high end products if you believe they are a good fit for your scenario. Odds calculators can be used in both poker tournaments as well as cash games. One of the caveats from using poker odds calculators is that they are banned in many of the popular online poker rooms. Many of the rooms have published lists of products that they consider as giving an unfair advantage to poker players. The reasoning for this is because when you have players entire poker history at the touch of a button and your opponent has none on how you have fared over the years you clearly have an advantage.
Poker Odds Calculators do not guarantee that you are going to be a successful online poker player. What will determine how well you play online or otherwise is how much effort you put into learning the game. If you can devote yourself to understanding as much strategy as possible as well as looking at the game of poker from various perspectives you are well on your way to becoming a skilled player, poker odds calculator or not.
Curtis Mayfield III