PTR: Know Your Villain
Posted by: January 14th | CommentsKnowing if an opponent is a losing player can help you infer certain things about him, depending on the game format and stakes. I’ve included some screenshots to give you an idea. Pokertableratings.com is a very useful tool to both size up opponents as well as track your own progress. Sign up for the site for free by clicking here. They offer some premium services, however the site is fully functional once you provide them with your email address and name.
PTR Player Summary
Summary by stake played
In order to view stats on a player simply enter an online player’s screen name in the box above or visit the site directly. If you don’t know any screen names to try, just click on one of the “Popular” links inside the search box. You get a few searches per day without registering, so if you get an error message go ahead and make a free account with the site.
The second picture on the left is a detailed summary of all of the hands played at a specific game type and stake. This is very useful information if you want to see how a particular opponent compares to others at a give level. It can also let you spot opponents that might be taking a shot at a higher level. Knowing that they are taking a shot can be beneficial information. Players taking a shot are likely to be playing in one of two ways: super tilt or hyper focused and tight. The tilty players likely had a bad run at their normal stake and decided to try and recoup their losses all at once at the higher stake (or they’re drunk). The hyper focused player made a conscious decision to try playing higher stakes and will be paying extra attention to his game. He will possibly be hesitant to call large bets and make big bluffs because he isn’t used to dealing with the bigger swings.
PokerTableRatings even grades players against the top 10 winning players at a given stake. Go ahead and give it a try by typing in any online player’s screen name in the box above. Try yourself, or if you haven’t played online try “Durrrr”. Once their states come up, click on the “Grader” tab to see their report card.
PokerStove: Equity Calculator
Posted by: January 13th | CommentsPokerStove is a must-have program for any poker player. This software can be used to calculate your equity in any given hand. You can input your hole cards, known or suspected opponent hole cards, and board cards to give you your exact equity of a given pot. Below is an example of PokerStove after it calculated the equity of my AKs vs villian’s QQ on a board JhTh2s. The program shows that, although I have no pair, my AKs is a favorite to win at showdown.
Calculating equity on flop against known hand
PokerStove is very useful for calculating your equity versus an opponent’s preflop shoving range. This example simulates my AQo against an estimated 4bet shoving range of my aggressive short stacked opponent. According to my assumptions of his holdings and PokerStove’s calculations, this is an easy call.
Preflop equity vs range
Opponent's likely opening range
For simplicity I’ll give an example from a heads up match I just completed. My opponent was raising 42% from the small blind, if you play heads up you should know that this number is quite low. I can plug this number into the preflop distribution section of PokerStove, make a few logical adjustments, and I have what is probably a very good estimate of the hand ranges that my opponent is opening with a raise.
This program should be used frequently while reviewing hand histories to help validate your decision making and correct any mistakes. Did I mention that it’s free? Download it at www.pokerstove.com.
I will be posting a future video to help you get the most out of this program.
