Hand rakings calculated w/ non-PokerStove formulas

I've been playing around w/ a few equity tools (besides PokerStove) like Holdem Viewer, Equilab, and Slice, and I've noticed they have options to choose different methods of how hands are ranked. There is 2-way equity (heads up), 3-way equity, 4-way equity (PokerStove's formula) which I guess are are self explanatory enough. But then there are other options like Bloch, Takana, Sklansky-Malmuth, Sklansky-Chubukov, NoFoldem, & a few others.

As a novice full ring cash player who is mostly trying figure out how to put a villain a range when I see their VPIP in the HUD, I'm wonder whether I need to pay much attention to these different ways of calculating hand rankings. I've been primarily using PokerStove for hand analysis (which apparently is based on 4-way action). Should I just stick to that and assume it is more or less reflective of the way people will play their opening hands?

(p.s. I know who David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth are. I just don't know if their different models are worth trying to understand at this point.)

Just to clarify since no one here has replied yet:

I believe the way they calculate equity is the same in the different programs, but the value/order of the opening hands are ranked differently depending on which method you're using. So for example, here's what PokerStove considers the top 10%: { 77+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, AJo+, KQo }



And here's what 10% looks like according to the Sklansky-Malmuth groups: { 99+,ATs+,KTs+,QTs+,J9s+,T9s,98s,AJo+,KQo }


I'm wondering which of the many hand ranking systems (not just these two) realistically reflects the kinds of ranges I expecting. Remember I'm still learnin' this stuff, so for me it's matter of getting a general sense here rather than understand the math behind how these are determined.

Btw, none of the ones I've seen seem to value pocket pairs enough. You don't even get the full list of all the pairs in Stove until you hit 60% ... which of course is ridiculous.

Thoughts?

This is kinda tough because every opponent is going to have a different opinion on what their top x% of hands should be. I don't know if it makes a huge difference however in terms of your hot and cold equity - maybe +/- 3% or something. In my opinion the SC rankings (or SK, different places name them differently) is more accurate than some of the other ones.

A fun link if you're interested - Hood made a script that will allow you to use different hand rankings for Pokerstove (although it may not matter much for you since you have a lot of different equity calculators). Anyway, here it is: http://www.sickread.com/blog/article...-stove-ranges/

This (and other issues in your post) have to do with how the hands are ranked.

Sklansky uses limit hold'em win rates to rank them.

Stove uses all in preflop equity.

Neither are particularly applicable to no limit play (Although Sklansky's groups are more applicable).

22 isn't as good a hand playing limit hold'em as it is playing NLHE, because you (usually) have far less implied odds.

Ha, yes indeed, Hood made a cool little script, and yes, the other tools have very customizable hand range ranking presets. Fwiw, I'm actually really digging EquiLab. It's free & worth a download. http://www.pokerstrategy.com/software/10/

Thanks, I'm definitely getting that there's no right or wrong way and that it's villain-dependant. Was just wondering what the difference was & why they were sooooo dissimilar. Thanks.