Stupid question for the day ?

OK fowks, this is stupid question time from me. Please keep all abuse to a bare minumum and refrain from using any expletives..

I have been recommended a odds calculator to help me in my play. So I downloaded it.

Imagine my surprise when I tried it and it asked me my opponents hands..

Now this is where my ignorance comes in..

I DONT ACTUALLY KNOW MY OPPONENTS CARDS..

If I did, then trust me, I would have very little need for an odds calculator.

I went onto Full Tilt and got into a heads up situation, and my opponent call all in pre flop

I in all innocence asked if he would tell me what his hole cards were. I did explain that I needed them to use my odds calculator to see if I should call him. To my utter amazement he was most rude and told me where to go, and believe me the expletives were quite insulting.

Anyhow, I took the gamle and called him, and I lost. My 7-4 off suit didnt stand up against his two aces.

Had I been in the know about his hole cards I would perhaps have folded instead. But without all the required information in hand I was at a distinct disadvantage. He clearly knew what my cards were. How else would he have known that his two cards would be better than mine.

So, please can you explain to me the purpose of an odds calculator if you are in a situation where your opponent is being nasty and wont tell you what his cards are. What use is it then ?









edit - For those who havent worked it out, there is a touch of sarcasm in the post, but the question is genuine. What use is an odds calculator when you dont know what your opponent has. And you have about 30 seconds to call so trying all permutations isnt really an option...

first off let me lol...

second lemme help you here.....
The odds calculator is not for live play its for use after the fact when you can analyze your hand to see what you did wrong or right.....

the point of the odds calculator is to see what your odds are before or after....lets say you study some hands like if you think you know what he has, then you can go off that by remembering your odds against that hand with the one you have now...


i think its pretty funny that you asked the guy for his hole cards.....btw

sry one more lol @ this thread

Most calculators (or I assume most of them - I use PokerStove) will also allow you to enter a range of hands. So you don't need to know your opponent's exact cards. If he makes a raise pre-flop and you think he could be doing it with AJ+ or any pocket pair, you can enter that in the calculator and see how your hand stacks up against the possible range of cards your opponent could have.

Of course, there's nothing to stop them rolling over T8 and sucking out on you after you decide you're ahead of their range and call, but it can be useful.

If you're fast enough (and I'm not, but some others might be), you could use them in the middle of a hand to work out your equity in the pot against their likely range. Like everything else, there's no guarantees though.

try holdem indicator for one during live play. It calculates your win % based on outs then compares them to your pot odds to see if calling is correct.

Yeah I think you are supposed to put your opponent on a range...

I used to use holdem indicator and actually found it really useful when i first started playing. More recently I play without it because I am trying to improve my ability to calculate odds etc in my head. If you can get it, i do recommend it to start off with.

i use it a lot when i play limit. although the win % is slightly out as not all your outs are full outs but holdem indicator counts them all as full outs.

Yeh if u cant put ur opponent on a hand then the calculator is useless except for after the fact.

I still open Poker Indicator sometimes, well when I am only playing one table. It is convenient to see if there is anything that I overlooked, but you cant use it really when multi-tabling.

thats like saying you cant use PAHUD when multi-tabling. Just practice and learn how to read the information faster and it will become more helpful multi-tabling than single tabling.

My 7-4 off suit didnt stand up against his two aces.

LOL...To funny

holdem indicator? Is that the name of the product? Where can I get it?

on there website. or just google "holdem indicator" and tadaa their website will be near the top of the list.

They are primarily concerned with calculations of your equity. As pointed out, these are usually postmortem tools.

A good odds calculator here (knowing opponents cards).

PokerStove (free) here for entering a range.