Soft for Poker
After playing poker for two years I decided to write a program that would determine the opponents’
inclination to bluff (for me it was difficult to make decisions after turn raise on dangerous board).
The problem was quite complex and among others there emerged a question of preflop bluff raise. How can
one find out whether the raise was bluff or OK? I do not subscribe to an idea of putting into the
program the whole preflop strategy which takes into account the position, table length, and previous
actions. Therefore, I decided to make some math model to evaluate strength of preflop hands. I’ve
heard about a similar model in Omaha, where no preflop tables exist, and I decided make something like
this for Hold’em. I’ve found that Ed Hutchison (author of Omaha preflop strategy) made Hold’em
preflop model, but I wasn’t satisfied with it. I used several popular preflop tables (from 2+2 forum
and books) to create my own Hold’em preflop hands point-counting system. With the help of this system
I can determine whether a raise was right or not. I also decided to use systems I’ve found and to
write a program that would help players with their preflop play.
Then I turned my attention to the players’ multiple complaints and questions about luck (or RNG
randomness) in poker. Many players use "Poker Tracker" (see “Paid soft” page) that stores played
games. Having statistics and theoretical probability to get different poker combinations we can see how
practical results correspond with theory. My second program executes such analysis, using dozens of
various parameters.
So now I have two programs (see their description below), and I hope to increase their number soon.
Then I will probably return to the bluff finding program.
Information and disclaimer: both programs are absolutely free of charge; they do not require
installation (just download and unzip in a folder), do not require Internet connection, do not have
viruses, trojans or other malware (at least if you download it from this site or from big portal like Download.com/CNet
that makes deep security check before putting files on their servers). Programs require MS
.NET
Framework 1.1 or above. I’d recommend you to read Readme files and Help before starting to work. If
you have any questions, comments or advice please .
Prefloper
As I’ve mentioned above, I was interested to rank preflop hands using points calculations. Program
“Prefloper” makes such computations and gives recommendations on preflop play. Program
gives preflop strategy for Texas Hold’em, Omaha and Omaha hi/low. For all three games strategies of Ed
Hutchison are available, but his systems do not take into account the number of opponents, position and
previous actions. My Hold’em system was created close to the existing preflop tables and allows to
choose full or short table, position (early, middle, late or blinds), and number of limpers before you
(from none to three and more).
Below you can see what the program looks like (two pages are shown on a single screenshot).
The top part is used to choose parameters. Main part has two tabs: the first one has my preflop
strategy for all possible preflop hands, the second one allows you to choose a game, certain cards
combination and get a recommendation.
At Help you can find interface description and description of all the counting systems used. I can
recommend this program to those Omaha and Hold’em players who want to improve their preflop play. For
those who is going to play offline poker the counting systems can come in useful as well, as they are
not hard to memorize – therefore, so they can be used without the program.
Download
“Prefloper” (370 kb).
Poker Luck Meter
Our brain is a curious device: we remember bitter losses better than glorious victories (researches
show that a loss of $100 spurs twice as much emotional outburst as the joy from winning the same sum).
As a result we get multiple players complaints about bad luck and poker-room cheating. To disprove (or
confirm) such opinions “Poker Luck Meter” was created. This program requires “Poker
Tracker 2” (version 3 isn't supported) and supports both databases - Access and PostgreSQL. “Poker Luck Meter” analyses hands of
the player (you can use the date filter, choose cash/tournament play, or pick only hands where the
player didn’t fold preflop) comparing real number of various poker events with their expected number.
The program gives you expected and real number of events, plus the probability rate to get such number
of real events. Among the analyzed events are:
- frequency of dealing any pocket cards,
- frequency of improvement of pocket cards on flop to pair, two pairs, set, full-house, quad,
straight, flush, straight and flush draws,
- frequency of improvement of pocket cards and flop combinations to showdown,
- frequency of dealing “dangerous” boards containing pair, set, 4 or 5 suited cards.
Additional tab will allow you to calculate probabilities of different events (if you know the number
of events, expectation and total number of games) and evaluate possible variance of your win rate and
earnings.
Below you can see a screenshot of the program (one of the pages, others are similar). In the Help you
can read more about interface and math behind the program.
Download “Poker Luck Meter” (120 kb).
Unfortunately program gives wrong results for
Poker
Stars stats at page "River".
If you are interested in the program but do not yet have a Tracker, you can download a small test
database (300 kb) choose the player “TestPlayer” and have a look at the figures which show the
results for 637 real Party Poker hands. By the way, program should be used with database owner’s
nicknames only. Do not try to run a check on your opponents – since we do not know most of their hands
and can see only the winning ones, the program will show that they are extremely lucky which is not
true. |
