Q&A #4: Thoughts about Odds Calculators

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UPDATE 12/10/06: I reread this article, and I think it’s a bit misleading. I recommend you read my new article Bots, Cheating, and Online Poker as well as this one to get the whole story. In short, I think that, in 2006, good players shouldn’t fear bots in small stakes games as long as the bots aren’t colluding. There’s still lots of opportunities for a good player to make some nice income. I also still think that trying to learn to play poker (in 2006) from a bot is a dubious prospect. Long term, however, I think bots are the #1 threat to online poker, and I spell out my thoughts in the above-linked article.

PeterL asks,

Sorry about this but having a noted poker authority who is the author of my favourite Poker book willing to answer my questions is too good an opportunity to miss.

My question is this

What do you think of Odds calculators?

There are 2 arguments

PROS :

1. They help a begginig player in both starting hand selection.
2. They help train new players to understand odds and what you see you learn over time.

CONS :

1. They never mix it up.
2. They take away the reason to think, and so you may never improve.
3. They might as well be a robot and if you play for fun they remove the fun.
4. They play as if they are playing reasonable players and do not use any of the advanced techniques you talk about against amateurs loose players.

As you can tell I am not pro odds calculators but I wonder is there any way you can tell if someone is using one and if you can exploit this fact?

I confess, I had to google “odds calculator” to figure out exactly what you meant.

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