3 Important Types of Poker Software for Serious Players

Poker Discussion
1

3 Important Types of Poker Software for Serious Players​

If you’re serious about poker, there are a few must-have types of poker software / poker tools.
Whether you play online or live, these tools can help take your game to the next level so you can maximize your winnings and rise up in stakes.
In this Topic i am going to discuss the three most important types of poker tools and poker software on the market. These include:

  1. Equity calculators for reviewing specific hands you play.
  2. Solvers for in-depth poker studying.
  3. Database software for tracking your hands and stats (as well as the hands and stats of your opponents).

Equity Calculators​

With an equity you can discover how much equity a hand (or a range of hands) has against another hand (or range of hands).

This can be done as a preflop match up (e.g. AKo vs 55) or on a given board.
For example, suppose you’re holding A♥ A♣ on a J♠ 8♣ 3♦ flop and your opponent goes all-in for $100 into a $100 pot. Based on your pot odds you need at least 33.3% equity to breakeven on a call.

After estimating your opponents range you can use an equity calculator to find out if your hand has enough equity to call (I’ll use Equilab for this example). Let’s say you think his range for going all-in is a set, an open-ended straight draw, or a strong top pair (QJ+).

All in all, equity calculators are very useful, especially for new players. They give you the chance to develop an intuition of how much equity hands/ranges have in certain situations.

Solvers​

Solvers are the best way to learn about GTO Strategy. The first publicly available solver, PioSolver, which is also the most used, came out back in 2015. Their existance has drastically changed the way poker strategy is understood.

Solvers provide the user with Nash equilibrium strategies (called ‘solutions’) based on certain variables, which the user inputs. These inputs include:

  • Preflop ranges involved
  • Pot size
  • Effective stack size
  • Bet size(s) on flop, turn and river
  • Raise size(s) on flop, turn and river

A solver basically does an enormous amount of simulations, trying out different strategies against each other, with the premise that each player knows the other player’s exact strategy.

This way, after a godly amount of calculations, the strategies reach equilibrium, meaning neither player can improve their strategy against the opposing strategy any further.

(Note that this doesn’t mean that this is the most profitable strategy against any player. If you know your opponent’s specific weaknesses, you can adjust the solver’s “GTO” strategy to win even more.)

An important feature of the solvers is the Nodelock function. This basically grants the user the power to freeze a certain strategy in a part of the game tree. The solver recalculates the appropriate response to that strategy.

In other words, the Nodelock feature allows you to figure out how to adjust versus a player’s specific weaknesses.
On paper it would seem that a solver would grant a player a knowledge of an invincible strategy — the ultimate dream of many players. In practice, however, the solutions are very often extremely hard to follow due to hyper-mixing of decisions.

Database Software​

If you want to play poker online and be competitive, these pieces of software will help you tremendously. Even if you only play live, you can use equity calculators and solvers to learn more about the game. I use all of them frequently and I wholeheartedly suggest you start using them too.

2 Likes
2

That’s pretty cool. But when I play I don’t have time to calculate. It’s something you keep in your back pocket.

2 Likes
3

Same here @PaperBoy73 , regarding the subject title , I’m at replay to have fun first and win second. Great ideas to improve your bankroll @RhinoRyan89 for indeed serious players. Timewise, these tools would be good for reviewing & analyzing wins/losses for me. Thanks for the post & gl at the tables.

3 Likes
4

Always a pleasure Litenin. You’ve been a great poker friend to me.

2 Likes
5

You say that these tools are important for live players as well, and I agree. But what would be your suggestion for how to make notes in a live game fast enough so all the important information is gathered?

2 Likes
6

I’m not going to lie. I miss days when poker was an authentic game of bluff and intuition, reading poker faces was an art form and your poker buddies were respected for their ability to calculate odds swiftly in their heads.

Now all kinds of software are everywhere. No doubt, they’re practically part of the entourage for the serious players. In the age of technology, who needs human instincts when software can provide “infallible” solutions for every situation? Who needs to spot the bluff when all you need to do is input difficult spots into your magic software?

And solvers, they do all these gargantuan amounts of simulations, trying out a thousand different strategies until they can’t possibly find a more perfect one. It helps to develop the dream strategy of every poker lover, right? But unless you have a perfect memory or are a quick study, you could be caught in quite the predicament trying to remember all the optimal strategies in an actual poker match.

Database Software. Knowing that every move, hand, and strategy can be recorded for future reference, it’s like having your own little library of poker wisdom.

So yes, tools can be tremendously helpful, but let’s not forget that it’s the player’s skill, intuition, and experience that ultimately make the wins.

Or a least I hope that still is the case. At least when we play for Play Money here on Replay. Or in Live Poker.

