Poker Forum

Poker is a game of incomplete information. Even the best players can only guess what their opponents hold most of the time. For years most poker analysis has assumed perfect, complete knowledge of the opponents holdings. While it might be interesting to ask: "what are the odds that A♠A♣ will win versus K♥3♥," it isn't a question that you will likely ever ask while actually playing poker.
In order to arrive at results which are useful to making sound poker decisions we need to rephrase the problem in terms of the information that we might possibly have at the table. Usually, we know what specific cards we "the hero" hold. But the best we can do is put our opponents on a range of hands. Even if we know that a player only raises with aces, that fact represents 6 distinct hands. Since it's impossible to put a player on two black aces, the best we can do is calculate our equity versus all six different match-ups.
PokerStove is a poker utility which facilitates equity calculation using ranges of hands, or hand distributions.

FAQ : Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. What does PokerStove calculate?
The values generated are all-in equity values. This is not the chance that a hand will win the pot. Rather it is the fraction of the pot that a hand will win on average over many repeated trials, including split pots. The equity for a hand is calculated by dividing the number of "pots" that the hand won by the number outcomes considered. Because two players can split a pot, a player can win fractional pots. Thus, it is possible for a hand to have non-zero equity despite the fact that it cannot win.

equity (%)

win (%) / tie (%)

Hand 1:

50.3340 %

[ 49.39

00.95 ]

{ 2s2h }
Hand 2:

49.6660 %

[ 48.72

00.95 ]

{ random }
In the above example the pair of twos has 50.334% equity. That equity is made up of 49.39% win equity, and .95% tie equity. The tie equity is not the percentage of time that a hand will tie, rather it is the equity attributed to ties. Tie equity is reported instead of % tie because the amount of equity that a tie generates depends on how many players shared the pot. If two players share a pot, half the equity for that pot will given to each player. If three players share a pot, one third of the equity for that pot will be allocated.
Q2. What do the equity colors mean?
The colors are calculated according to the following rules. If a hand is exactly worth it's fair share - that is 1/N where there are N opponents - then it is colored a mix of all RED and all GREEN, which turns out to be yellow. If it is worth more than it's fair share, then the RED value is linearly reduced based on it's distance from the fair share equity. Thus if a hand has 100% equity, it will be colored all GREEN. Likewise, as a losing hands ranges in value from 1/N to 0, the GREEN component will be reduced until the color is pure RED when the equity is 0.
Q3. My simulation is taking forever, what can I do?
There are a couple options. For most cases, doing a Monte Carlo simulation is probably your best choice. There is one "trick" you can do when you are evaluating a generic hand like "AKo" versus several generic distributions. By replacing "AKo" with a specific example like "AcKs", your simulation will compute the correct results 12 times faster. This is because there are 12 different AKo hands, and versus generic ranges, you only need one canonical example to arrive at the correct equity. This will NOT work if the other hands have specific suits specified.
Q4. Why does PokerStove display different percentages for the identical hands when enumerating?
Enumberation All iterativly considers every possible outcome for the situation. The order that these cases are considered is very non-uniform. One random hand may be varying with every new case, while another random hand may be "frozen" with the hand AcAh for hundreds of thousands of cases. If it appears that the full enumeration will not finish in a timely manner, you should restart the simulation with Monte Carlo selected rather than using the aborted results.
Q5. How can I use the equities that PokerStove generates?
This a very difficult question to answer completely.
The idea that you can take a pure equity number and use it to directly generate a strategy is certainly incorrect. When it comes to strategy, PokerStove is much better suited to dealing with all-in decisions. When there is significant play left in the hand, there are two scalar values which should drive your decision making process. First, what is the chance that you have the best hand. Second, what is the chance that a winning draw will give you the best hand. Beyond that, the playing characteristics of your opponents should greatly inform how you play.
PokerStove does none of that. This is bad and good. It is bad because it is very difficult to use it to generate strategies - should you raise for a free card? It is good because what you are getting is very clear and easily understandable. There is no real uncertainty in the meaning of the equities generated, only what to do with them.
Understanding how to use those equities is the one small part of the art of poker.
One practical application is to use them to estimate your EV in the late stages of a tournament. The ICM Calculator can use the equities generated by PokerStove to generate an estimate of that EV.
Q6. Why can't I get PokerStove to recognize the hands I enter?
You must use the Hand Distribution dialog. You can access this dialog by pressing the button to the left of hand display. For example, if you want to select the possible hands for the third player, click on the "Player 3" button.
Q7. What about Omaha high-low, or Stud?
At some point these games will be added, along with other party favorites like lowball, draw, and razz. Unfortunately, there is no specific date for these games to be added.
Q8. Do I need to register PokerStove?
Registration is provided only for communication purposes. If you are interested in receiving news of new releases and bug-fixes, you may subscribe to the pokerstove-announce mailing list by registering your email address.. There are no features which can currently be unlocked by using a magical registration code.
Q9. How does the PokerStove slider rank preflop hands?
The slider interface for setting the top N% of hands orders the hands according to their preflop all-in equity versus three random hands. This rather arbitrary selection was picked because it balances the value of high cards with the value of drawing cards. It is not an absolute ordering, and depending on the specific situation you may want to edit that range of hands when doing equity calculations.
Q10. PokerStove is a hot and cold simulator, what does that mean?
It means that all hands are simulated through showdown. No one is allowed to bet, raise or fold. Because of this, there are a lot of unrealistic situations that might get included in the equity calculation if you are using PokerStove to evaluate scenarious where there is still betting to occur. If you have a good understanding of implied odds, effective odds, and reverse implied odds, you should be able to benefit from the equity calculations. But any time you use PokerStove in this manner, you should be careful about drawing strong conclusions about how you should play the hand.

HAHAHAAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAH, finally free for all

It has been free for a long time

No one online uses this stuff, if they did, they would play a heck of a lot better.

Anyone interested in this tool can google for it. I don't really like the rapidshare link but thanks anyway.

http://www.pokerstove.com/

Used it for about 6 months, pretty good and easy to use.

nice post