Poker Software and Analysis

Installation

Upon choosing to play with Pacific Poker, told me could not find bin/poker.exe. So I had to locate the Pacific executable myself. This may have been because I'm using an older version of Pacific Poker which is compatible with Poker Office 5. Unfortunately, Texas Calculatem did not work with Pacific Poker anyway, so I moved over the Full Tilt.

Upon logging in, I attached myself to a micro limit table, and had a look at the preferences while I waited for the blinds.

I changed the odds display to "show ratio", to let me compare them to the pot odds that Poker Office 5 was overlaying on my table.

I also set the accuracy to maximum and turned on the fold depth. This is supposed to slow down calculations, but the application still ran quickly on my £300 laptop.

The other options were left on their default settings.

First Impressions

Texas Calculatem's main window

The main application has two views. Mini and full. These are very similar, but the mini mode is more compact and does not show the odds of various hands being hit.

Both views have a graphical barometer that shows the strength of the player's hand. Texas Calculatem will make play recommendations based on the strength of the hand.

There is also a useful box that tells you your chances of winning the hand. This can be useful for users who might wish to overide the play recommendations.

Unfortunately, the slider bars (to set how loose or tight the advice is) are not numeric. This prevents users from setting things precisely.

Also, the documentation is not totally clear. I was not too sure what "Just left or big blind (4+ p)" or "Other position (5+ p) meant.

Testing it out

Texas Calculatem's main window

For my initial test of Texas Calculatem, I played about a hundred hands of $0.05/$0.10 limit poker at Full Tilt.

I mostly followed the play advice, but did overrule it a couple of times when the pot odds were much larger than the Odds To Win number. Unfortunatley, the current version does not display pot odds, and so I used the Poker Office 5's table overlay.

After the hundred hands of play, I had won $0.69, which is just under 14 big blinds. That was very impressive, though the sample size was small.

It should be noted, however, that Calculatem does not recommend a standard Poker game. Most Poker literature recommends a tight aggressive game. With the preference leaning towards an aggressive game. However, while it can recommend a relatively aggressive pre-flop game (which can easily be achieved from hard coded tales), the post flop recommendations are definitely passive.

Strangely, it will recommend calling bets even if the player only holds a high 2nd pair (jacks). And it doesn't recommend continuation bets, even if the player is on the button and all other players have folded the flop.

Interestingly, it can sometimes change recommendation based on what has happened in the current round. For example, after the flop it might initially recommend a call, but change to a fold, depending on what the other players do.

Conclusion

Texas Calculatem is definitely useful as an odds calculator, presenting the user with information that they might not readily be able to calculate mentally.

The post flop advice is quite unconventional, and it fails to implement hand protection strategies. For example, it will not recommend check raises, which more advanced players commonly use to deny opponents pot odds for their draws.

Despite its unconventional nature, Calculatem recommended a profitable game during my trial. However, the sample size was rather small, and while the initial results are positive I shall need to play more hands in order to draw firmer conclusions.