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How to use Texas Calculatem and Poker Office Successfully

A guide on how to use a combination of Texas Calculatem and Poker Office to play low limit Holdem.

Introduction

This article will give readers advice on how to optimise Texas Calculatem in conjunction with Poker Office. I will be updating this article on a regular basis as I learn more about both the tools and the game, so please don't be surprised if you come back and find a few changes here and there.

Poker Office is free for players who open new accounts with selected Poker sites. Visit the Poker Office website for more information.

Texas Calculatem is free for player who open a new account with selected Poker rooms. Visit their site for more information.

Before risking their own funds on Texas Calculatem's recommendations, players can test it for free using real money by openning a new account with either Royal Vegas Poker and/or Crazy Vegas Poker, and claiming their $10 no deposit bonuses.

Both of these tools are therefore high affordable.

UPDATE ON 17th July 2005

If MBO / 2 >= OTW then raise (or bet if it's been checked to you)

changed to

If MBO / 4 >= OTW then raise (or bet if it's been checked to you).

The change was made because the OTW takes into account hitting cards on the turn or river. I therefore need to be doubly confident of winning before I want to bet/raise.

Update 11th August 2005

Removed the configuration image and typed in the values instead. This was because the gif kept on getting deleted.

Texas Calculatem

Texas Calculatem with Auto-Read is an Odds Calculator that will watch you play, offer instant odds and advice as you play, and therefore give you a significant edge when playing Poker online. One of its best features is that it will automatically read most online Poker rooms, removing the need for users to manually input every hand as it appears.

The Texas Calculatem website describes it as:

Texas Calculatem™ with Auto-Read watches you play, offers instant odds and advice throughout the game, and gives you a considerable edge in the fast-paced online environment. This poker odds calculator is an absolute must for anyone who plays at real money tables. It is also a valuable teaching aid for people wanting to learn the basics of game strategy.

Texas Calculatem's™ intuitive interface shows you your exact situation at a glance. The table, advice bar, and odds chart give you just enough information without being too overwhelming. A novice may choose to simply follow the advice given. More experienced users will find the additional info, including odds of making certain hands, odds of one of your opponents making certain hands, # outs, pre-flop hand strength & Sklansky score, very useful. In the fast paced online environment, it is essential to have a calculator watching along with you.

Under certain conditions, Texas Calculatem can provide strong advice, especially to novices who may find it hard to count all their outs and/or see all the possibilities of their hands. From my current experience, Texas Calculatem's main strengths and weakness are as follows:

Strengths

  • The pre-flop play is fairly solid when the settings are tightenned up. According my Poker Office records Texas Calculatem can play a tight-aggressive pre-flop game.
  • Texas Calculatem can quickly calculate the odds of various draws and give you the probabilities of various draws.

Weaknesses

  • The post-flop advice can be very weak. It often fails to recommend a raise when the pot odds suggest otherwise, and on other occasions will limp with a weak hand when it should fold. I therefore use a strategy based on Texas Calculatem's estimated Odds to Win. This has proved fairly successful so far.

Optimal Settings for Texas Calculatem

The first step users must take once Texas Calculatem has been installed is to update the settings. To do this go to Options and use the configuration below:

  • 50% Small Blind
  • 94% Big Blind
  • 93% Just lleft of Big Blind
  • 83% Dealer Button
  • 90% Other Position

Set "Odds Display" to Ratio, as this make comparing MBO with the Pot Odds simpler.

The "watch fold depth" setting estimates what cards players were not holding based on the community cards showing at the time they folded. This uses up extra CPU time, but most modern computers should be able to handle this without significant degradation in performance. It should therefore be turned on.

The "Pre Flop Advice" needs to be set to "Tight", and the "Set minimum playable hands, by position" checkbox should be selected too. I have used the slider settings from the "hands to open the betting with a raise" table on page 135 of Carson.

These changes tighten up the pre flop game significantly, though I personally use a certain amount of descretion, especially if Texas Calculatem recommends "call unraised only".

I leave the "Post Flop Advice" on "Avg", and usually take its advice with a pinch of salt, though I always glance at it before making a tough decision to see if I'm missing anything obvious.

How to use Texas Calculatem effectively

Abbreviations

PO = Pot Odds - you'll need to calculate these yourself.

OTW = Odds To Win - this is the estimated provided by Texas Calculatem.

MBO = Maximum Bet Odds. This figure is equal to the number of opponents active in the current hand.

Pre-Flop

If Texas Calculatem tells you to fold then you should generally fold pre-flop. However, if you are in the small blind position and the pot odds are greater than your OTW (Odds to Win) then you should consider calling. This is because the small blind does not have to pay as much to call.

If Texas Calculatem's advice is to call unraised then you should

  • raise if no one has raised.
  • call if someone has raised.

If Texas Calculatem gives any other advice then the settings are tight enough for you to keep on re-raising pre-flop.

Post-Flop

For post-flop play, I prefer to use a combination of Texas Calculatem's OTW estimate and the Pot Odds. This strategy has given me superior results as it is less vulnerable to aggression and bluff raises.

Concise Strategy

To decide what to do, work your way down the list below until a condition is met.

  • If MBO / 4 >= OTW then raise (or bet if it's been checked to you).
  • If PO / 2 >= OTW then bet (or call if it's been bet or raised to you)
  • If PO >= OTW then check (or call if it's been bet or raised to you)
  • If none of the above conditions are met then fold.

Explanation

The strategy raises if the odds are significantly in favour of the player, but only calls if the bet is still profitable. Assuming that Texas Calculatem's estimates are accurate, this is simply a straight forward statistical arbitrage strategy, applied to the game of Poker.

Using Poker Office to pick a suitable table

Free Poker Office

Poker Office is a Poker Tracker program that allows you to track all of your opponents actions as well as your own game, while you are playing, without any need for hand histories or user input. It works with a few Party Poker skins such as Empire Poker and Coral Poker (also known as Eurobet), and their developers are working on making it compatible with a wider range of Poker rooms. It has a Live Tracker function that will track up to 4 poker tables in real time. The Live Advisor function will then present the player with useful probabilities and the characteristics of the opponents based on their historical actions.

An effective method of using Poker Office, is to open up 4 tables you're potentially interested in (e.g. $0.50/$1.00 fixed limit tables), and then using the Live Tracker monitor them for desirable characteristics. After about 30 minutes Poker Office will have collected enough information for you to decide whether or not you wish to play at any of the tables analysed. Any table that's passive and with a high number of players seeing the flop would be a good place to start.

For example, if you find a table with 3 or more players who frequently see over 50% of flops, then it's time to sit down and make some money!

Poker Office Free Trial

At time of writing, the Poker Office evaluation version only lets users track 300 hands. This is not nearly enough to gain any sort of insite into it's usefulness. It is therefore recommendable to acquire Poker Office via the free offer.

Useful Links