Texas Calculatem and Poker Office Blog

Jeff,

Thanks for posting. It's nice to see how other people are getting along with the tools that I use.

In answer to your Questions...

1 - I keep the Live Tracker window open as I like to watch the stats that it gathers about my opponents (the overlay doesn't completely work at Ladbrokes Poker). I usually sort it by the Saw Flop %. That allows me to count the loose players (Saw Flop % > 50%, but I only pay attention to this after 30 or so hands).

2 - I must apologise but the latest "Odds Calculator" post is just some copy and pasted promotional material from Texas Calculatem. I should have labelled it as such but was in a rush. I'll fix that later.

Regarding my religion, no, I don't follow it that closely anymore. Texas Calculatem is a good guideline for pre-flop play, especially if you're two tabling. The Odds To Win is a good estimate of your pot equity, and useful if you're wondering about whether to call or fold.

However, for trickier scenarios, I've been experimenting with ideas from Ed Miller's Small Stakes Hold'Em. Consider the case where you have AdKh. The flop is Ah7c3c. You have top pair and are probably ahead. But there's a flush draw possibility. Anyone drawing to the flush would have 4:1 odds to hit it on the turn. Betting might not protect the hand, but a check-raise might. Or maybe you'd check and then bet (or check-raise) the turn. Stuff like that isn't handled my Texas Calculatem.

3 - Regarding table selection I've been very indisciplined lately as I usually just play with my mate Juice for a laugh and joke around with the other players. Little Acorn Man has wrote a good post about how he select tables. But essentially, you're right, in that it's both hard and tedious to wait for the perfect table.

What I'll sometimes do, 30 minutes before I plan to start, is to open up 4 poker tables and get Poker Office going. That allows it to get 30 minutes of stats before I sit down.

Also, I've recently found that the 60% saw flop figure, as estimated by the poker rooms (and even Poker Office) can be misleading. I have therefore been counting the number of loose players at the table. If someone has been seeing over 50% of flops over 30 hands or more, then there's a good chance that they're playing too loose. Tables with 3 or more loose players are good for fishing. Do not be intimidated if Poker Office tells you they've made lots of money. Loose players have more volatile bankrolls so the biggest winners in individual sessions are usually those who play too loosely.

When tables get too tight I might stick around for a couple of orbits to see if it loosens up. And if too many players leave I might just sit out to save me paying the blinds. When in tight/passive games it is sometimes worth stealing blinds to make a blind or two. For example, if you are the small blind and everyone folds to you, you may try to raise (irrespective of your hole cards) with the aim of inducing the big blind to fold. Be careful if they fight back though!

Anyway, I hope you have success with these great tools, and would be most interested to see how you get along with them.

The Edge!