If you could design your own poker tools what would they look like?

Question

I've been working on my game more & more an enjoying the process. I'm also a software engineer by trade and got to thinking: if you could design your own poker training tools, what would they look like?

For example, I felt like I was weak on being able to read the texture of flops; I wasn't always able to quickly identify the straights and flushes out there. So, I built myself a tool (see http://poker.buriedinfo.com) that let's me see flops over & over again (with actual pictures of cards!) and I can practice as long as I want. I also developed an algorithm to read the flops and then display it so I can compare my reads to it - almost like a flashcard system that you would use in school.

So I'm trying to generate ideas for other tools that can help my game. I guess I'm thinking about this beyond the typical "charts & calculators" approach. Not that I would ignore those, but I'm thinking about tools that would mimic play situations. For example, would there be value in a tool that generates an entire board and then you think about ranking the top 3-5 hands for the board? Or maybe there could be a better training tool for tracking the pot and finding 1/2 pot raises, 2/3 pot raises, etc. I'd love to hear what people think or other tools that they think would help their game.

Answer 1

I had developed a webpage in the past (for my own usage), aiming to improve my hand requirements skill at 6-max using Bill Chen formula. I was a beginner back then and Bill Chen formula seemed a nice, easy way to get into hand requirements, although after a while and some experience, i found that charts are the way to go for 6-max, to leave space for the brain for other things. But definitely the former approach really helped me about hand requirements.

Another useful feature was the winning percentage for a specific holding, against 5 players and a specific board, performing a finite number of simulations really fast using Cactus Kev evaluator, translated to PHP. Of course, at the time i didn't knew about Pokerstove ;), i was just geeky enough to do something like this. Never use it to say the truth.

Nowadays and having some experience with MTT, i'm thinking for a custom push/fold training application myself since this is the situation that mostly gets you Into The Money and it's damn difficult to be successful at, given the numerous variables (etc. bubble factors, stacks, num of players, hand itself).

Answer 2

I haven't used the available "charts and calculators" tools yet; but I quite like your idea of a tool identifying the best possible hands from a board (at the different stages), that is identify the best possible hole cards to make the strongest possible hands from a given board. I think that would be a good tool to identify what you should be wary of or potentially construct a strong bluff, if these strong holdings are compatible with what you've represented so far.

Another idea, which I think is closer to what the available tools can do, is a tool that would quantify your image at each of the tables you are playing, depending on the showdowns you had on each table, to be aware of the distinct images you have and use it to your advantage.

Thanks for sharing your flop tool.