Realtime odds calculator

[Negate]

I am a serious newbie to online playing and thought I would check out some odds programs to help learn exactly what my chances are during play. I've checked out Poker Pal Pro, Poker Sidekick, Texas Calculatem and Poker Spy.

Poker Pal Pro has pot odds which seems nice, but it doesn't really show you the percentage of what your opponent could be holding. (least that I can see)

Poker Sidekick seems to have some fair advice for what to play (least for a very tight game) and it shows some serious detail on what hands your opponents have but it is difficult to look at in a pinch.

Texas Calculatem is really nice for a quick glance and it has some recommendations on hand strength but the advice is a bit confusing and doesn't seem as clear cut as Poker Sidekick.

Poker Spy seems to almost be a merge of Texas Caclulatem with a Poker Tracker Lite mix. It has some nice ingame stats with odds shown.

I've run all these programs during play (at the same time) and the odds/percentages do not always agree. I might be comparing apples to oranges though on a few of them.

So does anyone have any recommendations on a product that tracks odds? Why are these programs off a bit in caculation? I would really be interested in hearing some opinions. Thank you.

[RyanC]

calculate it yourself, really

[Negate]

What if I'm really really really bad at calculating anything? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Ah and don't say I shouldn't play poker! Seriously I just need help learning the odds and I would rather not look it up everytime I get in a hand.

[SamIAm]

[ QUOTE ]
What if I'm really really really bad at calculating anything? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Ah and don't say I shouldn't play poker! Seriously I just need help learning the odds and I would rather not look it up everytime I get in a hand.

[/ QUOTE ]I don't think you need to "look it up"; I think you need to get faster at calculating it. And you will get faster, don't worry.

I think the best thing to do is go over hands after a session. Mark hands for analysis. (I email myself hand-histories during the session, so my inbox is full of hard hands when I'm done.) Then you have all the time in the world to do the math.
-Sam

[Negate]

So it's basically about memorization then?

[bhudson]

Not quite... it's about understanding and it comes with experience.

First, don't mess with NL. Play limit until you get a graps of odds.

There are different kind of odds. At the most basic level, and you certainly need to take care of this first, there is implied odds vs draw odds. You take your pot odds and add a reasonable avg of what more you can take out of your opponents should you make your hand. Then you compare this with the odds of making your draw - you need to be careful here that if you make your draw, it's good and not a second best hand. When that risk is high, you'll need much better odds to continue. You'll need to understand hidden outs, discounted outs and combined draws - but this is all very doable.

This is easy with a little experience. This is basically all those programs will do (and do poorly) for you. They are unnecessary. I used to use them as a crutch all the time. They aren't worth it.

The second kind of odds is all about hand reading. What does your opponent play preflop and is it consistent with his actions postflop? How does the statistical possibility of him holding the hands you've put him on adjust the odds?

No program will help you there, and this is a very difficult, yet crucial skill to improve.