3 Likes
7

Can you please name few free of cost good one available, if any? I don’t play much money poker so I don’t want to invest in subscription or costly software’s

1 Like
8

When i played for real money many moons ago, I used a thing called sharkscope to check out who I was playing against and it was very useful on who to tread very gently with or avoid completely.

1 Like
9

Thanks all for your comments

Naforole i dont play live myself so i would know how they will implent majority of the information.
But i imagine they will make notes for particular spots.

playbetter the poker landscape is every evolving and sadly technology can be used very easly for small edges these days.

I totally understand what you mean about the art form of poker from many moons ago the landscape has changes so much.

Modestplayer as swamptrash already mentioned you can use sharkscope a number of times daily for free to search you opponent’s.

Also hand 2 note is a free service you can use have a look.

Lastly you can get a months free trial with PT4
(Poker Tracker 4) which is also avalible.

Thanks and Gl all at the tables

1 Like
10

Unfortunately you need these and any other help available out there . Cause competition has gone too far . Players do everything to gain an edge , the game has been solved , NLH is tough yo be played nowadays . The solvers give the most help to advanced players . If you know how to use the tools , that gives you a very big edge and advantage . This is sth I do not like in online poker .

1 Like
11

Interesting thread. I definitely use the equity calculators to see how hands I have played stacked up vs the opponent(s). The solvers seem too complicated to me so I am kind of intimidated to use them. I have the PT4 software, but it doesn’t work with the sites I play on so no good to me anymore. I wish I could use it because I really liked being able to know which positions won/lost me the most money so it could help me know which spots to focus my study on. For very serious players who want to go “pro,” I agree that all of these tools are needed in today’s world.

12

I don’t play live poker for cash and probably, one of the reason’s I would agree with you. Even when I did it was V low stakes as you said with buddies having fun and leaving happy.

I believe all things of the past have been damaged by current software products, to our skill’s of intuition and reaction’s by making the decisions for us. That is where, I think the personal learnings are truly missed

As an example, Nascar did the same as well, we brought what we got in my days of racing and now every decision is calculated for advantages. However, times change and software products are important to all serious players. And would be very beneficial as mentioned to evaluate past hands/games. Have fun & gl at the tables.

13

I usually don’t use any software to make decisions while playing. Probably that’s why I lose so much! I’m sure if I get used to use it, it will improve my poker results…
Well, I will definitely give it a try :slight_smile:

14

I played some cash games, did okay. Replay is unique. You need to play more hands.

1 Like
15

Hi folks,

special thanks to RhinoRyan89 and his very intertesting topic!
In my opinion it is very important that a good regular player who wants to improve his poker play and knowledge is using calculators and hand analyse to review his game.
There is always the possibility to learn from each hand you have played.

greets

1 Like
16

Hey @RhinoRyan89 , great topic! I also want to point one thing based on a previous comment. In a first moment, it might seem that softwares and calculators are removing the authenticity aspect of the game. But I don’t see that way, and I will explain why.

Since poker started to be played for money – and here I say real big amounts of money – there were people who started studying probabilities and come up with theory based on their calculations. And those people started to win much more regularly than others who did not this and played only based on intuition.

This happens in any other area of life. People who prepare previously based on good data will always be ahead of those who don’t. The only difference nowadays is that we have technology. In his book “The Godfather of Poker”, Doyle Brunson talks about how they worked out the calculations in his days: they would do it manually, writing down sheets and sheets of paper, trying to consider all possibilities and figure out a good strategy. People had to know math to calculate odds. And this information made them play a much more beautiful poker, not the contrary.

Today we have great resources available to virtually everyone, and as much as they offer the possibility of improving faster, people often fall into the trap of getting superficial. It is not that easy, but definitely much more easier today to play good poker, but it is NOT easy to know why that is considered good. But the resources are essential to know how to play great poker. Most of them are not used at the moment of play, but for study and improving when not playing.

The challenge is to find creativity in between what Game Theory Optimal recommends and exploiting your opponents’ mistakes, while trying to minimize our own mistakes. And oh boy, that will never be an easy task.

17

Agree the software for me would be great for reviewing my past hands. I hope I never stop learning, poker skills and everything in life. :smile:

1 Like
19

You’re way too smart for me. Let’s play and see who wins.

1 Like
20

Thanks for posting your topic! My two cents is to generalize what you wrote. Consider all poker variants and apply those smarts, either mechanically or mentally, to assess the mathematics of the situation as a baseline. From this factual start, assess your opponents within this hand and draw upon all information gleaned to “card locate (as in Bridge)” what they have…this takes precedence over any mathematical understanding of the probabilities involved.
Finally, consider games like chess, GO and real-life situations which require the same consideration.
Cheers!

1 Like
21

Insightful overview of essential poker tools! Equity calculators like Equilab aid in hand analysis, solvers such as PioSolver revolutionize GTO strategy, and database software is crucial for tracking stats. Integrating these tools can significantly enhance poker skills